A Powerful Happiness Practice - @home
Vasto, Italy
“An Ode to Slow Mornings” features early spring views of our home town. Video-making is one of the many hobbies I’ve started or revived in the last five years. I recommend switching on the music, if possible.
Would you like to know what has radically increased my sense of calm, peace and happiness over the last five years?
It’s very simple and it was not my idea to start with.
I don’t watch the news.
More specifically, this means: I never switch on the TV to watch the news. I don’t watch them online. I don’t listen to them on the radio or podcast apps. When news broadcasts are on at restaurants or airport lounges, I choose a seat so that my back is facing the screens. When Umberto watches the evening news, I close the living room door and cook dinner, read a book, write or listen to music.
I started this practice over five years ago, during the pandemic, when Italy had the world’s strictest lockdowns. It was forbidden to leave your house, except to go and buy food or medication. We were not allowed to go out for a run, walk or a bike ride. This was particularly devastating for someone like me who is used to exercising every day. I set up a gym on our back terrace but that did not help much. I began to feel very anxious.
Then I heard a piece of advice, the same suggestion from two top psychologists on two different podcasts. In a nutshell, they were saying, if you want to reduce your anxiety, you need to a) exercise regularly and b) not watch the news.
I had a) covered but b)?
Trialing the low-media-diet
This was not a 100% new concept for me. Productivity gurus like Tim Ferriss promoted the idea of a “low media diet” as a productivity hack years back, and I had implemented it to a good degree during my corporate career. I eliminated almost all alerts, deleted non-essential apps and organized the screens of my digital devices. I did not spend excessive time scrolling on social media or news sites. I did not read emails in bed or start my day with the influx of messages. But I had not tried the no-news-diet.
I thought, interesting.
If persons more intelligent than me are recommending this, there must be something to it. So I decided to do a 30-day trial. Go cold turkey, no news consumption in any format, no TV, no radio, no online, for a month. If it did not help me feel better I could go back to the old ways.
30 days passed and I realized the diet was really working! I then allowed some selected online news consumption but did not want to break the happy streak by touching the TV remote. Now, more than five years have gone by and I’ve never gone back to my old ways.
Surprisingly positive results
Many other things have changed in my life simultaneously so of course I cannot attribute the positive impacts to this practice alone. Even so, I am confident in saying that a drastically limited and very selective media consumption has:
reduced, almost eliminated anxiety.
improved concentration.
enhanced creativity.
I’m not a scientist. So I can only give a subjective analysis of what’s happened in my brain and body, and why.
I don’t believe limiting screen time is the biggest contributing factor. I believe it is a question of mindspace. We get more of what we focus on, what we give time and attention to. Is it negativity or something constructive, inspiring and positive? Do we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, or do we focus on things that we can have an impact on?
We have to be careful about what we absorb in our neural circuits. We cannot un-see what we’ve seen, we cannot un-hear what we have heard. I exercise my body and feed it food of great quality. I don’t eat junk. I eat at mealtimes, not snacking all day long. I want to give my mind the same respect.
What I’ve also noticed is, if I ever suffer a lapse and spend too much time scrolling on news sites online (which happened recently), the immediate consequence is a gloomy feeling and creative constipation.
I’d love to give credit to those psychologists who inspired me to try this practice but unfortunately, I did not write down their names. I could not be more grateful.
I never thought this would happen: I’ve developed a bit of a green thumb and have not killed one single plant in the last year. I even talk to my flowers!
Objections
If I ever discuss this practice with people other than my close friends, I usually get the following objections:
“But it’s important to know what’s happening in the world.”
Agreed. I do occasionally check news headlines on three news sites, in three different countries and languages. I have an app on my phone so I can see, for investment purposes, where the top stock indexes of the world are going, followed by explanatory articles. But I do not do any of this every day, sometimes not even every week. Never the first thing in the morning.
We must not have illusions about the news. The news is not equal to “what’s happening in the world”. It’s what media organizations and systems choose to publish to maximize attention and engagement. The content that creates shock, anger and outrage grabs more eyeballs and clicks. And not everything is “breaking news”. Most things are not. There is no real need whatsoever for a regular citizen to be glued to a news ticker.
“But don’t you care….?”
Of course I feel for victims of war and violence! But can I save them? Of course I’m against the horrific actions of dictators and deranged politicians (not naming any names here)! But can I stop them? Of course a bad economy and high inflation hit us, too. But can I turn the trend?
If I thought I could make a real difference I would become an activist or a politician. Sharing banners or forwarding outraging content on social media does not resolve anything. Getting anxious about the state of the world even less.
“You live in a bubble.”
Yes, I do!
Mind you, we all do. I’m just choosing a bubble with less consumption of negativity and a little more calm, peace and creativity. Life is precious and it’s the only one we have. I no longer want to waste time and energy on worrying about things I cannot change or impact at all.
I start a new day with my favorite music, no matter where I wake up. If I’m at home, I enjoy two cups of great coffee on the terrace. In the spring and summer time, I water the plants and speak to the flowers.
My bubble is not isolated from reality, on the contrary, I just select the inputs more carefully than before. I listen to several hours of podcasts every week - about science, business, culture, languages and history. I listen to scientists and important thinkers of today’s world. I read books. I study languages. Most days, I feed my mind a pretty good diet, of course allowing some indulgent sweets like Colombian telenovelas (which are great for studying Spanish, by the way).
To conclude…
I don’t like the word hack, it sounds like click bait. I had trouble coming up with a short and descriptive title for this post.
It is a kind of a philosophy or a practice.
I’m NOT saying you should do as I do, or even try it.
I’m only sharing a simple change in daily habits that worked so well for me that it became a permanent part of my lifestyle.
A little reminder I’ve written and stuck on our bathroom mirror: NOW is a beautiful moment! The noise of the world is loud if you open your ears to it. Focus on what’s truly important.