Raise your hand if you needed to see some wholesomeness today.
If you did, yeah—same here.
Let’s face it: most of our feeds are flooded with stories that can make anyone feel defeated. War, disasters, political chaos, rising crime rates… not exactly the feel-good content anyone’s craving.
According to Pew Research Center, almost 70% of Americans say they feel worn out by the news. And Ipsos reports that 56% admit stress has taken a toll on their daily lives. That’s a lot of mental weight to carry.
Naturally, when all we consume is doom and gloom, it starts to affect how we see the world. It’s quite a lot to do with the fact that seeing bad news can make us feel helpless, like these problems are just too big to solve, explains Jodie Jackson, author of You Are What You Read.
But no one’s saying we should pretend the world is made entirely of puppies, rainbows, and glitter. (Okay, maybe a little glitter wouldn’t hurt.) Still, there’s a middle ground.
We don’t have to shut everything out, we just need to add a bit more balance.
“While I don’t recommend burying our heads in the sand and ignoring what is going on around us, we should certainly limit our consumption of bad news and expose ourselves to uplifting content,” Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, author of Happier, co-founder of the Happiness Studies Academy, and former psychology professor at Harvard, told The Washington Post.
And science backs it up.
A study from the University of California, Berkeley found that people who read positive news reported a boost in their overall well-being compared to those who consumed negative stories.
Makes sense, right? The researchers suggest that good news helps counteract the emotional effects of stress and anxiety. Like a little vitamin for your brain, cheerfully chewable.
Even better, uplifting stories don’t have to be empty fluff. They can be meaningful and informative, too.
The Engaged News Project found that readers who saw stories offering solutions to poverty stayed on the page longer. It also showed that solution-based journalism made people feel more inspired and even more motivated to help.
