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When you can’t turn off the news…

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I have heard several people over the past few months tell me they’ve just stopped watching or reading the news. It’s too depressing or it’s all just lies and politics or whatever the reason, they’ve just tuned out.

Well, I have to monitor the news for work so that’s not really an option for me. Now for some perspective, obviously this isn't the only time things have been rough.

We've had it worse — I'll spare you an itemized list — but different bad things have gone on for ever to one degree or another, and humanity always marches on.

Just before sitting at my desk to write this, I was scrolling through the Yahoo! News front page. There were dozens of items ranging from the continued effort in Arizona to overturn a six-month-old election to angry “American Idol” fans and all points in between.

Over the past 40 or so years, I have listened to one account or another of bad-news events (war, disease, civil unrest, economic disaster, etc.) from different talking heads reporting this tragedy and that tragedy.

Even having been hit hard personally by one or more of these events, it’s now like, OK, we've been here before, we've taken that on the chin before, we're (mostly) still here, next.

Obviously the effects of any given crisis are not evenly or fairly distributed. Some people are at the life-and-death

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end of the scale while others observe from afar and think, 'Bummer.' The COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect example. But all any of us can do is try to bring a level of coping that reflects the severity of the threat.

So, what do we do when we can’t escape the news?

Self-care is a priority.

Maintain as much of our health, emotional equilibrium and mental clarity as we can. We have to find balance, direct our energy into positivity and find enough “good stuff” in our regular daily lives to give us some peace of mind even when the world seems at time to be, as Merle Haggard once sang, “like a snowball headed for hell.”

You know still though, if you don’t have to monitor the news, don’t — or at least don’t let it dominate your thinking and your world view perspective.

Keep in mind, too, that anxiety itself is sometimes a legitimate thing. Just be aware of anxiety-producing activities and limit them to what’s necessary (for work, for school or for just keeping

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