Day 101: A Sure-Fire Cure for the Bad News Blues

Photo by Luis Cortés on Unsplash

The news this week is especially terrible. You and I can’t change that.

But there is something you and I can do. Want a cure for the bad news blues? Work in a law clinic (or whatever equivalent avenue of service your chosen field offers).

It may sound daft to recommend representing asylum-seekers (or abused children, or low-income veterans) as a way to ward of depression about the state of the world. Engaging with people every day who are seeing some really rough stuff — wouldn’t that just make it worse?

Paradoxically, no. And psychology research suggests why.

The Cure for the Bad News Blues

When we watch the news, we get a steady diet of mostly bad things we can’t do anything about. Psychology research suggests it’s not the bad news itself but the powerlessness that contributes to feelings of unhappiness and depression.

In Harvard Business Review, positive psychology researchers Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan reported that consuming just three minutes of bad news before work made study participants 27% more likely to feel depressed later in the day compared with people who watched what they called “solution-focused news” in which people worked toward goals or overcame hurdles.

According to Achor and Gielan, our sense of empowerment, or lack thereof, is the key to remaining effective:

We believe that negative news influences how we approach our work and the challenges we encounter at the office because it shows us a picture of life in which our behavior does not matter. The majority of news stories showcase problems in our world that we can do little or nothing about.

The good news is that there is a flip side to this coin. Another body of research shows that people who are optimistic feel better and perform better at work. If you can flip the switch, you can avoid the downward spiral — and remain happy and effective.

Getting Empowered

Achor and Gilean suggest several techniques for getting more optimistic, such as turning off news alerts, taking some quiet time, and consciously seeking out more can-do stories.

I’ve used all those techniques, and they work great. But in my experience, nothing combats the feeling of disempowerment like helping people in need by doing the thing you do best.

If you’re a lawyer or a law student, you’re good at talking to people. Good at finding solutions. Good at crafting arguments, maybe, or at making connections between people or ideas.

I found a way to put all these skills to use at once in the Immigration Law Clinic. Our clients are in a bind, alright — sometimes it’s the very bind we’re all seeing on the 24-hour news.

I can’t fix what’s on the news. But I can offer my skills and talents, one person at a time, to clients who need a way forward. By focusing on the person right next to me, I shake off that silent killer, disempowerment.

As a clinical professor, I have the added joy of introducing students, who may themselves struggle against disempowerment and depression, to this path forward. I am learning to get out of the way and help them discover how they can serve best.

A virtuous cycle of giving

It doesn’t matter how much of the problem you solve. It doesn’t even matter what problem you’re working on. All that matters is that you find something that you can do to serve, and you focus — really focus — on doing that.

Once you lock in on that focus, it tends to reinforce itself. Because now you can’t give in to the temptation to watch the news and downcycle — you don’t have time. You have people who need your help, in ways that you have the power to give, and you know you’ll need all your energy and optimism to show up for them.

Now turn off CNN or FOX and go to bed. Someone needs your help tomorrow. They deserve you at your best — and by the way, so do you.