This article is a kind of safety technique when working with news and information leaks, and also primarily for our press attaché of the forum Eva. The danger can be the loss of a person's mental health. Moreover, nerves that are completely destroyed are a guarantee that physical health will also suffer seriously. 
Evidence of a mental disorder can be considered unsubscribed comments after news on various information sites. In some cases, hysteria of those who unsubscribed is visible, well, or strong emotional excitement.
So, let's begin ...
1. No need to constantly monitor the news
You need to understand for yourself that you are not an analyst of the General Staff, not an on-duty analyst of a stock speculative fund and not a professional digest maker of news
Being online all the time is the best way to burn out your nerves completely and quickly.
Remember: you are an amateur. The fact that you learn the news 12 or 24 hours later will not change absolutely nothing.
The advantage of this approach is obvious: in 12/24 hours, most fakes and leaks that actively hit emotions will already be refuted and you will not waste your nerves on them.
Hence 2 recommendations:
- Read the news as rarely as possible
- Consider all news/interpretations unverified until at least 1 day has passed
2. Pretend to be dead
Look back at the geopolitical events of recent years and remember the waves of panic that rolled across the RuNet. I sincerely sympathize with those who wholeheartedly experienced all the ups and downs of the Syrian crisis and the war in Ukraine. Emotions can be understood, but if you decide to analyze everything in order to understand the situation for yourself, then in the name of preserving your own sanity, you need to abandon the emotional approach and stop looking at the news like a zombie.
Different people use and recommend different approaches in order to be able to adequately perceive the importance of this or that information.
One way: before diving into the news, imagine that you have died. With all the details, the tears of loved ones, preparations for the funeral, and so on. And you died not in some distant future, but right now, today.
If you are imbued with this thought, then your soul will firmly demand to hug your husband/wife/lover, call your parents, go to church, do exercises - this is good. Such a "reboot" is very useful for the brain, as it brings the line of values \u200b\u200bin a more or less normal form. After this, if you still want to read the news, their emotional impact will be greatly reduced, and your view of them will be much more sober. Reading the news "lying in a coffin", it is difficult to find something that will really touch or confuse your brain.
3. Just the facts
Sometimes I come across comments like: "I read the news on blog X and felt bad. I read the news on blog Y and felt happy. I read the analytics on blog Z and got completely confused, somehow restless..."
What is the bottom line? A lot of emotions and nerves were spent, but there was little sense. If you are serious about your attempts to understand the situation, then you need to wean yourself off reading news/analytics "just like that". You need to read, ignoring the emotions of the author and writing down only the facts in a separate file, and after reading, you must definitely check these facts. No emotions, no interpretations. Due to this approach, at the end of viewing different blogs and news sites, you will receive a set of positive, negative and neutral facts, from which you yourself will put together an assessment that will not depend on the ability of the authors to work with your emotions, fears or desires.
4. Lies of eyewitnesses
Remember how your wedding or a difficult project at work was organized and carried out. Now think about how different participants in these events would answer a few simple questions: Who was in charge of the process? How much money was spent? How well/correctly/effectively did everything go? Who interfered with the process? Who helped the most? What went well and what not so well?
Obviously, everyone will have different memories. Assessments - too. Moreover, all these different (sometimes opposite) assessments will come from eyewitnesses and direct participants in the events. If you do get to the truth, then most likely it will include elements of a wide variety of assessments. And the number of these assessments that could fully describe the reality of the events will most likely be zero.
For example:
- remember those who, based on "being right in Donetsk", declare their exclusive understanding of what is happening there.
- the opinion of a blogger "working at Uralvagonzavod"
- the opinion of a blogger who "uses Russian Railways commuter trains every day"
Such information most likely does not reflect the full situation in the areas in which they are allegedly involved. Remember this. Any situation needs to be analyzed comprehensively, and not at the level of "Uncle Vasya said."
