Page 119 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

84. Go on a news fast

I first heard the term “news fast” from Dr. Andrew Weil, who writes about
natural medicine and spontaneous healing. Weil recommends going on news
fasts because he believes this has a healing effect on the human system. To him,
it’s a genuine health issue.

My own recommendation for news fasts has to do with the psychology of
self-motivation. If you go for periods of time without listening to or reading the
news, you will notice an upswing in your optimism about life. You’ll feel a lift
in energy. “But shouldn’t I stay informed?” people ask me. “Aren’t I being a bad
citizen if I don’t keep up with what’s happening in my community? Shouldn’t I
be watching the news?” In answering this question, I offer an observation that
may startle you: The news is no longer the news.

It used to be that Walter Cronkite would end his program by saying, “And
that’s the way it is.” And we trusted that he was right. But today, it’s much
different. Shock value has the highest premium of all for a news story, and the
lines are now blurred between the evening news and the grossest tabloids.

Today, the goal of the person putting the evening news show together is to
stimulate our emotions in as many ways as possible. Every night we will see
human suffering. We will also see con artists, and even whole companies getting
away with scams that victimize people cruelly. If there’s a report on politics, it
features the most venomous attacks between two partisans. The goal of the news
today is stimulation. It’s to take us on an emotional roller-coaster ride. It’s a
“good” program if we have been enraged by one story, saddened by another, and
amused by the third.

Is it any wonder that by programming our minds with this gross and
frightening information all day and into the night, we end up a little less
motivated? Is it hard to understand a certain slippage in our optimism?

Going on a news fast is a refreshing cure for this problem. You can do it for
one day a week, to begin with, and then get back into the tabloid shows the next
day if you have to. Once you start fasting, you’ll find your entire mood picking
up.

“But what about staying informed?” you ask. There are many ways to stay
fully informed. The Internet has wonderful, thoughtful sites. In fact, it is far
better to be informed intellectually than to be informed emotionally. There are