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I've got nothing particularly awful going on in my life. None of my family are critically ill, my house is warm.
But...in the last few weeks I've developed a gnashing sense of anxiety every time i listen to the news or fill up the car with petrol or find i can't get to work on the train or try and post a parcel.
It's starting to impact my ability to focus at work - i just feel so bloody tense! Is anyone else feeling this at the moment?
Nope, I don't watch/read the news. I'm barely aware of it.
I started getting like that over the last few years, so I stopped consuming it. Don't read any news sites and turn it off if it comes on the radio. It's helped me a lot, I'm prone to worrying anyway and there's no sense worrying about things I have zero control over!
It’s not just “the news” though, as you point out. Nipped to the coop to get bagels and butter… was over a fiver for just those two items… came home without. That would have been £1.50 when this decade started. Even going super basic doesn’t help… used to get Lidl pasta for 20p at the start of the decade… now, when they haven’t been cleared out, it’s 69p. Everything adds up. And up.
yep. There is good news as well but it gets swamped by the bad :(. I just wondering today if things were better back in the 70s etc but I think they were just different. Climate change has me extremely scared though as lots of things are terrible at the time but long term are reversible, climate change however isnt. But, on the good side almost everyone I know is doing a lot to change behaviour and try and reduce. Even in early Jan in the rain I'm still seeing loads of people cycling into work rather than driving and it certainly wasn't like that even just a few years ago. Probably not enough but enough to give me a little hope
Oh yes.
Not anxious for myself, but anxious for family - parents are in their 80s, one slip, fall, or escalation of their colds, we'll be at the mercy of the swamped NHS; for my teenage kids the impact of climate change and the erosion of public services makes me wonder what they will endure in their lifetime.
Yeah, but when it gets too bad, I just think: **** the lot of them. It helps.
Drink more booze and get some quality dope. You'll be dead soon, start living and less worrying. Yes that is my advice, I'm 48. 😂
" so I stopped consuming it "
Nail on the head.
You don't just watch news, you consume and absorb it.
Dangerous in large quantities, or even in small quantities for some people.
Best avoided....
Most of the mainstream news is little short of government and corporate sanctioned propaganda these days with the BBC being one of the worst offenders. It's purpose is not to report on the worlds events in an unbiased fashion, but to keep the population clicking for the next piece of fear-porn to drive advertising revenue and to change our behaviour with continual little nudges. A fearful, non-questioning population is far easier to manipulate, to control and to sell stuff too.
Throughout the pandemic, our government was by far the biggest advertising spender on UK media advertising with over £350 million + of taxpayers money spent on keeping us scared of the deadly virus. I don't know about you, but when has a dangerous pandemic ever needed it's own advertising campaign to make us aware and scared of it?
As an example of what goes on, my Canadian cousin was part of the trucker protest in Canada against vaccine mandates. Ironically he was fully vaccinated as were most of the truckers. They were simply protesting against mandated vaccines and some of the other over the top and tyrannical measures deployed by Trudeau that were affecting the truckers ability to earn a living to support their families. The truckers protest was completely peaceful throughout apart from of course some music and honking of horns. Yet, the media in Canada (and here in the UK when it was rarely mentioned), portrayed the truckers as nazi's, as 'far right', as anti-vaxxers, as racists and misogynists etc. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Sorry if I sound cynical but my cousins experience has opened my eyes somewhat. So take whatever you read in the mainstream news with a whole host of skepticism. It is often the stuff that is not being reported on that is what they don't want you to know. I wonder why that could be?
Anger, I think, rather than anxiety.
The truckers protest was completely peaceful throughout apart from of course some music and honking of horns.
and the big horde of guns.
the people behind the truckers convoy are from the far right, climate change deniers, who wanted to remove anyone from canada who wasn’t born in canada. it’s a bit like saying donald trump supporters aren’t alt right. that may be correct, but they are following someone who is.
i don’t know anyone personally who was in the trucker’s convoy, so my understanding could be completely wrong.
i don’t know anyone personally who was in the trucker’s convoy, so my understanding could be completely wrong.
Yes your understanding is completely and totally wrong.
Yeah I am keen to watch less news myself. I don't think I'm anxious or hugely affected by it but as others have said already, it all goes in and is no doubt affecting your subconscious one way or another whether you're aware of it or not.
The problem is my job involves lots of time spent reading and reviewing documents on a laptop, sometimes by myself if I'm working from home and reading the news is kind of my go-to break every hour or so inbetween concentrating on work. Not sure what I'd replace it with- there's only so much cycling content and STW to go around on any given day.
I'm not keen on a total blackout but ideally I could stand to just read one serious news outlet maybe once a day and I for sure think that would be enough.
Most of the mainstream news is little short of government and corporate sanctioned propaganda
Might I suggest that you listen or watch news from any state (Iran, UAE, Qatar, China, Russia etc etc) that has got a grip on it's broadcaster of record to see exactly what state propaganda actually looks like?
Yes your understanding is completely and totally wrong.
it’s not.
though i do know a trucker. his opinion was not one shared by the freedom convoy.
they illegally blocked a border crossing and a city making life hell for the people who lived there.
people in the **** trudeau movement openly talk about their desire to assassinate him. im not saying that your cousin is one of those people, but there has been a lot of manipulation of people in a similar way to the qanon thing in the usa. canadian society and politics are a lot closer to the usa than to the uk. and canada is a far rougher and tougher place than the uk.
people have spent a long time undermining the reputation of the “mainstream media” in a bid to make folk believe that it is all lies. the problem i see with that is that the people who are leading this are far right wing.
not trying to crap on your cousin or call him names, but the engineered splitting of society is creating chaos and is leaving people unsure of what to believe which is leaving everybody vulnerable.
personally, i don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but if the vaccine ended up killing everyone, i’d not be surprised. mainly because i don’t know what to believe anymore.
without wishing to sound trite, go in peace.
and stop watching the news!
