Your ‘Doomscrolling’ Breeds Anxiety. Here’s How To Stop The Cycle

So many of us do it: You get into bed, turn off the lights, and look at your phone to check Twitter one more time.

You see that coronavirus infections are up. Maybe your kids can’t go back to school. The economy is cratering. Still, you incessantly scroll though bottomless doom-and-gloom news for hours as you sink into a pool of despair.

This self-destructive behavior has become so common that a new word for it has entered our lexicon: “doomscrolling.”

The recent onslaught of dystopian stories related to the coronavirus pandemic, combined with stay-at-home orders, have enabled our penchant for binging on bad news. But the habit is eroding our mental health, experts say.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Amelia Aldao warns that doomscrolling traps us in a “vicious cycle of negativity” that fuels our anxiety.

Aldao, the director of Together CBT, a clinic that specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy, has worked with her patients to cut back on doomscrolling.

Excerpted from “Your ‘Doomscrolling’ Breeds Anxiety. Here’s How To Stop The Cycle.” Read Dr. Aldo’s recommendations in the full article on NPR.

Listen to this short podcast to hear Dr. Aldo’s advice on how to temper the doom:

Source: NPR | Your ‘Doomscrolling’ Breeds Anxiety. Here’s How To Stop The Cycle, https://www.npr.org/2020/07/19/892728595/your-doomscrolling-breeds-anxiety-here-s-how-to-stop-the-cycle | © 2020 npr

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