Curb Your Addiction to News

Addiction to news has become more prevalent with the increase in news channels and sources. Constantly following the news may make you feel connected to the world, but you are actually less engaged with real life. Worst of all, news stories may not be an accurate portrayal of events, are designed to hook viewers for advertising dollars, and perpetuate a catastrophic mindset. If you apply some practical tips, and resolve the underlying cause of your addiction, you will restore balance to your life.

Steps

Taking Immediate Action

1. Seek help from family and friends. If you don't feel you can do this alone, ask a friend or family member to hold you accountable to reducing or stopping your news viewing. Having someone to help you adhere to your goals will provide you with a greater chance for success, especially if your obsession has been bugging them or interfering with your relationship.
   • Alert your friends and family to the telltale signs you’ve been watching too much cable news, such as becoming easily agitated, paranoid, not answering the phone, panicked and restless.
   • Make a point to check in with your family and friends. Don’t wait for them to ask you how you are doing. Consider saying something like, “Hey, I wanted to check in with you to let you know how I’m doing with changing my news viewing habit.” This will provide a lead in for them to feel comfortable to ask questions.
2. Schedule a specific amount of time to watch news. Set a maximum amount of time that won’t interfere with other activities. Typically 30 minutes of news can provide you with ample coverage; any more than that and it gets repetitive.
   • Create a schedule of all your daily events. Include news reading, viewing or listening as a small portion of each day, and no more. Setting limitations and tracking your time on a daily schedule or planner will help you hold yourself accountable to your goal.
   • Apply the same rules to internet news. Give yourself a chance to break your news addiction by limiting your online news reading to set times of the day. If you see headlines, don't click to go there unless it's during your allotted time.
3. Keep a money jar for lapses. If you watch more than your allotted amount of news put money into the jar. The money will be given to your friend or family member. Or, it could be donated to a non-profit organization that helps people with addiction.
   • This principle is similar to using a Cuss Jar when trying to stop a family member or yourself from cussing. Instead of cussing, the goal can be news watching. Pick an amount of money to insert into the jar for each violation. You can also get someone to agree to add money to the jar when you go an entire day without watching the news. All the money will go to a good cause.
4. Unsubscribe to news-heavy social media sources. If it is filled with news about the latest sensational terrible event, you will hear the same information from 50 different sources across multiple electronic devices.
   • Weed out the sources that are not at the top of your list. Limit yourself to 1-2 sources.
   • Check in for updates infrequently unless you're actually in the epicenter of an unfolding issue and need real-time help.
5. Use online commitment devices. There are programs that will alert you when you have reached a limit on your viewing time. Also, you can use the program to block sites that are distracting you from your goals.
   • The most effective outcomes result from allowing yourself some freedom to browse certain sites, and then self-determine what you want to block. So pick a time to review the sites you visit regularly and pick your top three.
6. Get a new hobby or venture. If you free up your time by reducing your news watching, there will be time to do it. If part of the problem is that you have too much time on your hands, try something new.Research indicates that if you have a hobby you will be healthier and less depressed.
   • For example, take a class at the local community college, tackle a project you’ve had on your “to do” list for years or make a concerted effort to see friends and/or family members more often.
7. Turn it off. Going cold turkey is one possibility, which is a successful technique for many people. Abstaining from seeking news will likely be challenging due to the constant influx of news that fills online, TV and radio channels. Divert your eyes and ears from news sources and focus on your work or an activity.
   • A person can develop an addiction to many things. Abruptly stopping your news viewing is a valid method for recovery, but it has limited success. For example, although smoking is different than excessively watching the news, studies have shown that only 22% of smokers who attempt to quit cold turkey kick the habit.

