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» » You’re Doomscrolling Again. Here’s How to Snap Out of It. - The New York Times

You’re Doomscrolling Again. Here’s How to Snap Out of It. - The New York Times

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Your phone alarm goes off at 6 in the morning. You check some news sites and Facebook. It’s bad news after bad news. Coronavirus cases keep climbing, and so do deaths. Children can’t go back to school. Your favorite restaurant and barbershop are still closed. People are losing their jobs.

Everything is awful. The world as we remember it has ended. Next thing you know, it’s 9 a.m. You haven’t climbed out of your pit of despair yet to even shower. You repeat this masochistic exercise during your lunch break — and again while getting ready for bed.

This experience of sinking into emotional quicksand while bingeing on doom-and-gloom news is so common that there’s now internet lingo for it: “doomscrolling.” Exacerbating this behavior, shelter-in-place orders leave us with little to do than look at our screens; by some measures, our screen time has jumped at least 50 percent.

We’re not alone, exactly, with so many of us going through this. Yet doomscrolling, combined with screen addiction, could take a significant toll on our mental and physical well-being, according to health experts. The activity can make us angry, anxious, depressed, unproductive and less connected with our loved ones and ourselves.

“It’s the path of least resistance to keep consuming passively through social media,” said Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general who has written extensively about the impact of loneliness on personal health. “You have to pull yourself out of that. It’s not just disengaging but also dealing with the impact that has on your mind-set, which can often last for hours.”

Fret not: We aren’t doomed just yet, and there are approaches to modifying our behavior. We can create structure in our lives, for one, and practice meditation techniques, for another. Here’s what the health and wellness experts say.

People are, by nature, information consumers, and the news is like digital candy being dispensed 24 hours a day. To resist information bingeing, we can create a plan to control how much we consume, similar to how people can create a dieting plan to lose weight, said Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist and co-author of the book “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World.”

Step One is to acknowledge the burden that doomscrolling creates for our health, Dr. Gazzaley said. “You have to realize you don’t want to live your life in a hamster wheel of complete news consumption,” he said. “It’ll take a toll on you in the way that stops becoming valuable, and being an informed person is a diminishing return.”

Step Two is to create a realistic plan that you can stick with and repeat until it forms a habit.

Creating a schedule is an effective approach. Start by making calendar appointments for everything from mundane activities, like taking a walk outside, to business matters, like videoconferencing meetings.

Set aside certain times of the day to read the news, if you must — and if it helps, set a 10-minute timer to remind you to stop scrolling. Another trick is to wear a rubber band around your hand while you are reading the news, and when you believe you are succumbing to doomscrolling, snap the rubber band against your wrist, Dr. Murthy said.

It’s also important to rethink breaks. Before the pandemic, one of our typical lunch breaks involved browsing Facebook. With nowhere to go out for lunch under shelter-in-place orders, browsing the web has become the default work break, an obvious trap that could lead to doomscrolling.

Instead of staying glued to a screen, take a stroll around the block, hop on the exercise bike, prepare your favorite snack. And yes, set calendar appointments even for your breaks, Dr. Gazzaley said.

Exercises in mindfulness can help us break the cycle of information bingeing or prevent us from sinking into a dark place altogether.

The Coronavirus Outbreak

  • Frequently Asked Questions

    Updated July 7, 2020

    • What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

      Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

    • Is it harder to exercise while wearing a mask?

      A commentary published this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine points out that covering your face during exercise “comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort” and requires “balancing benefits versus possible adverse events.” Masks do alter exercise, says Cedric X. Bryant, the president and chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise, a nonprofit organization that funds exercise research and certifies fitness professionals. “In my personal experience,” he says, “heart rates are higher at the same relative intensity when you wear a mask.” Some people also could experience lightheadedness during familiar workouts while masked, says Len Kravitz, a professor of exercise science at the University of New Mexico.

    • I’ve heard about a treatment called dexamethasone. Does it work?

      The steroid, dexamethasone, is the first treatment shown to reduce mortality in severely ill patients, according to scientists in Britain. The drug appears to reduce inflammation caused by the immune system, protecting the tissues. In the study, dexamethasone reduced deaths of patients on ventilators by one-third, and deaths of patients on oxygen by one-fifth.

    • What is pandemic paid leave?

      The coronavirus emergency relief package gives many American workers paid leave if they need to take time off because of the virus. It gives qualified workers two weeks of paid sick leave if they are ill, quarantined or seeking diagnosis or preventive care for coronavirus, or if they are caring for sick family members. It gives 12 weeks of paid leave to people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose child care provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus. It is the first time the United States has had widespread federally mandated paid leave, and includes people who don’t typically get such benefits, like part-time and gig economy workers. But the measure excludes at least half of private-sector workers, including those at the country’s largest employers, and gives small employers significant leeway to deny leave.

    • Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?

      So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.

    • What’s the risk of catching coronavirus from a surface?

      Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

    • How does blood type influence coronavirus?

      A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.

    • How can I protect myself while flying?

      If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

    • What should I do if I feel sick?

      If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

Sharon Salzberg, a meditation teacher and author of the book “Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World,” recommended this exercise to feel more connected with others in a time that we can’t see many people:

  • Take some breaths and think about the people who have helped you in the past. This could be your friends, colleagues and even the restaurant workers bagging your takeout food.

  • While imagining these people, give them positive wishes. For example: “May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be safe. May you be healthy.”

“You’re gift-giving,” Ms. Salzberg said. “It’s a different way of relating and not feeling isolation.”

Dr. Murthy’s book “Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World” underlined the importance of spending 15 minutes a day connecting with the people we care about most. That can help us feel less alone and resist doomscrolling.

But how can we connect with people when we can’t easily see them? In the beginning of the pandemic, many of us turned to videoconferencing apps to virtually connect with friends, colleagues and loved ones. Now, more than four months into the pandemic, many are experiencing “Zoom fatigue.”

Dr. Murthy said he, too, was getting tired of the neck strain from constant video calls and had begun shifting many work and personal calls to the phone while taking a walk, which lifts his energy and helps him stay focused.

Dr. Murthy also recommended that people try to form a “moai,” a Japanese word for a social support group. This could be a small group of friends who regularly convene — on the phone, in video chat or in person at a safe distance — and agree to look out for one another. He and two friends formed a moai, and, once a month, they spend two hours catching up in a frank conversation about personal issues related to health, relationships and finances.

Changing behavior can be tough to do on your own. So you could even tell your moai that you want to stop doomscrolling, and they could hold you accountable. Dr. Murthy said his moai conversation was coming up with his friends, and he planned to talk about having a cleaner relationship with social media — because he, too, occasionally gives in to doomscrolling.

“The idea of carving time out for people you care about, whether it’s 15 minutes or more, is all the more important in a world where the lines between day and night, weekday and weekend, have been erased,” he said.

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You’re Doomscrolling Again. Here’s How to Snap Out of It. - The New York Times
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