Escape the news cycle

This post by Jorge Arango helps me keep my zen when I feel overwhelmed by the news.

The daily news is noisy; prone to get you stressed; concerns things you can't directly affect; and is very likely to become irrelevant in the future. It's also addictive.

To stay up-to-date, it's enough to skim news headlines every now and then. Important news that affect your life directly will reach you one way or another via friends or other channels.

It is more productive to spend time reading content that has more permanence. Monthly or quarterly periodicals and older books have more long-lasting knowledge that can give you perspective when facing current events.

Events in the higher and more frequent layers of information are more noisy because they contain many experiments and new ideas that haven't been tested before. These experiments and ideas follow a selection process by which the strongest ones become deeper engrained in culture.