5. Opinions of armchair experts
In the process of analyzing news, it is inevitable to face the need to answer the questions "why?" and "what for?" in relation to the actions of political and economic leaders of the planet. Yes, they are the same people as we are and it is quite possible that many bloggers are not dumber than them, but we must understand that Merkel, Putin, the Koch brothers or Xi Jinping are simply different. Not dumber, not smarter, not better or worse than you specifically, but different. Different experience, different social circle, different access to information.
Some opinions of people with their own worldview:
- one African American was firmly convinced,that Putin is in conflict with the US because Putin is a "Christian racist."
- another Frenchman is still firmly convinced that Merkel has tender feelings for Putin, which is the reason for good Russian-German relations.
- I will simply tactfully remain silent about the quite sane Americans who are sure that Putin is a communist.
What can be done to avoid joining the ranks of such armchair experts?
Not everyone has the opportunity to work in the presidential administration or in big business in order to be able to judge from their own experience, which even in this format will be quite limited. The only more or less effective and accessible way out is a lot of books and specialized literature. Human nature does not change over time, so you need to look for primary sources.
6. Understand your limitations
In my opinion, it is very difficult for a Russian person (and I consider anyone who thinks in Russian and is rooting for Russia) to force himself to think in terms and patterns characteristic of other nations, cultures and civilizations. This is both a blessing and a curse characteristic of any great civilization and it greatly interferes with analytical work. In order to break out of the framework of interpretations and translations, which greatly limit one's horizons, it is highly desirable to know at least one more language, in order to read the press, analytics, specialized literature in it, instilling in oneself the ability to transform into a person of a different mentality. Only in this way can a certain objectivity be acquired, which will allow in some cases to better understand the situation.
Total:
As a result, one may get the impression that in this format, reading the news turns from an emotionally charged pastime that can be done during a lunch break into a rather tedious and serious job. No one promised that the process of filtering toxic slag from the news would be an easy task.
There is a good professional saying: what we do changes us. This process has many advantages (compassion, prudence, thoroughness in decision-making will appear), but also disadvantages (compared to other people, if you do not wear a mask, you will seem like a cold freak). It's up to you and only you, but now at least you know how to transform yourself from a potential victim into an adequate reader-analyst.
If you follow the above advice, your nerves will be very grateful
Evidence of a mental disorder can be considered unsubscribed comments after news on various information sites. In some cases, hysteria of those who unsubscribed is visible, well, or strong emotional excitement.
So, let's begin ...
1. No need to constantly monitor the news
You need to understand for yourself that you are not an analyst of the General Staff, not an on-duty analyst of a stock speculative fund and not a professional digest maker of news
Being online all the time is the best way to burn out your nerves completely and quickly.
Remember: you are an amateur. The fact that you learn the news 12 or 24 hours later will not change absolutely nothing.
The advantage of this approach is obvious: in 12/24 hours, most fakes and leaks that actively hit emotions will already be refuted and you will not waste your nerves on them.
Hence 2 recommendations:
- Read the news as rarely as possible
- Consider all news/interpretations unverified until at least 1 day has passed
2. Pretend to be dead
Look back at the geopolitical events of recent years and remember the waves of panic that rolled across the RuNet. I sincerely sympathize with those who wholeheartedly experienced all the ups and downs of the Syrian crisis and the war in Ukraine. Emotions can be understood, but if you decide to analyze everything in order to understand the situation for yourself, then in the name of preserving your own sanity, you need to abandon the emotional approach and stop looking at the news like a zombie.
Different people use and recommend different approaches in order to be able to adequately perceive the importance of this or that information.
One way: before diving into the news, imagine that you have died. With all the details, the tears of loved ones, preparations for the funeral, and so on. And you died not in some distant future, but right now, today.
If you are imbued with this thought, then your soul will firmly demand to hug your husband/wife/lover, call your parents, go to church, do exercises - this is good. Such a "reboot" is very useful for the brain, as it brings the line of values \u200b\u200bin a more or less normal form. After this, if you still want to read the news, their emotional impact will be greatly reduced, and your view of them will be much more sober. Reading the news "lying in a coffin", it is difficult to find something that will really touch or confuse your brain.
