Experts talk how to navigate distressing news stories and finding coping mechanisms

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — As people awoke to headlines over the weekend about deadly U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and potential of widening conflict, alerts, social media and conversations at the dining room table were consumed by the news.

While medical experts say it is normal for people to experience stress and anxiety — or feeling that the world descended into chaos overnight — it is important to find coping mechanisms and ways to responsibly take in the news in order to protect one’s mental health.

“Fear, sadness, confusion… these are very normal reactions to very extreme circumstances,” Michael S. Ziffra, a Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine professor and psychiatrist, told The Associated Press. “People shouldn’t feel guilty, or they shouldn’t feel like it’s wrong to feel anxiety. It’s a very normal human response. The key is to know how to manage it.”

Normal feelings

Since 2020 — a year marked by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, social and political unrest and weather-related disasters — Ziffra said he has “absolutely, without question” seen an uptick in patients bringing up increased anxiety provoked by current news.

Some patients vent, some talk about obsessively scrolling on social media and others discuss feeling helpl...