Ban the News?!?

Many years ago I read a suggestion (I think it was in one of Andrew Weil’s books) that NOT listening/reading/watching the news could be good for your health.

At the time I dismissed the idea, but now I’ve decide to give it a try.  Remember the Simon and Garfunkel song “The Only Living Boy in New York”. It included the lyric “I get the news I need on the weather report. I can gather all the news I need to know from the weather report.”

I’m not sure I’d go THAT far. But I can get all the news I need from the people around me. Sometimes I hear about something I want to know more about and then I do some research.

SOMEONE needs to follow the news, but personally I’d rather listen to music while I get ready for work or drive around in my car. All I can say is “try it”. Do you feel more peaceful as you go about your day?

I’m not suggesting a person be ignorant of the world’s problems. Those problems need our attention. But for me, I think I’d been overdoing the need to know. I’d been filling my time and my head with TOO much news TOO often.

And maybe it did affect my health. All those stress hormones can’t help but flow when I expose myself to the news.  But I still watch the weather report!