To Sustain Your Mental Health, Schedule Time for News and Worrying, and Be Proud of Your Work

The first quarter of 2025 has been a lot. We’ve seen natural disasters like the California wildfires that displaced thousands of residents, and mass layoffs at journalism outlets like the Washington Post and Vox. In the same time, there’ve been cuts to the communications offices at federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health that many of us rely on in our reporting, and a flurry of news out of Washington changing all kinds of policies and laying off federal workers in numerous departments.

Talk about stressful!

With that in mind, the ASJA Virtual Education Committee invited two experts in journalism and trauma to appear on a recent ASJA webinar and share their best strategies for writers to sustain their mental health during a turbulent time.

“This is a period of extraordinary stress and upheaval in journalism,” said psychologist Elana Newman of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma during the program.

The nonstop news cycle and attacks on press freedom take a toll on us, said journalist Naseem Miller of the Journalist’s Resource, the other webinar speaker. The uncertainty of media jobs and harassment “are things that have always been there and part of journalism but have been escalated to a level that we haven’t experienced before,” Miller said.

Stress, Trauma, and Burnout: What’s the Difference?

People use the terms “stress,” “trauma,” and “burnout” interchangeably, but there are differences, Newman said. Stress is the body’s response when the external demands of daily life outweigh your internal resources. Generally, journalists and writers are resilient and do well writing and operating under stress. They tolerate it for a while, and can use moral outrage as fuel for their work, she said.

Trauma typically involves direct or indirect exposure to death, injury, or sexual assault.

Burnout results from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, Newman said.

“Moral injury” is another relevant term to know. It’s defined as a reaction to events that violate a person’s moral or ethical principles, such as feeling betrayed by authority. Writers can respond to moral injury by addressing a problem or changing their reaction to that problem.

Strategies to Sustain Mental Health

Here are some tips Newman and Miller offered to mitigate negative feelings and support your mental health:

• Adjust your outlook on situations that seem outside your control. Focus on what you can do. “You don’t have control over the government,” Newman said. “But you could write a letter to your legislator.” Write an article about it. Remember to breathe.

• Set aside specific times to handle worries. Tell yourself you’re going to worry from 2 to 2:30 pm, for example. If anything bothers you outside that window, write it down. Then, during your worry time, go through your list and see what you can do about each concern. Can you write a letter to a congressperson, or an essay or article? Could you tell someone about it? If you can’t do anything about it, can you adjust your emotional response so it doesn’t bother you as much?

• Manage your news intake. Avoid doomscrolling. Turn off notifications and check just once or twice a day when it’s convenient. “You don’t need to be on top of every story every minute of the day,” Newman said.

• Take breaks from working. Get up from your desk and walk around, put on music, do jumping jacks. Micro breaks can increase well-being and performance, Miller said.

• Think of self-care as a duty, not a luxury. Do what works for you, whether that’s exercising, eating well, doing crafts, gardening, or meeting friends. Put effort into carving out time for yourself. “We can’t have our foot on the pedal all the time,” Miller said.

• Create boundaries between work and home life. Shut down or cover your computer so you don’t see it. When you take a vacation, avoid doing work or checking in with editors.

• Cultivate community. Reach out to colleagues to check on them. Compliment their work if you see a great story or book they wrote.

• Engage in therapy if you need it. It doesn’t have to be dozens of sessions – sometimes just one or two sessions can be helpful to unlock what’s bothering you or to gain some tools to help.

• Prioritize sleep. Don’t look at the news or social media before going to bed. Instead, do something fun for yourself. Read fiction, watch escapist TV, call a friend.

• Give yourself credit when you do well. Be kind to yourself. Take pride in your superpower of narrative.

• Practice gratitude. Before going to sleep, think of three things that day you are thankful for.

For more information, watch the webinar recording, which is free for members, and $20 for nonmembers. It’s available through ASJA’s online store. And check out this list of resources for self-care and coping with trauma shared by Newman and Miller.

ASJA’s Virtual Education Committee is working on additional programming for the spring and summer. Please join us for our next program, What the Trump Administration Could Mean for Freelancers, on Monday, May 19, from 1-2 pm ET. Registration is open now.

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Karen Blum is a freelance medical and science writer in the Baltimore area and head of ASJA’s Virtual Education Committee.