Staying Informed without Becoming Overwhelmed
As we live through times that feel exceptionally challenging for many of us, I’ve been hearing more and more about “news overwhelm”. People describe feeling a deep anxiety about world events, coupled with a “freeze” response and ensuing guilt about not engaging with these in the ways they'd want to. I hear about helplessness, hopelessness, and endless frustration. I’ve experienced some of it myself. This has led me to reflect more deeply about the ways the current news landscape (and news delivery systems) are impacting us - and more specifically, our nervous systems.
First, a bit of context: a big part of my psychotherapy practice consists of working with chronic pain. Specifically, something practitioners of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (the modality I use) call “neuroplastic pain”. This is pain that is not caused by a structural issue (such as tissue damage or organ disease), but by a nervous system that has become sensitized to danger signals and mistakenly produces pain to protect us, when there is no real threat. Sometimes this type of pain begins with an injury but persists long after our bodies have healed. The pain in such cases has been “learned”, and just like any unhelpful habit, it needs to be “unlearned”. This is a complex process, but the crux of it rests upon restoring a felt sense of safety to our bodies.
You might be asking: whatever does this have to do with the news?! Let me reply with another question: what do you think happens when there is a never-ending stream of alarming, unpredictable information coming at us at all times? The way many of us who consume news via scrolling and notifications interact with them is akin to receiving a constant flood of cues of danger. This may not manifest as physical pain for most people (although it can definitely magnify it for those who live with pre-existing chronic pain), but it still affects us in meaningful ways. Namely, it consumes a lot of our energy and resources, and leaves us feeling depleted.
This makes sense: key elements of a traumatic experience include terror, unpredictability, lack of control, not knowing if/when it will end, and being physically or otherwise prevented from getting ourselves to safety. The often alarming information that is “the news” today usually feels unexpected, unpredictable, out of our control, and never-ending. No wonder we’re often feeling anxious, enraged, avoidant, frozen, shut down, or dissociated! These are survival responses, and our bodies are responding extremely appropriately to what they perceive to be a threat.
This is not to say that the news is automatically traumatic - to become traumatized by an event observed on the news is possible and has happened, for example, to individuals watching coverage of wars or terrorist attacks unfold, often in real time and sometimes when a loved one was involved. But this is not what’s happening for most of us when we get a push alert about a new government policy or an international crisis. It’s much more likely to be a milder, but chronic, form of stress manifesting as hyper-arousal: an inability to be present or relax, feeling jumpy, guarded, anxious, and irritable; or hypo-arousal: feeling numb, sluggish, exhausted, distracted, depressed.
When we want to stay informed, it’s usually with the goal of feeling “better prepared” and resourced to respond to events, acting in ways that align with our values, and being useful to our communities. However, this way of engaging can do the exact opposite.
Here’s the good part: there is another way. A way of staying informed that isn’t dysregulating and can even feel empowering. I first came across this idea through a series of tweets by Swiss sociologist Jennifer Walter on DATE:
“As a sociologist, I need to tell you: your overwhelm is the goal.
The flood of 200+ executive orders in [the administration’s] first days exemplifies Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine” - using chaos and crisis to push through radical changes while people are too disoriented to effectively resist. This isn’t just politics as usual - it’s a strategic exploitation of cognitive limits.
Media theorist Marshall McLuhan predicted this: when humans face information overload, they become passive and disengaged. The rapid-fire executive orders create a cognitive bottleneck, making it nearly impossible for citizens and media to thoroughly analyze any single policy.
Agenda-Setting Theory explains the strategy: when multiple major policies compete for attention simultaneously, it fragments public discourse. Traditional media can’t keep up with the pace, leading to superficial coverage. The result? Weakened democratic oversight and reduced public engagement.
What now?
Set boundaries: Pick 2-3 key issues you deeply care about and focus your attention there. You can’t track everything - that’s by design. Impact comes from sustained focus, not scattered awareness.
Use aggregators & experts: Find trusted analysts who do the heavy lifting of synthesis. Look for those explaining patterns, not just events.
Remember: Feeling overwhelmed is the point. When you recognize this, you regain some power. Take breaks. Process. This is a marathon.
Practice going slow: Wait 48 hrs. before reacting to new policies. The urgent clouds the important. Initial reporting often misses context.
Build community: Share the cognitive load. Different people track different issues. Network intelligence beats individual overload. Remember: They want you scattered. Your focus is resistance.”
I’ve curated my own selection of aggregators and trusted experts, and I promise you anyone can do it, it just takes a little time. The key is to resist casual scrolling, flippant satire and “news roundups” (these are the nervous system equivalent to a hit-and-run, providing alarming messages without context, meaning, or empowering us to action) and instead find publications, podcasts, newsletters, substacks, youtube channels, etc. that analyze news items you care about without panic, in nuanced ways, and with tangible ideas for engagement.
A good self-test you can perform is notice what happens in your body when you interact with media: do you feel yourself tensing? Contracting? Freezing? Losing time? Rolling your eyes? Feeling more tired? Like you want to crawl under the covers, or can’t even make it through the episode/article? If your answer to any of those is yes, that’s a good hint that your nervous system might be feeling overwhelmed.
How you engage also matters. Being intentional about when we engage with news (rather than mindlessly doing so at all hours, or at the beckoning of an alert) gives us that much-needed sense of control and predictability that feels like safety.
This is also your gentle reminder that it’s ok to take breaks. And it’s also ok to unplug completely. (Yes, it is!) You might ask a loved one to let you know if anything comes up that you need to be aware of, if this feels safest to you. When it comes to your mental health, no amount of wishing or shaming is going to alter the reality of your actual coping capacity. What we can do is work on slowly building that capacity and resiliency so that you can re-engage when you’re ready to; capable of a marathon, and not just a sprint that ends with an injury that puts you out of commission for weeks (I might’ve stretched that metaphor a tad).
Something that can help build that capacity and resiliency is a beautiful framework called Radical Hope. The researchers who conceived of it posed that connecting with ancestral histories of resistance, with community, and with a vision for a better future are crucial elements for an embodied (not superficial) sense of hope - which keeps us going during collective times of struggle. You can access the full paper for free here. Psychologist Sebastian Barr also did a beautiful job of expanding on this concept in action in this article. You can reflect on what your unique forms of practicing Radical Hope might look like, and integrate these into your days as a “despair prevention strategy” of sorts. Most of all, remember that safety, joy, rest, and pleasure are your birthright, and are even more important to cultivate during challenging times. Additional paths to deepen your exploration in this area could include Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance and Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown.
Finally, you may also consider reaching out to a psychotherapist who can help you through this process and the unique ways it may be interacting with your personal history and identity. This is hard, none of us can do it alone (we’re relational by nature), and you’re worthy of support - with this or any other struggle. Working with a therapist who you share meaningful identities with may be particularly powerful. And if you’re interested in working with me, please review my website and get in touch or book a free initial consultation directly.
Wherever you are, I hope you’re able to experience cues of safety, glimmers of joy, and the relief of a deep exhale.
