When the News Is Too Loud
6 ecospiritual practices I share with my university students to stay grounded without turning away
The news has been unbearable lately. I will not pretend otherwise.
Headlines stack up. Social media churns. Group chats spiral. A colleague or family member keeps rehashing the same frightening story. Even if you have not “done” anything yet, your nervous system starts acting as if danger is in the room.
After five walks on the Camino de Santiago (including the Le Puy route through the volcanic hills of the Auvergne) and years as a university chaplain at NYU, I have sat with hundreds of people carrying intense realities: war and displacement, climate grief, political upheaval, economic pressure, online outrage, and the constant pressure to keep up. Many of them are bright, compassionate, and deeply overwhelmed.
Nothing is wrong with you.
If you recognize that loop: tight chest, busy mind, doomscrolling, replaying conversations, snapping at people you love: you are not broken. You are responsive. You care. You are paying attention.
The question is not whether you are sensitive. The question is whether your sensitivity has any place to land.
So I have started offering my students a handful of simple practices, not to make the world “less real,” but to help their bodies come back online so they can live, study, love, and act with steadiness. These are the same invitations I use myself.
You can try one or more of them in only a few minutes. You can try them imperfectly. You can try them even if you do not feel spiritual. Better yet, you can try them without anyone knowing. Your mental, emotional, and spiritual health is not a performance sport.
Invitation 1: Notice the threshold you have crossed (without judging yourself)
When students come into my office and say, “I cannot stop thinking about it,” we usually start here.
Not with the story. With the body.
Try this:
Unclench your jaw (even one millimeter).
Drop your shoulders (let gravity help).
Exhale slowly once, like you are fogging a window.
Ask: “What is my body doing as I read or listen to this?”
If the answer is bracing, scanning, tightening, rushing, or freezing, you have crossed a threshold. That does not mean you are failing. It means your system is trying to protect you.
Here is a phrase I often offer students, and use myself:
Something in me is trying to keep me safe.
That sentence is a small doorway back into compassion. It does not fix the world. It helps you stop fighting yourself, even when the world is already intense.
Invitation 2: Sort the overwhelm into three circles (so you can stop carrying the whole planet)
Anxiety loves one idea: If I think about this hard enough, I will regain control.
That is why doomscrolling feels oddly compelling. It is the mind trying to solve what it cannot solve.
Try this instead. I call it the Three Circles Reset, and I use it with students who feel powerless.
Circle 1: Control:
What can you directly choose today? Examples: what you read, how you speak, when you sleep, and how you treat the person in front of you.
Circle 2: Influence:
Where can you contribute without taking responsibility for outcomes? Examples: donate, vote, write, volunteer, have one brave conversation, support an impacted community.
Circle 3: Concern:
What matters deeply but is not yours to manage right now. Examples: global conflicts, the full arc of climate disruption, other people’s decisions, the entire internet.
Now take the thing that is flooding you (a headline, post, conversation, the news, or fear) and place it in one circle. Choose one small action from Circle 1. Choose one small action from Circle 2. Let Circle 3 be real... without becoming a command.
A tree does not attempt to photosynthesize for the entire forest.
It does what is its to do. Fully. Faithfully. Without pretending to control everything.
Invitation 3: Borrow steadiness from the more-than-human world
Nature does not give motivational speeches.
Trees do not panic about tomorrow’s headlines. Birds do not scroll. The earth does not rehearse every worst-case scenario before going to sleep.
Presence, it turns out, is a form of sanity.
Try this 90-second practice. I offer it to students who cannot stop looping:
Find one living thing: a tree, a plant, a patch of moss, a bird, even a single weed pushing through pavement.
Stand near it (or look at it through a window).
Exhale longer than you inhale, three times.
Soften your eyes and widen your gaze. Let your vision be panoramic.
Notice one detail you did not notice before.
Whisper (or think): “I see you. You are here.”
If you want to go one step deeper, ask: “What is this living being doing that is simply its own life?”
Trees: rooting, reaching, receiving light. Birds: adapting, foraging, resting. Earth: holding, cycling, continuing.
None of this denies pain in the world. It teaches your nervous system something it desperately needs: cues of continuity and steadiness.
That steadiness is not naïve. It is what makes action sustainable.
Invitation 4: Make an information boundary that does not rely on willpower
Many of us tell ourselves, “I should stop scrolling.”
But anxious systems do not respond well to vague promises. They respond to structures.
Try one of these for seven days:
The Morning Gate: No news, no social media, no heavy conversations until you have eaten something and moved your body for three minutes. Stretching counts.
The Paired Practice: News only after nature. You read, then you step outside for five minutes. Or sit by a window with a plant.
Before you click or engage, ask yourself one question: “Will this help me act with wisdom and kindness, or will it simply intensify me?”
This is the difference between being informed and being consumed.
One more thing: sometimes the most draining news feed is not your phone. It is a conversation loop at dinner or in a group chat. You are allowed to say: “I care about this, and I cannot talk about it right now.” That is stewardship of your attention. You have every right to it.
Invitation 5: Turn helplessness into one embodied offering
When students feel powerless, I often say: “Your nervous system wants agency. Give it one honest act.”
Not a grand gesture. Not a perfect plan. One offering.
A prayer of attention: light a candle and speak the names of places or people you are holding, then sit in silence for two minutes.
A small act of repair: pick up litter on your street, donate to mutual aid, feed a bird, water a plant.
A relational gesture: send one text that strengthens the human web: “Thinking of you. How’s your nervous system today?”
A vow for 24 hours: I will not spread fear. I will not forward outrage. I will speak with care.
A small stream does not try to become the entire river. It moves in one direction, one drop at a time. That is how real change happens, too.
Invitation 6: Make room for grief without letting it become your identity
There is real loss in the world. There is also real life still unfolding.
A mature spiritual life makes room for both.
Here is a two-sentence prayer I invite you to try:
I let myself feel what is true.
I refuse to let despair be the only truth.
If you are in a spiral, place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Breathe slowly. Then ask: “What is the smallest true next step?”
The answer is rarely “carry everything.” It is often: drink water, stop scrolling, step outside, call a friend, write one letter, go to bed.
Those are not small acts in a world that constantly pressures you to override your own humanity.
A closing blessing for intense times
If the news, the feeds, and the conversations have been too loud lately, let this be your permission slip:
Permission to care without collapsing.
Permission to act without pretending you control outcomes.
Permission to step away from the endless loop.
Permission to return to trees and birds and earth, the steady ones,so your own steadiness can return.
Your attention is sacred. Spend it the way you would spend clean water
If this landed, please like this post and leave a comment below about your experience. I read every response and will share something back with you as well.
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As soon as I read these words, it reminded me of Sophrology, yoga and of Buddhist practice.
"Unclench your jaw (even one millimeter). Drop your shoulders (let gravity help). Exhale slowly once, like you are fogging a window. Ask: “What is my body doing as I read or listen to this?” "
So I did. Immediately.
I like this article a lot, thank you for your thoughtful words .