Recently I heard a message that the human brain was never intended to process the amount of news stories and mass amounts of information we receive from social media. For some reason, this notion has sat with me for a couple of weeks. Not looking too much into fact checking or looking up how the brain processes social media, I could imagine that it might be common knowledge that spending hours of doom scrolling can’t be the most helpful for us. One way it isn’t the best would be for our mental health. In terms of how we relieve the stress of the day. Although it’s very appealing to do so, it’s a way that we can shut off and just pay attention to what is in front of us and not think. If you are seeking to step away from social media and see what else you can do, meditation might be a good way to clear away from the information overload that builds up every day and contributes to our stress.
The emotional and physical benefits of meditation can include:
- Gaining a new perspective on stressful situations
- Building skills to manage your stress
- Increasing self-awareness
- Focusing on the present
- Reducing negative emotions
- Increasing imagination and creativity
- Increasing patience and tolerance
- Lowering resting heart rate
- Lowering resting blood pressure
- Improving sleep quality
Although the idea of shutting down can be appealing, what if we turned our doom scrolling into a reverse action of being fully present by the way of meditation.