When news negatively impacts your mental health, proactively seek opportunities to help others, as taking action is an effective way to absorb anxiety and increase your helpfulness.
Practice simple, everyday compassionate actions, such as volunteering, donating, calling loved ones, or holding doors, recognizing that there is no hierarchy in helpfulness and these acts reduce anxiety.
Cultivate the paradox of caring deeply while also recognizing impermanence, as this balance is essential for living a sane life and acknowledging that your actions still matter.
View current events and personal challenges through a broader lens, like the ‘Venus lens,’ ‘God perspective,’ or the ‘Pale Blue Dot,’ to pull yourself out of ruts, broaden your view, and inspire kinder actions.
Be in touch with the fundamental truth that everything changes, as this often-overlooked understanding can be very helpful for navigating fraught and polarized environments.
Engage in loving-kindness meditation, a practice designed to help with fear and shown to offer physiological, psychological, and behavioral benefits.
Cultivate the four Brahma Viharas—loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity—as these practices have profoundly impacted the speaker’s life and offer significant benefits.
Work on improving your personal state and well-being, as this self-improvement has a ‘geopolitical case’ by reducing your anxiety and increasing your helpfulness to the world.
Join the live meditation mini-series (May 19-23, 4 p.m. Eastern) to learn practices, including loving-kindness meditation, that serve as a ‘Buddhist antidote to anxiety’ and include guided meditation and Q&A.
Become a paid subscriber at danharris.com to gain full access to the live meditation mini-series beyond the free Monday session, and explore other subscriber benefits.
Join the Substack community as a paid subscriber to receive ad-free shows, episode cheat sheets, transcripts, commenting access, subscriber chats, and twice-monthly live video meditation sessions with Q&A.