Welcome to the Therapy in a Nutshell podcast. I'm Emma McAdam, a licensed marriage and family therapist,

and I believe therapeutic education can change lives and should be easily accessible to all. These podcast episodes are filled with a research-backed therapeutic education that you can start applying to your life today. If you like these episodes and you want to go into more depth on specific topics like

how to process tough emotions, how to change your brain and build better relationships,

or how to help support someone you know with a mental illness,

then check out my classes at TherapyInanutshell.com. Each podcast episode here comes from a corresponding video you can find on the Therapy in a Nutshell YouTube channel.

Also, these podcasts are educational and don't replace the advice or direction you may be receiving from a therapist or other health professionals.

Okay, let's jump into this week's skill.

It's been a rough weekend for Ukraine and the world. The news coming out of there is painful and scary to watch,

and I know it's affecting a lot of people. Over the weekend, one of my friends posted about how the news was making her anxious and discouraged and overwhelmed. And I know that's the experience for so

many of you kind sensitive people. It's stressful to care. But even more than that, our brilliant

brain believes that we're in danger when we read about other people who are. So in this video,

we're going to talk about how your brain has a reptilian reaction to the news and how this can mess up your life.

And you're going to learn four ways you can actively manage your brain so that the news doesn't make you depressed or overwhelmed with anxiety.

Okay, so the first thing to understand is how news organizations take advantage of your brain. For-profit news organizations

don't care about presenting both sides of the story. They care about activating your amygdala.

They're taking advantage of the survival part of your brain. The reptilian part of your brain

is constantly scanning the world for threats. It wants to survive. So it's watching for

the smallest sign of danger to kick on that fight-flight freeze response. Now your brain has a

counterbalancing rest and digest response, but those two responses aren't identical. The threat

response is way more sensitive than the rest of digest response. And that makes sense if you're a lizard, right?

It's more important to notice any sign of a hawk that might eat you

than it is to notice every single bug that you could eat.

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