The big issue: In association with Happiful
Therapy Today, November 2026

The world is getting scarier. At least it can feel that way. You sit down at the end of a long day and open your phone. You scroll through your feed: there’s a photo of your friend on holiday, another of someone’s house renovation, and then there’s the news that an unfathomable number of people have lost their lives to a global conflict. You wake up in the morning and ask your smart speaker to give you an update: it tells you the temperature, gives an estimation of the likelihood of rain, then moves into the top stories where the first one is of frightening new climate figures. Today bad news feels almost unavoidable. It’s not just in newspapers but in our hands at all hours of the day in the form of smartphones. And it’s taking a toll.

In a September 2026 survey of 600 Counselling Directory professionals, part of the Happiful network of wellbeing platforms, 74% said that they had noticed news-related anxiety coming up more often with clients. When asked what feelings and behaviours they had noticed in clients in relation to news or current events, 67% reported seeing ‘fear about the future’, 66% said ‘increased anxiety or worry’, and 58% saw ‘doomscrolling or compulsive news checking’.

As Editor of Happiful magazine I recently surveyed readers on the question, ‘What element of modern life affects you the most?’ ‘Anxiety-inducing’, ‘horrifying’, ‘depressing’, ‘existential dread’, ‘doom’ – over and over again readers shared how the news was impacting them, many going on to say that for the sake of their wellbeing they had to turn it off completely.

‘Top of list: the bombardment of bad news, a constant reminder that man is doing damage to others and the environment. I pray, worry, write and donate,’ says Karen from the Isle of Wight. ‘I avoid the news and traditional media at all costs. Knowing that unpleasant things have happened far away just makes my day worse,’ says Clare from the West Midlands. Another reader, Nicola from Yorkshire, wrote: ‘I only listen to the news once a day at most; it can be too depressing and affects my mood.’

74% of of Counselling Directory professionals said that they had noticed news-related anxiety coming up more often with clients

These are just a snapshot of the messages we received. As I scrolled through the responses I felt sad and sympathetic, but I didn’t feel surprised. Beyond what my own relationship with the news could tell me, the things that I was seeing were in line with the national picture.

Negative press

In 2025 the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report¹ found that 46% of people in the UK said they sometimes or often actively avoid the news compared with 24% in 2017. Of those people who avoided it the most common reason for doing so was that the news had ‘a negative effect on their mood’ (39%), followed by feeling ‘worn out by the amount of news’ (31%).

‘People are fed up with political news in particular. They feel overloaded and bombarded by the amount of coverage, much of it negative,’ says Dr Craig T Robertson at the Reuters Institute, considering the findings of the Digital News Report. ‘The overall trend we have tracked over the past 10 years has not been a positive one: consumption of online news appears to be in decline, interest in news has fallen sharply, and more people are avoiding news or choosing not to consume it at all.’

A pattern of feeling anxious or overwhelmed in response to consuming negative news, news anxiety can impact our lives in many ways. But what’s happening psychologically when we’re repeatedly exposed to distressing news?

‘What we see becomes our world, and the more we see it, the more of our reality it becomes,’ says Dr Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatrist and Founding Director of the Stress, Trauma, and Anxiety Research Clinic at Wayne State University in the US, who has written extensively on the topic. ‘Especially on social media, when the algorithms decide that is what we are interested in, and we will see more and more related news and images. As a result we develop a very grim, sad and scary perception of the world.’

As Dr Javanbakht explains, this leads to frustration, anxiety, overestimation of danger, anger and desensitisation – which could border on a traumatic response. ‘An example is how an American would perceive another mass shooting versus someone in a country without a history of repeated mass shootings,’ he adds. ‘We lose our empathy for others’ suffering.’

When asked whether news anxiety is something that she sees coming up with clients in the therapy room more often, counsellor and clinical supervisor Abigail Holman has a firm answer: ‘Yes, definitely,’ she says. ‘I’m coming across it in a couple of different ways. One is people actively seeking out the news and feeling compelled to keep up with what is happening. The other is people unexpectedly coming across distressing content when they weren’t looking for it.’

‘Someone might be casually scrolling, watching something light-hearted, and then suddenly be confronted with a live stream of a traumatic event or graphic imagery. That can really catch the nervous system off guard because they haven’t had much opportunity to prepare for what they are about to see.’

Holman also points to the conflict people feel around having a ‘moral duty to stay informed’. ‘Clients often feel that turning away means turning a blind eye, or that because they are in a more fortunate position they have a responsibility to keep witnessing what is happening,’ she explains. ‘That can lead to guilt about switching off, difficulty sleeping and even guilt about enjoying their own life when they know other people are suffering.’

