Empaths feel others’ emotions as if they were their own. And that goes for the suffering of strangers we see in our 24/7 news feed. Here’s how empaths can keep up with the news without getting overwhelmed, even in these difficult times.
The Beatles knew the pain of it: “I read the news today, oh boy ....”
As a compassionate person, you want to keep up with the latest on what’s happening in your town and the world at large. So you spend hours doomscrolling through social media, keep an ear cocked to a news podcast as you cook, watch alarming images on cable news as you get ready for bed. It’s a nonstop, full-color menu of trauma and disaster: the climate crisis, bitter political divisions, raging wars.
Gone are the days when you could consider yourself informed if you flipped leisurely through the (black-and-white) morning newspaper before work. “There is so much social pressure today to stay up-to-the-minute informed,” says Nicole Goudreau-Green, LCSW-R, a therapist and founder of Willow Bend Counseling. “But the amount and intensity of information we are now expected to process daily can be completely overwhelming.”
In a crowded media landscape of outlets competing for our attention, the news is presented in ever more intense and graphic ways to grab us. It’s no surprise, then, that research has found consuming too much news can increase emotional distress and our tendency to catastrophize. “Excessive news consumption has been associated with feelings of anxiety, fear, despair, anger, and disgust,” explains Chrysalis Wright, PhD, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Central Florida. For empaths, this can be magnified manyfold. “Those characteristics can increase the negative emotions that are experienced when reading or watching news, especially reports of human despair and destruction,” Wright says.
The Toll of News on Empaths
If you are a highly empathetic person, hearing and seeing so much human suffering on your big and small screens can feel downright unbearable.
Empaths don’t just understand what another person is experiencing — they feel it along with them. Talking with a sad friend makes an empath feel like crying, too. This quality makes empaths wonderful at connecting with others. Empaths make close friends, loving caregivers, and skilled healers.
But empaths can also deeply feel the suffering of strangers they see on the news. “Empaths feel others’ pain as if it were ours. We actually feel it in our own body. It’s like an emotional echo,” says Kristen Schwartz, a certified trauma recovery coach and author of The Healed Empath.
If you’re an empath, you feel others’ distress as your own and find it hard to untangle their suffering from yours. It can be helpful to remind yourself that the world’s overwhelming problems are not your burden to carry.
An empath herself, Goudreau-Green describes her own experience: “When I hear about a hospital being bombed, say, I have an actual physical response. I can feel my chest tightening. I feel immediately overcome by waves of anxiety, fear, and guilt.”
With their abundance of feeling for others, empaths are driven to fix the world and help reduce others’ suffering, says Mary Joye, a licensed mental health counselor, life coach, and DailyOM instructor of the From Codependent to Independent course. But there is a cost for too much empathy. According to researchers at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Dublin, feeling too much empathy can have negative consequences, including anxiety, depression, and lowered immunity.
“We think if we consume enough news about the world’s problems that we’re going to somehow make a difference. But we can’t if we are ourselves harmed by it. We have to be responsible for our own energy first,” says Schwartz.
So if you are an empath by nature, how can you protect yourself while still keeping abreast of important issues you care deeply about? We asked experts for the best coping strategies so empaths can keep up with the world without feeling completely overwhelmed.
Interested in learning more? Check out Living in Calmness When Emotions Overwhelm You.
6 Ways to Manage Your Newsfeed if You Are an Empath
1. Be conscious of how your current news habits affect you
We tend to consume news mindlessly without thought to how it makes us feel, says Schwartz. “Say it’s a Monday morning. You didn’t sleep well and you are already feeling anxious. Yet while you make coffee, you turn on the news out of habit. You know that it probably won’t be good for your mental health to start the day that way, but you do it anyway. Why not be more intentional?”
So a first step to managing your news consumption is taking a read of how it currently affects you emotionally and physically. After reading a distressing article, take a moment to check in with yourself, suggests Joye. “What sensations are you feeling in your body? What emotions has viewing this news stirred up? You might feel physically exhausted. You might be consumed with anger with no place for it to go.” Being aware of how you are affected can be a first step in getting control of your media habits.
2. Try a digital detox
To see how you feel without this drumbeat, try taking a short or long break from the news. “I prescribe regular digital detoxes for clients and take them myself regularly,” says Joye. “That means put the phone down. Instead of constant scrolling, use it only to communicate with your friends and loved ones. Get off your social media feeds, too. Doing a media fast for a week could be enough for some to get their adrenaline down. But you need to follow your instincts on how long you take a digital break. If you feel anxious or upset, it’s a form of self-harm to engage too much with events over which you feel helpless or hopeless.”
If one week seems too heavy a lift, try to tune out for one day and build up from there, suggests Goudreau-Green. Don’t worry — if something momentous happens in the world, you will hear about it.
Then be intentional about how much news you can bring back into your life comfortably, Schwartz says. “Practice selective engagement,” she says. Maybe you want to limit yourself to a half hour of radio news while you commute home daily or set a timer on your phone for 20 minutes twice a day to read the headlines, for example. (Avoid catching up on the news right before bed when you are trying to wind down, experts suggest.)
3. Choose your medium carefully
“You will traumatize yourself watching graphic news images over and over on the endless news cycle,” says Joye. The empaths DailyOM spoke with for this story have found less intense sources that allow them to keep up without feeling overwhelmed. “Don’t look at pictures or listen to upsetting audio of bombs going off or people crying,” says Joye. “I have started to watch the business news channels. They don’t have the gory pictures, and present the news in a more detached way from the perspective of how it affects businesses. You get the news, once removed.”
Reading print news rather than consuming video may reduce the emotional impact as well, Wright notes.
“My husband acts as my filter,” says Goudreau-Green. “He keeps up on the news and keeps me informed about the world without me having to be exposed directly to the images and sounds I feel so deeply.”
4. Take action
If you’re an empath, you feel others’ distress as your own and find it hard to untangle their suffering from yours. It can be helpful to remind yourself that the world’s overwhelming problems are not your burden to carry.
That doesn’t mean throwing up your hands. Doing something to help can be empowering for an empath and prevent them from simply stewing. So think about one small step you can take to help tackle a problem on the news that is upsetting you. “If you are heartbroken about the plight of human trafficking, for instance, you could donate to a cause or find an organization where you could volunteer,” says Joye.
5. Find ways to release your feelings
Empaths can absorb others’ energy and it can get “stuck,” making them feel upset long after the encounter. So develop go-to strategies for clearing your energy — for example, after sitting through an hour of cable news in the doctor’s waiting room.
What works for Goudreau-Green: “I identify what I am feeling. I acknowledge it and tell myself this feeling will pass and I don’t need to stay stuck in it. I breathe through it, letting the feeling out with each exhale.”
Grounding activities can also help empaths recover. “I know as an empath, when I hear upsetting news I feel a literal heaviness in my body,” says Schwartz. “Meditation, time in nature, and exercise can all help empaths move the energy out.”
More good advice: If you find yourself ruminating about all the suffering in the world in a way that is causing you ongoing distress, consulting a therapist can teach you ways to cope in the long haul, says Goudreau-Green.
6. Look out for joy
No one is saying everything’s coming up roses, but the news can provide a skewed glimpse of the greater world. Look for outlets that emphasize solutions and progress, not just doom and gloom. Empaths feel the world’s suffering deeply, but also readily pick up on others’ good vibes. Empathetic people experience an abundance of positivity while watching other people’s joy, note the Dublin researchers.
And hey, laughing at cat videos on TikTok can help you recharge, too.
