One shocking study found that people who watched six or more hours of news about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing were more likely to develop post-traumatic stress symptoms than people who were actually at the bombing and personally affected by it. How about the many hours have you spent watching the 9/11 catastrophe or some more recently catastrophic event? Are you a News or Talk Show Junkie or perhaps you follow everything via the Internet on addictive sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like. If you do, you’re likely bombarded with more sensationalism in one day than our ancient ancestors were in an entire lifetime!
Disasters, catastrophes, and bad news in general sells. Everyone agrees that news channel ratings soar when they can deliver bad or better yet, horrific news. That has quickly spread to politics, gossip, sports, and even weather where previously off-limits negative subjects have become the focal points. Closely observe those who deliver the news, and the order, presentation, graphics, sound, volume, and inflections are all geared to involve you, to suck you into a fear and curiosity mode. Why? Simply because it sells and the results say we want more. The Internet is a perfect example. More and more people wander around head-down like zombies and end up spending literally hours a day obsessed by the flavor of the day that is either directly or indirectly related to fear, not being good enough, social and advertising pressures, sensationalism, anger and hate. Check for yourself and see.
The advertising industry, media, and leaders in general know this and they and their very aggressive teams spend all their waking hours competing for your ears and eyeballs. Through years of research and study, they know just when and how to can create the irresistible messaging to effectively control our hearts and minds whether for good or clandestine purposes. No doubt, there is much good, positive, and educational messaging abounding that enhances our lives, plus the technology has many ways of enhancing our lives, but maybe for your overall health, you should take a break from from the chatter.
Dr. Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D. (psychologist and anthropologist) from “One Spirit Medicine” says, “We’re continually running to keep up with the new information, to the point that we’re chronically exhausted. I can’t count how many times I have heard someone say, ‘If it weren’t for caffeine, I wouldn’t get anything done!’ Nature designed the brain to deal with only one lion roaring at us at a time, not the entire jungle turning against us. Now, however, our brain is too overtaxed to spend time sorting through all the data, much less looking at it with fresh eyes and deciding what is or is not a crisis, and what, if anything, needs to be done about it.
The media bring us news about wars and devastation happening in distant lands, but our fight-or-flight response operates only with local coordinates, and doesn’t understand far away. When we read about some catastrophic event, the thinking part of our brain grasps that it’s happening at another time and place. But the brain perceives images nonverbally and much faster. So when the hippocampus, which regulates the fight-or-flight response, is presented with streaming video of an atrocity, it registers it as happening now and nearby, and goes on high alert. The more damaged the hippocampus is by stress and toxins, the closer and more threatening the danger seems to be.
It’s not just traditional news programs that instill fear and hopelessness; stories of tragedy, trauma, and threats dominate many forms of media. In fact, a 2014 study of U.S. adults found that the single best predictor of people’s fear and anxiety was how much time they spent watching TV talk shows.”
Feed the brain education, meditation, loving optimistic thoughts, the super-foods Omega 3s, the fatty acids, and turn off the toxic contributors, the Internet, the television, radio, newspaper, etc. These disconnect from nature and our body. Toxins long live in the molecules of the body, fat.
It’s not enough to watch what you eat, you must be vigilant about the information you consume.
