Virus news stress? Try this

Imagine being a young child on that blackest of days – September 11, 2001 – and seeing what, to you, watching repeated TV clips, must have seemed like a hundred planes slamming into a hundred buildings.

“Please shut off the TV,” said a note home from my daughter’s teacher at the time. “Many kids don’t understand that it was just a few planes," not hundreds.

Indeed, a study later found that 5% of the kids in the Boston region had suffered from PTSD after the attack while another 18% displayed symptoms.

I think there are lessons from then that apply to our situation now with COVID-19.

Many people are careful about what we eat and drink. But, in our junk-food-loving society, there are many temptations. For instance, I have a weakness for burgers. But I know that if I eat too many of them, especially the fast food variety with fries and all the toppings, I’ll get fat and likely sick. 

The same is true of our information and news diets. We are blessed in America with a free press. This country simply wouldn’t exist without it. But the 24-hour news cycle, for all its benefits, comes with drawbacks, too, if we’re not careful.

Watching too news coverage, especially of the repetitious, hyperbolic sky-is-falling variety, can trigger the fight or flight responses in our brain. Such responses are useful in situations of actual, imminent danger. If we didn’t feel fear, we wouldn’t know when to fight and when to flee from the mastodon or shelter from the storm. But after a certain point, triggering these feelings over and over again when there is no action to be taken is profoundly counterproductive. In my experience, when people are stuck in a constant cycle of fear, they can’t listen, think or make decisions very well.

And we need people to be thinking and making smart decisions right now.

In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, FDR said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And he was right. As leaders in our homes and at work, we need to separate legitimate coronavirus fears from false, needless ones, the type that FDR termed “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts” and help those around us do the same.

A habit to consider is to limit your “information diet.” I limit the amount of coronavirus news I ingest and make sure it primarily comes from solid, just-the-facts-ma’am sources like Associated Press and Reuters. Currently, I am also relying on institutions like the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, Worldometers.info (a concise statistical update on the pandemic), and my state and local health departments. The rest I put in the informational junk food category – a little is great, too much is toxic.

As with everything, moderation and quality matter. So does judgment and self-restraint.

Believe it or not folks, it won’t be long before life returns to normal. We will beat this. Until then, protect your physical health. But don’t forget about your mental health and well-being, as well.

Onward and upward.

McKeel Hagerty is CEO of The Hagerty Group, founder and co-owner of Grand Ventures, which invests in entrepreneurs building world-changing technology companies, and the former Global Chairman for YPO, the premier leadership organization of chief executives.