Thinking about trying a diet for your New Year’s resolution? For your health and well-being, consider a social media diet. It’s not what you might think.
The media we consume affects our thoughts, emotions, and ultimately our quality of life, notes Jodie Jackson in Positive News, one of the inspiring news feeds I follow. So how can we turn down the negative, triggering junk in our social media so it doesn’t damage our mental and emotional well-being?
A social media diet doesn’t mean you have to get off Facebook, stomp your smartphone, and become a hermit. You can stay informed about what’s going on without compromising your mental health, as I’ve written in this post and others.
It starts with practicing Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), as I explained in this interview with Live Happy — with a name like that, you know that’s got to be positive! Practicing MSC gives you the ability to slow down, calm down, and choose a different channel when you feel anxious or activated.
One problem with social media is that we tend to engage in it mindlessly, rather than mindfully.
Some of us have fallen into doomscrolling, clicking on headlines that are alarming or triggering. The more you click on them, the more those type of posts will be served to you!
When you intentionally follow positive people, publications, and sources in your social media, you can make the algorithms work for your state of mind rather than against it.
For instance, I subscribe to sources like CNN’s 5 Good Things and get regular updates from Greater Good Magazine, a publication of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. I fill my email with newsletters from poets with positive and uplifting messages – people like Julia Fehrenbacher, James Crews, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and Kai Coggin, as I noted in last month’s post on healing with poetry.
Another of my favorites is Parker J. Palmer, whose tagline is “POETRY + PROSE + POLITICS: Pro-democracy, Pro-civil discourse, Pro-decency.” He’s an incredibly wise, inspirational guy.
I also subscribe to Facebook feeds from Backyard Bird Lovers, where people post their bird photos, and I get beautiful images from many nature photographers, just by clicking “like” when I see their photos.
Speaking of nature, I love Douglas Wood and his Church O’ the Pines. He’s an artist, musician, naturalist, wilderness guide, and author of 39 books including “A Wild Path” and “Deep Woods, Wild Waters: A Memoir.”
One cool thing about cultivating your media diet is this: the more you look for positive people, the more you will find them. I just found this woman named Jen Hatmaker who writes books and has a podcast. She has 818,000 followers on Facebook! I also follow Scottish author and poet Donna Ashworth. I have her book “Wild Hope” and also her new one, “Growing Brave: Words to Soothe Fear and Let in More Life.”
I intentionally fill my news feeds with positive and inspirational people, and when I find someone that I like, I buy their book if they have one. So when I found poet and author Jessica Kantrowitz, I bought her book “Blessings for the Long Night: Poems and Meditations to Help You through Depression.” I now have so many poetry books that I ran out of room on my bookcase and had to start filling up more shelves!
A social media diet is not just about avoiding the negative, but filling your life with what’s healthy and uplifting. If there are people who are ranting and raging and you find yourself feeling bad after reading their posts, you can snooze them for 30 days, unfollow them, or block them. You have control.
When you find someone whose words make you feel good, like them, follow, and share them.
It’s why you see a lot of posts in my Facebook feed from Nanea Hoffman’s Sweatpants & Coffee. I love all her inspirational little memes, and I also happen to be a huge coffee lover!
I’m a student of Jon Kabat-Zinn, the father of the mindfulness movement, and I just recently noticed he has Facebook page. He posts quotes daily, and today’s is “Life only unfolds in moments. The healing power of mindfulness lies in living each of those moments as fully as we can, accepting it as it is as we open to what comes next — in the next moment of now.” Ahhhh, that’s so good!
A few more of my favorites teachers that I follow on and off social media include:
It’s all about taking care of yourself. We actually have control over what we’re taking in, and there is so much goodness out there we can choose. So choose happiness, choose wellness, and choose wisely, and that’s what you will end up seeing. Where attention goes, energy flows and neural networks grow, making happy bridges in your brain.
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