This tension was something that was explicitly explored in a 2022 paper.² Researchers saw that there was a conflict between two key things: the social ideal that being a ‘good citizen’ involves staying informed, and the participant’s experience that consuming news leaves them ‘anxious and disempowered’.

It’s a sentiment I recognised in reader Barrie’s message in our survey, where he wrote: ‘I’ve become hypervigilant about reading the news as it happens, and can feel that it has an effect on my nervous system. Walking and music help.’

Considering what’s happening psychologically when we continue to check the news, even though it’s making us feel worse, Holman points to the human need to know. ‘For some people I think there can also be a search for certainty,’ she explains. ‘When we feel unsettled or powerless, checking for more information can give us a brief sense that we’re doing something or getting some kind of control over the situation, even if what we find actually leaves us feeling worse.’

Dr Arash Javanbakht, psychiatrist

Shared emotions

From conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine to escalating global tensions, climate disasters and injustice, the bad news is endless, and it comes to us in an unstoppable digital tide. It makes sense that we might believe that if we stay on top of the issue, understand the ins and outs of it, we might be able to control the way it affects us. This feels particularly poignant when it comes to human tragedy – and for integrative counsellor Rav Sekhon our reaction points to something inherent to us as connected, social people.

‘We all inevitably feel news anxiety in some capacity as we are connected as human beings through shared emotions we universally experience,’ he explains. ‘This is very true and real, and it’s important for us to acknowledge that the feeling exists. There is no shame in being impacted by world events; it is a natural part of our experience, and often it is such emotion that has the power to create positive change or influence – big and small. As therapists we need to hold the emotion with the client and explore what it brings up for them, guiding them through the process with the aim of having greater awareness of it and potentially creating meaning from it.’

When it comes to discussing news anxiety in the therapy room, psychotherapist Hannah Jackson-McCamley says that it’s as relevant to ask clients about their news consumption as it is to enquire about their relationship with their body, food, sex, family and friends.

‘Like all the aspects of a client’s life that I am curious about, how our clients engage with the news and the subsequent feelings associated with it gives us data on their perspective, values and outlook and how they participate in the world,’ she explains. ‘It’s important to me to get a strong sense of who they are outside the therapy space as well as being curious about potential stressors that could worsen their mental health.’

But as Jackson-McCamley sees it, news anxiety isn’t usually an isolated experience. ‘Some of my clients do explicitly state that the news causes them anxiety, but this is often when the themes presented in the news cause them consternation or are directly impactful to them personally,’ she explains. The news then emerges as a factor in the client’s emotional dysregulation or outlook, sitting alongside other areas such as relationship difficulties or housing and financial insecurity.

Sekhon reports a similar trend with the clients he works with, sharing how the impact they feel often correlates to how they are feeling about life more broadly. ‘People’s personal feelings about a localised event can sometimes be linked to global events, and this reinforces the feeling,’ he says. ‘For example, “I am feeling hopeless about the relationship with my mother and, wow, the way the world is going – it makes me feel even worse.”’

‘As part of the process it’s our duty to explore all elements of what may be causing the client to feel a certain way, to understand what is happening,’ he adds. ‘This is not always obvious and can be very complex, but if news is a clear indicator then there will be value in exploring it further.’

46% of people in the UK said they sometimes or often actively avoid the news 

In July 2026 Mind published a dedicated guide called How to Cope with Upsetting Events in the News.³ It advises people to acknowledge their emotional response, set boundaries and seek support where needed. Similarly the Mental Health Foundation⁴ shares specific guidance on doomscrolling and healthy news consumption as well as advice on coping with ‘global news overwhelm’.⁵ And the American Psychological Association’s (APA) trauma guidance also highlights how studies have shown that prolonged exposure to upsetting news coverage can significantly affect observers’ mental health and wellbeing, even when they are geographically removed from the event.⁶

That said, at present there appears to be little specific clinical guidance on addressing news anxiety in the therapy room, so what are practitioners currently doing?

Abigail Holman, counsellor and clinical supervisor

Finding a balance

‘I’ve found it helpful to explore what’s driving the need to keep checking and what they feel might happen if they step away from it for a while,’ shares Holman. ‘That can open up quite a lot around responsibility, guilt or even conditions of worth – for instance, around what it means to them to be a “good person” and whether staying informed has become tied up with that.’

‘When I’m working in a more solution-focused way I’ve also found it useful to look at how and when they’re engaging with the news, and whether there are times when it affects them more. For instance, if they’re checking first thing in the morning, when cortisol levels are naturally higher, could they experiment with starting the day a bit more calmly and checking later when they feel more resilient?’

Addressing the core concerns of news anxiety can present specific challenges as they are often triggered by real rather than imagined threats. This leaves therapists with the task of validating those concerns while also helping clients with their engagement with the news.

