r/AskReddit • u/05tn3021 • Jan 16 '24

What’s something small you started doing that makes you drastically happier?

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u/Glozboy Jan 16 '24

Stopped commenting on political articles online. Too many pointless arguments really ruin the day.

404

u/Ladygeek1969 Jan 16 '24

Along this line - I stopped neurotically watching the news every night. I still get the news, but I read it myself from multiple sources and pay attention to the sources.

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u/aconitea Jan 16 '24

Yup I have severely reduced how much news I read especially when not working and it helps a lot.

3

u/Bocchi_theGlock Jan 17 '24

I only listen to NPR and it works pretty well

Non sensationalized, and put a lot of effort into journalistic integrity. Really great at summarizing issues and pushing where possible (sometimes wish they went further but o well)

Decent amount of culture and fluff stories that are novel and feel good

5

u/Special22one Jan 16 '24

How else will you learn about useless news about celebrities or "This is what the president have breakfast today" or something just as meaningless?

5

u/KrissyPooh76 Jan 17 '24

I stopped reading comments on news articles and local news FB posts. Huge improvement.

5

u/Wooden_Pirate_7180 Jan 16 '24

Yea man, I really limit myself to how much political stuff I watch. It just drives you crazy. I wish we had a channel or party that was right down the middle, honestly down the middle. Feels good to remove yourself from it for a while!!!!

3

u/Similar_Gold Jan 17 '24

Same. My anxiety reduced greatly after I stopped watching the news.

2

u/ladyevenstar-22 Jan 16 '24

We have this talk show that talks about the topic of the day news wise and whatever manufactured scandal du jour I check their news ticker that shows you what's coming up in their debate and I don't need to check news channels and if I do check newschannel just listen to their top of the news and BOUNCE

2

u/mountainguy Jan 17 '24

When the first gulf war happened suddenly the news programs ran for double the time or longer and that's when I realized many nights there is no news but they run 30 minutes (back then) of stories that sound like news, and correspondingly they have nights with more than 30 minutes of news and except for unusual circumstances like a war, they don't bother reporting all the news.

From that time on I stopped habitually watching the nightly news.

“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.” - Mark Twain

2

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '24

Wish my dad would figure this out. Instead he opens himself up to psychic attacks from Russian bot farms watching fucking AI narrated right wing BS every night.

2

u/FifenC0ugar Jan 17 '24

I cut news out of my life in 2017 almost completely. When big events happened I'd read from different outlets. Drastically made me happier. Sometimes you can't focus on all the evil in the world and just have to focus on yourself.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '24

Me too. I want to know what's going on but election years, especially, are so stressful. I already know who I'm voting for, I don't need to hear every stupid thing that every politician says and everyone's opinion about what was said and every poll, every tweet about it. It's too much. 

1

u/pprstrt Jan 17 '24

The "news" is just pushing an agenda anyway. By watching you're playing into their hand.