Most of the mainstream news is little short of government and corporate sanctioned propaganda these days with the BBC being one of the worst offenders.
And yet my rabid pro-Tory mother is convinced that the BBC is Satan incarnate and never gives the government a fair hearing. You can't both be right. 🤷♂️
I gave up on TV news a while ago as the politicians pontificating made me angry. I do follow the news but I don't let it get to me. Only worry about the things that are important and you can change. An unfortunate side effect of my last couple of years is a lot of my empathy has gone. when the worst you can imagine has happened to you its pretty hard to be concerned about strangers. Not nice but thats where i am
Most of the mainstream news is little short of government and corporate sanctioned propaganda
Absolutely true and backed by research. government ministers get positive questions, opposition negative. "Balance" to the BBC means that in debates ie brexit both sides get equal airtime even when one is lies. The BBC is totally cowed.
The BBC is totally cowed.
And yet do many Tory supporters feel the opposite. I'd be interested in a link to that research to piss off my parents
Jeepers - it was a while back. the particular piece was over scottish independence and I have seen others as well. Doubt I'd find them
Definitely not just the news, I stopped watching or paying attention about 2 months into COVID for my own mental health, but it's everywhere. Most days I dread even refreshing STW because I'll catch a glimpse of a title and start to feel panic.
Nah, I read (and consume) news from multiple sources, starting with the MSM all the way through to the full on whack job right wing (many), left wing (few) and conspiracy/libertarian news sites from several countries.
But, importantly, I made a conscious decision some years ago to not worry about anything I had no control over.
So it's just "information", either actual information, or information about how those in certain parts of society are spinning or warping the information. Or simply making stuff up to support their point of view. Like all those "ex railway staff" we had on Twitter 3-4 weeks ago.
So there's no emotional trigger to any of it.
The only thing that gives me any concern is the number of people who a) will believe anything if it's on the internet or b) believe anything that disagrees with the accepted narrative simply because it disagrees, or just because they want to feel like they have special knowledge.
It's mainly because these people live amongst us. And many of them hold some really weird beliefs. Or will try and persuade others that these weird ideas are actually the truth.
Though I doubt many of them ride a bike.
Some bits on here
https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-bbc-17028
Can't find any decent sources for the scots stuff now. I guess " the national" would hardly satisfy you
At the time of the independence referendum what happened was labour, tories and Lib dems were all given as much airtime as the SNP and the greens got virtually none. so thats a 3:1 bias already then the format of questions was such that the SNP get negative questions " your opponents say this bad thing will happen if its yes- whats your answer" and the unionists got [positive questions " you say this good thing will happen if its no"
it’s not though i do know a trucker. his opinion was not one shared by the freedom convoy.
I can't comment on your particular trucker but in general you are wrong, very wrong. It was a total and utter misrepresentation of the truckers protest by the media, sanctioned by Trudeau himself who illegally froze the truckers bank accounts, sent in the police to beat the truckers, and further stoked the flames by saying live on TV (about the unvaccinated):
"They don’t believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist. It’s a very small group of people, but that doesn’t shy away from the fact that they take up some space. This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?".
Yes, he actually said that, about his own citizens!
And despite the attempted hatchet job by the press, the truckers had an awful lot of support in Canada from the public. Not all the public sure, but from a large percentage certainly. Yet the mainstream media presented just one side of the argument, a mostly made up argument to smear the truckers.
Anyway realise the above is getting slightly off topic so will leave it there. All I would say is temper what you read or watch in the press and news media with the evidence coming from your own eyes and ears. Most of what you hear reported in the news these days does not tell the full story.
kt360 - freshly minted on 3 Jan; troll or bot or AI learning program?
kt360 – freshly minted on 3 Jan; troll or bot or AI learning program?
Or all three perhaps?
on BBC bias I think its fairer to say its biased towards the status quo and is "conservative" not "Conservative" but Tory and brexiteer lies do go unchallenged and the amount of airtime Farage got is well over representing him. Its also Southern England biased
Probably an indicator of something else being off. Go and have a chat with a therapist, always good to get a tune up now and again.
Is the news giving you anxiety at the moment?
A little hence I don't watch them often but the impact is felt in the cost of living.
Nah, I just have a bit of a rant about the ****sticks in power either to my missus or mates or sometimes on STW.
I'd say anxiety tends to come about when you're aware of a problem, with the potential to affect you but feel impotent to do anything about it. Which is pretty much what most news media seems pitched at these days. I'd say limit your exposure, I've all but stopped reading news websites and papers, and barely watch TV news, I'll listen to R4 morning/evening (more if I'm driving) and maybe the odd news related podcast.
My missus watches the bloody ITN news at 10 where they love a bit of doom, then flips over to ratchet up the angst with a bit of QT. Honestly, "**** that nonsense!" Is my general response if asked to join in.
I heard the main stories of the day several hours ago, they've got nothing new to report, they're just adding stoney looks down camera and dramatic voiceovers to hike the fear.
Nah (relative) ignorance is bliss...
I'm trying to watch less of it.
IF it's not Vlad rattling on about nukes and the atrocities in Ukraine, it's the shitehole that this country is fast becoming. 30 hour waits in A&E, cost of living (17m people living in poverty this year in the UK I read online this week), Brexit impacts, train strikes.
When did things get quite so bad? Just fills me with sadness on a daily basis.