Addressing Your Addiction

1. Assess the level of your problem. Determining how afflicted you are with an addiction to the news will help guide you in your journey of self-help and potential therapy. Ask yourself a series of questions and write down your answers. Once you see the list you have written, take time to think about the ways your life is limited by your behaviors. Introspection is the process of directly attempting to access your own internal processes. . When you figure out how and why you react the way you do, then you can solve many personal struggles. The level of your discomfort will inspire you to change your behaviors. Here are some questions you can ask yourself about your addiction to the news:
   • Have any of your relationships been negatively affected by your news watching behaviors? Ask those closest to you for their input as you may not be completely aware of how your actions impact others. This will show you that you news watching is not only harming you, but others as well.
   • Does the morning news define how you will act and feel for the day? Does your last news check-in of the day determine how you will sleep at nights? If you allow the news to define your day and affect your sleep, then you are being controlled by your addiction.
   • Do you rudely interrupt conversations to be able to hear a news item while you're out shopping, dining or spending time with others? Hurting other people’s feelings just to hear the news shows that you place news at a higher priority than others around you.
   • Do you believe 24 hour news stations matter more than any other stations on television? Would you forgo other things in life just to feed this habit? This outlook is limiting your perception of the world, and thus limits your experiences.
   • Do you feel deprived if you don't know what is currently happening in the world? Do you suffer from FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out? Recent studies indicate that if you suffer from FOMO you are likely feeling disconnected and dissatisfied with your life.
   • Are you a person who fights to be the first to hear breaking news? The urgent need to stay on top of the news is a lot of pressure to be putting on yourself and it may be affecting your behaviors.
2. Evaluate your mood after spending time watching news programs. Your feelings are a true indicator that you have let a news addiction dominate your life. If you feel stressed, anxiety-ridden and convinced that the world is out of control, you're overly reliant on news. If you are positive and upbeat one moment and then you become suddenly angry when you hear the news, this is a sign of addiction.
   • Has your usual optimistic self been transformed into a pessimistic and joyless self who only sees the dangers, the panic, the fears and the terrible future ahead of you? Too much news will do that.
   • Are you unable to react rationally to stressful situations? Do you snap at family members or become agitated if someone dares to suggest that things aren't really as bad as you are making them out to be?
   • Have you started to become more paranoid or uneasy in public. Continuous exposure to an abundance of news can make even the most levelheaded individual feel paranoid or concerned that something terrible is about to happen.
3. Determine the underlying causes. Real change does not occur without identifying the emotional underpinnings of your behavior. Are you struggling with anxiety, stress, or depression? You may be using the news to distract yourself. Unfortunately, it may be causing more harm than good. Most stories on the news are filled with tragedy, crisis and leave you feeling helpless.
   • Manage your anxiety, stress or depression in healthy ways that include relaxation techniques, physical exercise or yoga.
   • When you are relaxed your muscles loosen, blood pressure and heart rate drop, and your breathing slows and deepens. Spend time relaxing rather than watching the news to avoid your emotions. Also, if you do watch a disturbing story you can use relaxation techniques to calm down.
4. Formulate a plan to build coping skills. Following a problem solving model will give you structure for creating change. You have identified your addictive behaviors and now you must determine clear objectives, implement them, make adjustments as needed and monitor your progress.
   • Determine clear objectives. One objective may be that you set a schedule and keep a log of how much time you spend watching the news. Self-monitoring leads to real change.
   • Pick a start date for your plan and start. Don’t delay the inevitable. Start as soon as possible.
   • Recognize your growth and reward yourself. If you successfully meet your daily, weekly or monthly objectives, celebrate your accomplishments. Perhaps you could go to a movie, attend a sporting event or plant a tree in honor of someone you admire. Positive reinforcement will motivate you to continue with your plan.
   • If a strategy just isn’t working for you, then stop using it. Find an alternative and plug it into your plan. Don’t look at it as a failure; instead look at it as a correction in the course toward your goal.
   • Your new behaviors will build over time and become second nature to you. You can fade or lessen your strict adherence to the steps of your plan and maintain positive outcomes.
5. Seek professional help. If you have difficulty managing your addiction to the news, then seek counsel from a professional trained to deal with addiction. Contact you doctor or trusted friend or family member for a referral in your area.
   • Cognitive-behavioral therapy is one of many types of therapies that are effective with addictions, depression, and anxiety disorders.
   • Group therapy is also effective when coupled with a problem solving approach. Groups may be focuses specifically on news addiction, or can be formed to help with social and coping skills.