3. Just the facts
Sometimes I come across comments like: "I read the news on blog X and felt bad. I read the news on blog Y and felt happy. I read the analytics on blog Z and got completely confused, somehow restless..."
What is the bottom line? A lot of emotions and nerves were spent, but there was little sense. If you are serious about your attempts to understand the situation, then you need to wean yourself off reading news/analytics "just like that". You need to read, ignoring the emotions of the author and writing down only the facts in a separate file, and after reading, you must definitely check these facts. No emotions, no interpretations. Due to this approach, at the end of viewing different blogs and news sites, you will receive a set of positive, negative and neutral facts, from which you yourself will put together an assessment that will not depend on the ability of the authors to work with your emotions, fears or desires.
4. Lies of eyewitnesses
Remember how your wedding or a difficult project at work was organized and carried out. Now think about how different participants in these events would answer a few simple questions: Who was in charge of the process? How much money was spent? How well/correctly/effectively did everything go? Who interfered with the process? Who helped the most? What went well and what not so well?
Obviously, everyone will have different memories. Assessments - too. Moreover, all these different (sometimes opposite) assessments will come from eyewitnesses and direct participants in the events. If you do get to the truth, then most likely it will include elements of a wide variety of assessments. And the number of these assessments that could fully describe the reality of the events will most likely be zero.
For example:
- remember those who, based on "being right in Donetsk", declare their exclusive understanding of what is happening there.
- the opinion of a blogger "working at Uralvagonzavod"
- the opinion of a blogger who "uses Russian Railways commuter trains every day"
Such information most likely does not reflect the full situation in the areas in which they are allegedly involved. Remember this. Any situation needs to be analyzed comprehensively, and not at the level of "Uncle Vasya said."
5. Opinions of armchair experts
In the process of analyzing news, it is inevitable to face the need to answer the questions "why?" and "what for?" in relation to the actions of political and economic leaders of the planet. Yes, they are the same people as we are and it is quite possible that many bloggers are not dumber than them, but we must understand that Merkel, Putin, the Koch brothers or Xi Jinping are simply different. Not dumber, not smarter, not better or worse than you specifically, but different. Different experience, different social circle, different access to information.
Some opinions of people with their own worldview:
- one African American was firmly convinced,that Putin is in conflict with the US because Putin is a "Christian racist."
- another Frenchman is still firmly convinced that Merkel has tender feelings for Putin, which is the reason for good Russian-German relations.
- I will simply tactfully remain silent about the quite sane Americans who are sure that Putin is a communist.
What can be done to avoid joining the ranks of such armchair experts?
Not everyone has the opportunity to work in the presidential administration or in big business in order to be able to judge from their own experience, which even in this format will be quite limited. The only more or less effective and accessible way out is a lot of books and specialized literature. Human nature does not change over time, so you need to look for primary sources.
6. Understand your limitations
In my opinion, it is very difficult for a Russian person (and I consider anyone who thinks in Russian and is rooting for Russia) to force himself to think in terms and patterns characteristic of other nations, cultures and civilizations. This is both a blessing and a curse characteristic of any great civilization and it greatly interferes with analytical work. In order to break out of the framework of interpretations and translations, which greatly limit one's horizons, it is highly desirable to know at least one more language, in order to read the press, analytics, specialized literature in it, instilling in oneself the ability to transform into a person of a different mentality. Only in this way can a certain objectivity be acquired, which will allow in some cases to better understand the situation.
Total:
As a result, one may get the impression that in this format, reading the news turns from an emotionally charged pastime that can be done during a lunch break into a rather tedious and serious job. No one promised that the process of filtering toxic slag from the news would be an easy task.
There is a good professional saying: what we do changes us. This process has many advantages (compassion, prudence, thoroughness in decision-making will appear), but also disadvantages (compared to other people, if you do not wear a mask, you will seem like a cold freak). It's up to you and only you, but now at least you know how to transform yourself from a potential victim into an adequate reader-analyst.
If you follow the above advice, your nerves will be very grateful
