How to Stop Doomscrolling (Because, Yes, It’s Pretty Bad for Your Health)

What Is Doomscrolling?

According to Merriam-Webster, doomscrolling is spending excessive time online scrolling through news or other content that makes one feel sad, anxious, angry, etc.

What Causes Doomscrolling?

As for what causes doomscrolling, it’s largely caused by how plugged in we are at all times—plus how volatile the world is right now. Think about it: When was the last time you went even a few hours without looking at Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) or news apps like Apple News or The New York Times? Now thing about how often the stories or content you encounter on those apps and sites is depressing or infuriating... Yep, doomscrolling is super common—and easy to fall into—in this ultra-connected day and age.

How Does Doomscrolling Affect Your Mental Health?

A few months back, I spoke to neuropsychologist Dr. Sanam Hafeez, Psy.D, about what happens to your brain when you doomscroll. Here are just a few of the things going on when you’re endlessly reading stressful news:

• Disrupted Sleep: Especially if you’re doomscrolling right before bed, your sleep can be negatively impacted by both the blue light from your screen and the stimulating content. Both of these can make it harder to fall asleep and reduce sleep duration, in turn exacerbating stress and anxiety.
• Increased Anxiety Levels: Per Hafeez, watching disturbing news  can trigger the amygdala, the brain’s fear center, by activating your fight-or-flight response. She explains, “That constant flow of bad news, especially negative stories about other people’s problems, can instill a sense of urgency, or even dread, making it harder to feel safe or relaxed.”
• Desensitization: If you’re consistently reading disturbing content, you might become desensitized to emotional stimuli, which can impair your ability to empathize and care for others.
• Negative Cognitive Messages: “Doomscrolling can cement negative cognitive messages, such as catastrophizing, where you predict the worst possible scenario, or all-or-nothing thinking, where you view things as black or white and don’t consider the middle ground,” Hafeez tells me. “These types of cognitive distortions can create a more pessimistic worldview, distorting reality and making challenges feel insurmountable.”
• Dopamine Dysregulation: Doomscrolling can also impact your dopamine levels, Hafeez says, since the anticipation of new information can trigger dopamine release, leading to a vicious circle of seeking out information that ultimately causes distress rather than satisfaction.

1. Stay Informed…but Don’t Overload

As Smith rightly points out, social media presents a nonstop stream of news that can be addictive, noting that it's important to stay informed, but that too much exposure can be overwhelming, and lead to feelings of stress, anxiety and burnout. Try to limit your news intake to a few trusted sources, and try to stop checking the news every time there's a notification.

2. Make It Harder for Yourself 

Here’s another helpful tip from Smith: Turn off auto-login on your social media apps. He says that having to enter your username and password every time you want to scroll will make you more mindful of what you're doing, and make you stop and think about whether you really need to be logging on, preventing you mindlessly picking it up and scrolling without noticing what you’re doing.

3. Find Ways to Regulate Your Emotional State After Scrolling

Hafeez told me that knowing how to wind down after reading a barrage of stressful news is crucial. She suggests everything from going for a walk and doing deep breathing exercises to meditating.

4. Set Limits 

As with human-to-human relationships, boundaries are crucial when it comes to you and your phone. Smith advises that you should set time limits for yourself, and try to limit yourself to only using social media at certain times of the day. Maybe decide to only scroll on X during your lunch hour or on your commute home from work (that is, if your commute doesn’t involve driving). Hafeez agrees that phone breaks are necessary, telling me, “If you’ve been using your phone to keep tabs on the news, checking in with friends or following celebrities on social media, taking a break can help your body to recover and get into a better mental place.”

5. Leave Your Phone Outside of Your Bedroom

It can by tempting, if you keep your phone on your bedside table, to scroll right before falling asleep or right after waking up. That’s…not great. Rather than starting or ending your day reading news that could usher in any negative feelings, try keeping your phone in another room at night. Aside from limiting doomscrolling, leaving your phone in another room can lead to a better night’s sleep. As Andrew Varga, M.D., a neurologist and sleep medicine specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, previously told me, “Electronic devices with backlit screens emit a very high percentage of blue wavelength light. Exposure to blue light from any source—including TVs, cell phones, laptops, e-readers and tablets—late in the day has the effect of advancing our circadian phase, meaning it makes it so that one will become naturally tired later in the night.” Invest in an old-school alarm clock so you can leave your phone outside the bedroom.

6. Curate Your Social Media Feeds

The content you see on social media everyday has a major impact on your mood and mindset, so it tracks that following accounts that post content that makes you feel anxious or angry seriously affects your mental health. Per Smith, be aware of your triggers, unfollow and block accounts that post negative content and mute keywords and hashtags that trigger stress and anxiety and lead to doomscrolling.

7. Seek Support 

As we’ve established, doomscrolling  can have a significant impact on your mental health, leading to feelings of comparison, loneliness and depression, which is why Smith says it’s important to seek support if you’re struggling. He recommends reaching out to friends and family if you’re feeling overwhelmed, or even considering getting help from a mental health professional, who can help you with strategies to build a healthier relationship with social media.

How to Stop Doomscrolling, Summarized

Doomscrolling, or excessively consuming digital content that makes you feel stressed or upset, can have lots of negative mental health side effects. There are, however, a number of ways—as listed above—to limit these negative effects, from setting social media time limits for yourself to keeping your phone in another room while you sleep. You don’t have to ignore the news altogether by any means, but limiting the amount of time you spend consuming potentially negative content can have positive impacts on your overall mood.