Many people now live with a form of exhaustion that comes not from work or family but from the constant intake of other people’s suffering through the news and social media. War, mass death, state violence and the language of leaders advocating force arrive on the same screen as the school email or the family group chat, so that a person who began the morning intending to answer emails or play with their children can end the day feeling as if their nervous system has spent hours responding to crises unfolding far beyond their own life.
Of course, such exhaustion is nothing in comparison to the horrors of actually living through war – with the traumatic experience of seeing your country under attack and those you love killed, or being displaced from your home. But for those witnessing events from afar, how can we remain informed about what is happening in the world without becoming overwhelmed, or worse, by it?
The body does not process distance. When a person watches a school bombed, or sees footage of a woman shot by federal agents, or hears that killing continues in Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, Sudan and Somalia, or listens to leaders speak of war as necessary, the nervous system registers the signal as threat rather than information, which is why the mind then begins searching for confirmation that the reaction it feels is shared.
The digital environment supplies threat signals in a volume that earlier generations would never have encountered
People describe the same sequence of events again and again: they see something shocking and then spend hours watching how others respond, scrolling through posts, commentary, arguments and statements in search of witnesses who will recognise the same harm, since shared recognition settles the initial shock more effectively than facts alone. Social media turns that instinct into a loop because each reaction leads to another reaction and witnessing becomes a task that does not end, which means “staying informed” often masks a state of prolonged activation in which the alarm system remains switched on long after the first report has been absorbed.
Graves for children killed in a reported strike on a primary school in Iran’s Hormozgan province in Minab, 3 March, 2026. Photo: Iranian Press Center / AFP) / XGTY / Getty
Meanwhile, ordinary life proceeds on its own timetable because children still need collecting from school, food still needs preparing, work still demands attention and conversation continues in offices and kitchens where the people around us may not have seen the same images, which produces the disorientating experience of carrying knowledge of large events while moving through small routines.
We might wonder whether the alarm we feel represents hysteria or whether it represents a rational response to events that are unfolding in front of us. The erosion of a shared account of reality intensifies this feeling because people now live among neighbours, colleagues and family members who don’t want to hear about them at all, or interpret the same events through different narratives, which produces an entrenchment of position: each group reinforces its own interpretation while treating the other as proof of danger.
Some people withdraw from the news altogether, others treat constant exposure as a form of civic duty, and some manage to find themselves somewhere between those positions because they want to remain aware of the world without allowing the flow of catastrophe to occupy every waking hour.
Part of what keeps the cycle running lies in the structure of human attention, because the brain evolved to prioritise threat over everything else and therefore responds quickly to signals of danger, while the digital environment supplies those signals in a volume that earlier generations would never have encountered. The alarm that once helped human beings detect predators or hostile groups now responds to images arriving through a screen, yet the difference is that the original system expected some form of action to follow the alarm, whereas the modern spectator often has no direct action available. News outlets and social media seem to encourage fear and outrage because they hold attention longer than analysis or good news, which means alarming material spreads further and encourages people to watch the same event repeatedly.
Lamentation allows people to speak or sing their grief without pretending that it can be resolved immediately
For this reason, one of the most useful adjustments involves recognising the difference between learning that something has happened and repeatedly exposing the mind to the same images, since information can be absorbed once while the nervous system benefits from limits that prevent the alarm from being triggered hour after hour. Some people manage this by deciding when they will read or watch the news, which creates intervals during which the mind can return to other tasks and recover its ability to think rather than react. Another step involves resisting the search for the correct collective reaction, because social media rewards disagreement, which means the attempt to find consensus through endless scrolling becomes a form of agitation rather than resolution.
Yet the answer cannot just be detachment, because witnessing suffering generates grief, and grief that is suppressed tends to surface in other forms, such as agitation, despair or numbness. Ritual grows out of need, which is why human societies have always created ways of expressing sorrow together. Lamentation has long served this function because it allows people to speak or sing their grief without pretending that it can be resolved immediately. In doing so, it creates a bridge between the recognition of suffering and the possibility of hope, since the act of naming loss in the presence of others affirms that the world still contains people who refuse to accept injustice as normal.
@nowthisimpact Thousands of Minnesotans gathered outside hotels where ICE and Border Patrol have been staying to sing to them, encouraging agents to quit... See more
In recent months, a Minneapolis-based musical collective called Singing Resistance has held demonstrations outside hotels believed to be housing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, where thousands of people gather to sing, create sound and invite those inside to leave their jobs and join them in love and humanity. An important part of such action, beyond the political, is that people who might otherwise sit alone with their anger and grief find themselves standing among others, breathing together, producing sound together and turning distress into shared expression.
Lament in this sense does not require religious belief, even though many traditions treat it as a spiritual practice, because the underlying effect lies in the way collective expression regulates the nervous system, allowing sorrow to move through the body rather than remaining trapped inside it. Protest songs, vigils, gatherings and marches therefore serve a psychological as well as political function because they transform isolated distress into participation and remind those present that the world still contains others who recognise the same harm.
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Participation – such as joining a local group concerned with a particular issue, contributing resources to organisations working on the ground, writing to representatives or volunteering time – converts awareness into action, and action often reduces the helplessness that accompanies endless observation. The action of just reposting the depressing news that has already saturated us is probably less useful.
Alongside these outward steps, it can help to examine the structure of worry itself. Not all forms of concern serve the same purpose, which is why it can be useful to ask whether a particular worry leads toward a clear action or whether it repeats without resolution. It is also worth asking whether repetition has begun to masquerade as responsibility, since thinking about a crisis for hours can create the feeling of engagement, even though true responsibility usually involves decision followed by action and then acceptance that the result cannot be controlled. Language can shift how these states are held: when a person says “I notice that I am worrying” rather than “I am worried”, the feeling becomes something observed rather than something that defines the whole of the mind experiencing it.
None of these strategies remove the reality that the world passes through periods of upheaval: war, authoritarian rule, technological disruption and ecological breakdown are not imaginary concerns. But the challenge of the present moment lies in learning how to carry knowledge of these events without allowing the nervous system to remain in a permanent state of alarm. Modern communication has placed global crisis within reach of the hand at every hour, which means that managing attention has become a form of civic as well as personal discipline. A society filled with people who are exhausted by constant activation will struggle to respond thoughtfully to the problems it faces.
What sustains engagement over time is not constant vigilance so much as the capacity to witness events, allow grief, speak, act where possible and then return to the ordinary tasks of life. Endurance rather than intensity is what allows people to remain present for the long work that difficult periods of history require.
Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist, writer and broadcaster. Her Ask Philippa advice column is on Substack