Restoring Balance to Your Life

1. Strengthen your support system. Relationships must be nurtured to survive. Social support is essential for your physical and psychological health.If you’ve been handcuffed to the news for any period of time, your relationships have likely suffered. Reach out to others to build or repair your relationships. Until you are 100% confident with the changes you have made, you will need the support of others.
   • Engage in real and online social situations that expand your interests beyond news stories. For example, take a music lesson, volunteer for a project to help animals, or children in need. It will restore the idea that there is more to life than news.
   • Shared interests bring people together. Investigate and join a group that might interest you. There might be a comedy groups, or city recreation league that will provide the opportunity to meet new people.
2. Be a good role model for others. If you meet someone who you suspect is addicted to the news, refrain from talking about the news. Bring up different subjects to divert the conversation toward a more positive direction. You can always excuse yourself from a conversation if it becomes difficult or annoying.
   • Without being pushy or overbearing, share your experience with the person and offer to help him. You can suggest all the strategies that helped you manage your addiction to the news.
   • Teaching others what you have learned will give you a sense of accomplishment and internal reward far above what watching the news will provide.
   • Learning to overcome and manage an addiction to the news will increase your self-esteem.
3. Keep life in perspective. It is important to keep the information we hear in perspective. A lot of news narrows down the information to a specific, terrible situation. There are usually time constraints so they pack in as much death and destruction as possible. If you inundate yourself with this information, it will skew your perception of reality.
   • Pause and think clearly and you will realize the chances of the same disaster happening again or even at all, are minuscule. Influenza is a very good example of narrow reporting. A certain amount of people die, but in a country with 350 million people, 50 influenza deaths is a small amount. Don't assume there is a pandemic without good evidence.
   • When you're tempted to believe that things are getting worse because of the news, stop and ask yourself something like: Are they really? And why do I think that? Are those facts credible? Taking the time to question the fear-mongering news stories can break the cycle of being obsessed with them.
4. Lighten up your viewing choices. Watch movies or TV shows that don’t involve the news or disasters. For example, you can watch shows about home improvement, or biographies of historical figures. Add some humor to your life to balance the negativity of watching the news. It can be healing.
   • Periodically ask yourself if you have laughed very much in the last week or month. If you can't remember the last time you did, then find a way to get a good dose of laughter. Call a friend who makes you laugh, or go to a comedy club to support comedians. Once you feel the benefits of laughter you will make it part of your routine.
5. Expect ups and downs. Life is filled with things that challenge you, and also make you want to celebrate. Much of life happens between those two points. You are able to appreciate the celebratory moments because you know what it feels like to struggle. If you are feeling down you can feel confident that the good will eventually arrive.

Tips

• In extreme cases get rid of cable and internet completely if other family members can live with your decision.
• If you become addicted to both online and TV news, you may need to limit your news resource to newspapers.
• Everyone with an addiction is vulnerable to relapse. If you experience a relapse, regroup and plug back into your plan. Every day is an opportunity to start over.
• Entertain the notion of attending a 12 step program or meeting. While you may not be an alcoholic, a 12 step program will help you manage your addiction and provide additional support.

Warnings

• Watching too much news will negatively impact your perception of the world. You must monitor your consumption closely.
• You must question the accuracy of the news that you consume. There are television stations and online media that report non-factual news. Be skeptical of what you read, see and hear.
• Severe isolation from real life can lead to depression and serious mental health issues. If you believe you may cause harm to yourself or to others call a family member, trusted friend or the authorities for help.
• Studies have shown that watching too many hours of news coverage that center on traumatic events can trigger severe stress reactions. Seek help immediately if you think you are traumatized by what you’ve seen on the news.

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