No News is Good News

When I first got diagnosed with depression, my psychiatrist told me not to watch the news.

I didn’t listen- it took me over a decade to finally take on board that advice.

During the pandemic, I was consistent in listening to the daily updates. It almost became an addiction that served no purpose.

During the spree of elections, I became exhausted with the fighting and the toxic behaviour.

I realised that our politics will never be collaborative in a Houses of Parliament whose architecture lends itself to opposition and argument. A place where people scream and bray at each other.

So I stopped watching the daily news on TV.

I stopped listening to the angry phone ins where the callers were whipped up into a frenzy in order to increase viewing and listener statistics and grab a few column inches in the papers the following day.

I now read a paper once a week.

I listen to the odd news and political podcast.

Do I feel I’m missing out?

Do I feel less informed?

Does it mean I care less about the world around me?

No to all of the above.

Do I feel calmer?

Yes.

Do I still feel I play an active part in the world around me?

Yes- more so, I think.

For I have stripped that noise from my world.

I no longer let the voices of toxicity that blared from my TV, the voices that sugar-coated all this with the chance to win life changing amounts of money in my space.

Noise is very much an indicator of when I am stressed and anxious.

I choose carefully what I let in.

It brings much needed peace to a brain that can sometimes be so easily tormented.

The down side? I’m not so hot on a current affairs round if I was your team mate in a pub quiz...