‘I encourage an emotional as well as a practical approach. By this I mean that it is vital that the client’s worries are acknowledged and heard, and that the associated emotions are held, respected and honoured through thoughtful exploration and confirmation,’ says Jackson-McCamley. ‘I share many of their anxieties and so can understand their concerns while also being cautious not to lean into doom talk but rather validate and hold hope, for them and myself.’

‘I find that exploring themes of power can be helpful in identifying where and how the client experiences their own agency and, through countering passive behaviours, encourage them to think about practical ways that they can feel more in control. This approach has led to clients taking proactive steps to challenge the hopelessness that their news anxiety has bestowed upon them, be that by managing media consumption through muting notifications, time limits or full disengagement to becoming activists in various personal ways.’

58% of counselling directory professionals saw 'doomscrolling or compulsive news checking' in client​​​

Rav Sekhon, integrative counsellor

Finding balance when it comes to news, rather than cutting it out completely, is an approach that has a sound foundation. A 2023 study from the APA, which examined the mental health effects of following daily political news, found that disengaging could protect wellbeing, but it could also reduce people’s motivation to act on political causes.⁷ There are still many benefits to staying informed about world events and engaging in action that could lead to change – but there has to be a balance. And that’s something that therapists should consider for their own wellbeing too.

‘I can remember certain world events really hitting me hard, triggering deep emotions within me that sometimes I didn’t expect to feel,’ shares Sekhon. ‘For me this emotion can be a source of connection in the therapy room, allowing depth of experience with the client.’

‘Of course there is a requirement to not make it about “us” in the therapy room, but the source of shared emotion can often help deepen the therapeutic relationship, leading to better outcomes and trust. This requires the skill to be able to bring it back to the client’s experience and create meaningful therapeutic engagement from the emotions. Equally if we are deeply impacted it’s responsible to explore this in supervision, to allow space and time to work through how the emotion is present.’

In a way that is perhaps unique to this sort of anxiety, therapists aren’t observing the events from the outside; they’re inhabiting the same news environments as their clients.

Jackson-McCamley shares a similar experience to Sekhon: ‘As someone who is very politically engaged I am very aware of the impact of my countertransference when clients bring in themes related to news anxiety. At times it can feel akin to silently sharing their trauma across the room, and I notice my own emotional responses to their words and the reality of what they speak.’

‘Sometimes, when their hopelessness and disengagement reflects dissociation or numbness, I wonder if my active, agitated feelings are evidence of projective identification or whether we simply reflect on the world differently and my emotional experience is wholly my own. Over time I have had to step back and reframe my news consumption for the benefit of my work.’

As an example Jackson-McCamley shares how she was working with sexual assault survivors during the high-profile trial of former police officer David Carrick. ‘I was incredibly dysregulated throughout,’ she says. ‘I was grateful for supervisors and peers who challenged my internalised ‘cultural parent’, who believed it was my duty as an engaged citizen to watch the news, and found their tacit permission to take a break from doomscrolling, from reading every article, and protesting when it wasn’t making me a better therapist, a relief.’

News anxiety is inarguably on a lot of people’s minds at the moment. But despite the uncertainty and fear that comes with it, it appears that hope hasn’t disappeared. In April 2026 the latest Office for National Statistics analysis, UK Measures of National Well-being, found that 64.4% of UK adults reported feeling hopeful about their future.⁸ Yes, they may be struggling with the scale of challenges we feel we may face as humanity, but there’s still something worth fighting for.

It’s a sentiment that I see among the readers of Happiful magazine. While many of them shared their anxieties, others spoke of how they deliberately seek out good news stories – not feel-good clips about rehomed puppies (though those certainly have their place) but stories of real progress, innovation and change. ‘I want to stay informed about news and politics but there’s so much bad news all the time. It helps to follow good news outlets and get outside daily,’ says Meera from Cardiff.

Managing our news consumption is not only good for our wellbeing but it also allows us to be open to the good and drive for change that is out there. And Jackson-McCamley has an important reminder: ‘Activist Audre Lorde spoke of self-care being an act of resistance. Self-care, for her, was not about bubble baths and massages but an act of survival against oppression. Self-care for Lorde was about sustenance and nourishment of the self to be able to countenance outside forces that aimed to keep people down. To me this can be extended to encourage us to engage with ourselves closely, and know our emotional selves intimately and expressly so that we have the strength and resources to remain resilient in a tumultuous world. We are not any closer to saving the planet by doomscrolling.’

The companion piece to this article, written by Therapy Today editor Katerina Georgiou, is published in issue 116 of Happiful magazine, out 1 November.

Hannah Jackson-McCamley, psychotherapist