Feeling Stressed and Overwhelmed By All the Bad News in the World? 6 Easy Practices to Regain Peace of Mind and Emotional Control

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

It’s not a cliché or an understatement: we are living in highly emotional and difficult times.

There’s war in the world. Governments are becoming more authoritarian and ideological. There are mass shootings on a weekly basis in the United States. LGBTQ+ and women’s rights and freedoms are at stake. There’s so much suffering, uncertainty, and injustice that many people have no more empathy left to give.

We are overwhelmed by the untenable problems in the world and have little capacity left to feel like we have the agency to make a difference.

Even for those of us with practiced emotional resilience, we face moments when we can’t take it anymore.

When that happens, you need to take care of yourself, calm your reactive emotions and mind, and find ways to reconnect with other people who embody understanding, connection, and empathy. Otherwise, you’ll shut down completely, or veer in the opposite direction of outrage, disgust, and argument.

Here are 6 easy skills to practice protecting your peace of mind, so you can lead with integrity at work, home, and for the people you care about.

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1. Be In Nature.

Get out into nature every single day.

If you live in the city, can you walk through a park on your way to work or on a break? Put your phone on silent (or leave it behind) for a few minutes to disconnect from technology and reconnect with the natural world. Look deeply at the trees, listen to the bird song, feel the air temperature and the sun on your skin, smell the trees and the flowers.