How To Stay Informed About COVID-19 Without Stressing Out (As Much)

I’ve been trying to manage a kind of balance, lately.

For one, I believe I have a civic duty to stay informed, to stay updated on COVID-19, to know what’s going on so I can best act to protect myself, my family, and my community.

On the other hand, reading about COVID-19 all the time is stressing me the fuck out.

As in, deep-pit-of-despair, knot-in-your-stomach stress.

A while back I wrote an article about managing the “pulse” of your news and information – and even said some pretty smart things. Maybe.

But I haven’t been doing a good job of taking my own advice. The relentless drum beat of school closings, ventilator shortages, new cases, country-wise-shutdowns…it’s been too much to look away from.

But it isn’t healthy – either in the biological or psychological sense. At some point, it’s all just too much, and you can neither extract value from or appropriately act on the information you’re “processing.”

So today, I went live on Facebook with some tips on putting yourself in “information quarantine” – staying up to date and informed without driving yourself up a fucking wall.

Enjoy.