Overwhelmed by the News? Clinical Psychologist Vaneeta Sandhu Says the Best Way to Cope is to Really Feel Your Sadness, Fear, and Heartbreak. Here’s How
Between the war in Ukraine, the plummeting stock market, record-breaking gas prices, and a long list of other scary, heartbreaking headlines, it’s easy to go to the dark place these days. After all, there’s a lot to process—and our technologically-connected, social media-focused ways make it easy to stay hyper-focused on the tough stuff.
Yet before you curse your phone and vow to limit your Instagram and Twitter doomscrolling, clinical psychologist Vaneeta Sandhu says we have an opportunity to really look at the tough emotions that are surfacing for so many of us right now and use them for good.
“For most humans, we’d rather get into doing mode when uncomfortable feelings come up because it helps us avoid those tough emotions,” says Sandhu. “We’d rather distract ourselves with a glass of wine, with someone else’s issues, or in any way that doesn’t actually allow us to really feel someone else’s sadness or grief. But the funny thing about feelings is that if we don’t really look at them and truly feel them now, they’ll come up again later.”
The antidote, says Sandhu, is to really feel the vibration of sadness or anxiety or worry we’re experiencing. “If we don’t allow ourselves to really experience the grief and loss we’ve gone through and continue to go through as an entire world, we’ll continue to feel it,” she says.
We sat down with Sandhu to get her expert advice on where to start.
A Conversation with Vaneeta Sandhu
So many of us are heartsick watching the events unfold in Ukraine. Can you talk a little about the importance of empathy, but also how to not let it send you spiraling into a place where you want to withdraw?
The reason empathy is so important is that our feelings often point to our needs. They also allow us to better understand someone else’s perspective or needs.
For example, if I have this feeling that I know what it’s like to miss my family, and now I’m seeing families being separated in Ukraine, being able to allow myself to feel that experience can be helpful. It can inspire us to take action. Yet it’s also important to set boundaries for ourselves.
I like to think about boundaries as an agreement we have with ourselves to protect our emotional wellbeing. We set boundaries by understanding what our own needs may be. Sometimes we don’t know we violated a boundary until we can’t sleep because we watched the news for too many hours. In that case, we know we can be proactive about our boundaries the next day by cutting ourselves off from the endless scrolling on our newsfeed.
How does feeling our feelings rather than turn away from them help us move through the tough emotions? And what can we do to feel the feelings we’d rather ignore?
I think the best way to move through difficult emotions is to schedule time to really feel them—time that’s free of work and other distractions. It might be time you schedule some time alone or with someone else. And know going into that time that it will not feel great. It’s really uncomfortable sitting with or talking about sadness, loneliness, and despair. Maybe you practice doing some deep breaths while you’re feeling your feels; maybe you put yourself in a room in your home, or outside in nature, where you allow yourself to feel that feeling.
What are some tactics we can use to feel less anxious about the current events?
First, take care of yourself physically. Eating well, getting enough sleep, staying physically active—these things give you a head start when it comes to being able to manage anxious feelings.
Next, trust your future self. You and I are gathering new knowledge, skills, and wisdom every day because of what we’re going through. I can handle uncertainty now way better than I could’ve before the pandemic. I bet you can, too! It’s proof that you can trust your future self to be able to handle future worries and problems.
Finally, schedule time to worry. It sounds counterintuitive, but it can help you control how often you’re worrying. Find 15 minutes each day and in those 15 minutes, write down all the things you’re worried about. Let’s say you decide to worry at 5 p.m. every day. What this means is if you find yourself worrying at 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. you can say OK, I’m not going to do this right now. What you’ll learn quickly is that worries are pretty repetitive, but if we don’t contain them to these 15 minutes, they show up more often and can infiltrate your day. When you stick to worrying in one 15-minute chunk of time, it allows you to feel more joy throughout the day.
I think many of us are projecting a very scary future, thinking about what a large-scale war might look like with Russia. How can we best handle the fear, anxiety, and sadness that may come up when we think about all the possible outcomes?
Navigating uncertainty is great at making us feel overwhelmed, and what’s happening in the world right now feels out of control, which in turn makes us feel out of control. What’s more, the news cycle is often the biggest contributor to our fear-anxiety-sadness cycle. So, it’s important to really think about what you are consuming, when you’re consuming it, and where you are when you’re consuming it.
You can control what accounts you’re following, what media you read, and what news stations you watch. Follow the one you find yourself paying attention to the most and only that one. Have that be a way you set a boundary.
You can also control when you consume your news—specifically what time of day. Do you check the news first thing in the morning? Right before bed? For example, if we start our day reading negative news headlines, there’s a good chance we’ll be pretty unhappy hours later. Scrolling through sad, scary images on social media in the minutes before you shut your eyes to go to bed at night? That’s probably not the way you want to drift off to sleep.
It's also important to think about where you consume your news. Are you in bed, a place that’s supposed to be restful? Are you on the couch, the place where you unwind with loved ones at the end of your day? A lot of us don’t strategically and intentionally make the decision to read the news in a specific spot. I’ve worked with a lot of folks who prefer to not scroll in their home and, instead, they look at their newsfeed when they’re in nature, or at their desks, or they listen to the news in the car. It’s another way to set a boundary to protect your emotional wellbeing.
What does your personal emotional fitness routine look like right now?
I allow myself to take a break from feeling tuned-in to what’s happening in the world. I don’t need to keep up with every detail, every update, all the time.
I also keep an inventory of the week’s wins: I take stock of small wins over the past week that I’ve learned about or experiences I’ve had. It helps me zoom out and gain perspective on my own life. For example, I recently helped a friend celebrate two years sober, and that took me out of the doom and gloom cycle of the news. We’re so focused on these bigger global events right now and can mean we forget about the people around us.
Therapy is also important! Therapists have their own therapists. Therapy provides a space where you can sit and really feel your feelings, which can be so helpful for all of us.
I also try to focus on my one “must-do” value in which I invest my time, energy, and money. I’m a new mom, which has strengthened my value of women’s health and mental health issues. So, that’s the cause I stay up to date on. The truth is that there’s so much to be done and so many social issues to invest in—reproductive rights, health rights, the war in Ukraine, Covid—and we all know our personal values, regardless of what’s going on in world. So, choose one value you want to invest in and have that be your focus.
Dr. Vaneeta Sandhu is the Head of Emotional Fitness at Coa where she leads the creation of Coa's class experiences and curriculum. Through her background in clinical psychology and facilitation, she brings an engaging and down-to-earth approach in helping people prioritize mental health through the practice of emotional fitness. With more than 10 years of experience as a clinical psychologist, facilitator, educator, and public speaker, Vaneeta has worked with teams at Lyft, Yelp, Twitter, Reddit, and Dropbox to help managers and executives develop core leadership skills. Her expertise includes principles of behavior change, cross-cultural dynamics, and adult learning. To learn more visit coa.com.
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