How Being Saturated with Information Affects You

What’s the emotion that’s sparked the most often by the sources of information and entertainment you consume or are exposed to?

Having a big emotion sparked makes it more difficult for you to respond to situations, it instead elicits reactions from you.

Some basic truths about what sparks emotional reactions in us can be helpful.

When we watch something visually, full of music, fast cuts back and forth and fast pacing, it primes you to be on edge and more emotional. This makes you more receptive to whatever message they are pitching you.

Reading slows us down, even though we recognize emotional words. But we do need to train ourselves to notice the frequency and flavor of the emotional words that are used so that we can recognize that the articles we are consuming aren’t neutral – they have a stance and a message.

Listening to information, we follow the cadence and emotional tone of the speaker or presenter. We are social animals and built to target in on other’s emotions and stance and either to agree or disagree.

We are in a never-ending onslaught of information these days, and it can really help to consciously choose times when we disconnect and allow for quiet and space to think and be present.

Can we consciously curate what we consume to provide us with more opportunities for uplifting emotions? This is the space where we are able to solve more problems.

Pain needs to be moved. It needs to be acknowledged and healed. But continually poking at our pain cannot give us the space or creative availability to show up as our better selves. For that to occur, we need to create a pause, provide ourselves with the circumstances that nurture us and soothe and inspire us.