News Blackout? Just don’t wallow in the bad stuff - Podcast

“I think that news blackouts are okay up to a point, but we do have to be aware of the world,” says mindfulness expert Padraig O’Morain.

“We need to know about them [news stories] but that doesn’t mean that we have to wallow in them to the extent that it’s bad for us,” he told Róisín Ingle, presenter of the Róisín Meets podcast.

The internet has changed news consumption dramatically. In the past, news outlets curated what people were exposed to, but now we are constantly bombarded with images and stories about all of the horrible things that are happening in the world. What’s more, said O’Morain, some of the people doing these horrible things want you to see them.

“It is a whole different sense of reality that we have got to be able to cope with, or to deal with, or relate to in our time,” he said.

Donald Trump’s presidency is one news story that people will have to accept as reality in a week’s time. O’Morain said he has thought a lot about which personality disorder he would attribute to Trump and has concluded that he is a narcissist.

“Narcissism doesn’t just mean that you think that you’re god’s gift to the world,” he said. “It’s a really deep need, something that’s almost impossible to change. You can get very upset and disturbed with people who do not agree with that point of view. In Trump I think we see somebody who is like that.”

Also on the podcast, O’Morain spoke about the increased popularity of mindfulness as a means of combating stress and how, if introduced in schools, it could help with many issues like self-harming among teenagers.

O’Morain also suggested that some Irish TDs would benefit from mindfulness, he talked about the pitfalls of comparing ourselves to people’s social media personas and he offered advice on how to start the New Year in a positive space by overcoming our in-built negativity bias.

To listen to Padraig O’Morain talk to Róisín Ingle about Trump, news blackouts, mindfulness, and more, go to Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher or irishtimes.com.