Gen Z: How to Stay Sane When the World is Burning
- Kimberly Mahr
- Jul 15
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 11
Open your phone. Within seconds, you’re hit with a firehose of dread. A headline about another record-breaking heatwave. A toxic political debate is raging in your feed. An economic forecast that makes your student loan debt feel like a life sentence. The ice caps are melting, democracy feels like it’s cracking at the seams, and the cost of living is spiraling out of control.
You close the app, but the feeling lingers. It’s a heavy, churning mix of anxiety, anger, and a profound sense of helplessness. It’s the feeling that the world is fundamentally broken and you are powerless to do anything about it.
This isn't just "being stressed." This is a specific form of psychological distress that defines our generation. Mental health experts have given it names like eco-anxiety, climate grief, and political despair. It’s the ambient, background radiation of our daily lives, a constant awareness that the systems we were supposed to inherit are failing.
And the worst part? When you voice this anxiety, you’re often met with platitudes from older generations. "Don't worry so much." "Just be positive." "It's always been like this."
Let's get one thing straight: Your anxiety is not an overreaction. It is a sane, rational response to an insane and irrational world. You are not broken for feeling this way. The world is facing unprecedented challenges.
But here is the second, more important truth: Allowing your rational anxiety to curdle into paralyzing despair is a choice. Letting helplessness win is an abdication of your power.
You cannot single-handedly fix the climate or heal the political divide, but you are far from powerless. Your task is not to solve the world’s problems but to cultivate a mind and a life strong enough to face them without breaking. This is your guide to staying sane, engaged, and powerful when the world feels like it’s on fire.
The Doomscroll Spiral: How Your Brain Gets Hooked on Dread
Why does it feel so impossible to look away? You know that scrolling through bad news for hours makes you feel terrible, yet you keep doing it. This is not a failure of willpower; it’s a feature of your brain’s ancient survival software being exploited by modern technology.
Your brain is hardwired with a negativity bias. For our ancestors, paying hyper-attention to potential threats (a predator in the bushes, a rival tribe) was a key to survival. Forgetting where the berries were was a small mistake; forgetting where the lions were was a fatal one.
As a result, your brain is like Velcro for bad news and Teflon for good news.
The algorithms that run your social media and news feeds know this. They know that fear, outrage, and conflict generate massive engagement. They feed your negativity bias a constant, all-you-can-eat buffet of dread, creating a self-perpetuating cycle known as "doomscrolling." A 2022 study in Health Communication found a clear link between this specific behavior and significant negative impacts on mental and physical health.
You scroll to stay informed, but you end up in a state of "information-paralysis," so overwhelmed by the scale of the problems that you do nothing at all. This is the trap. The first step to getting out is to reclaim control of your attention.
Step 1: Ditch the Information Firehose, Grab a Water Bottle
You do not need to know everything about every crisis, everywhere, all at once. Being perpetually “plugged in” does not make you more informed; it makes you more anxious and less effective. You need to shift from being a passive consumer of endless information to an active, strategic seeker of useful knowledge.
Curate Your Sources: Unfollow the rage-bait aggregators and the political commentators who profit from your outrage. Instead, choose two or three high-quality, low-hype sources for your news. This could be a reputable newspaper, a long-form journalism outlet, or a non-partisan research organization.
Schedule Your Worry Time: Give yourself a specific, limited window to catch up on the news. Maybe it's 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening. When the time is up, you’re done. The rest of the day is protected mental space. This practice, often used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, prevents anxiety from bleeding into every corner of your life.
Embrace the "Slow News" Movement: Opt for weekly summary podcasts or newsletters instead of a minute-by-minute live feed. This gives you the essential information without the emotional whiplash of the 24/7 news cycle.
Step 2: Find Your Locus of Control
This is the most powerful psychological tool you have for fighting helplessness. The "locus of control" is a concept from psychologist Julian Rotter that describes where you believe power resides.
An external locus of control means you believe your life is dictated by outside forces—the government, the economy, fate. This is a recipe for despair and victimhood.
An internal locus of control means you believe you have the power to influence events and outcomes through your own actions. This is the foundation of agency and hope.
You cannot control global carbon emissions. You cannot control who is in office. But you are not powerless. Your job is to ruthlessly focus your energy on the small, concentric circles of things you can control.
Action Step: The Circles of Control Audit. Draw three concentric circles on a piece of paper.
Inner Circle (Direct Control): Label this "Things I Control." This is your inner world. Your actions, your words, your choices, your mindset, what you eat, how you move your body, what you spend your money on.
Middle Circle (Influence): Label this "Things I Can Influence." You can't control these, but you can have an impact. Your local community, your family's recycling habits, your friend group's political awareness, your workplace's policies.
Outer Circle (Concern): Label this "Things I'm Concerned About." This is where most of the big, scary stuff lives. International politics, global climate patterns, etc.
Your goal is to spend 90% of your energy, time, and attention on the inner two circles. When you find yourself spinning out about a problem in the outer circle, consciously pull your focus back and ask: "What is one small action I can take in my circle of control or influence right now that addresses this issue?"
Step 3: From Clicktivism to Actual Action
Liking a post about climate change or sharing an infographic is not action. It’s "slacktivism," a low-effort digital performance that gives you the feeling of participation without any of the impact. It’s a cheap hit of dopamine that ultimately reinforces your sense of powerlessness because you know, deep down, that you haven't actually done anything.
The most effective antidote to despair is not hope; it's action. Meaningful, tangible action, no matter how small.
Go Local: Stop trying to solve the world's problems and start solving your neighborhood's problems. Join a local community garden. Volunteer for a candidate in a municipal election. Help out at a local food bank or shelter. Tangible, local action provides a powerful sense of efficacy—the feeling that your effort produces a real result. This feeling is rocket fuel for your mental health.
Align Your Money with Your Morals: Where you spend and invest your money is a powerful vote for the kind of world you want to live in. Research and support local businesses. Move your banking to a credit union or a bank that doesn't invest in fossil fuels. This turns a source of anxiety into an act of personal integrity.
Bring It to Your Career: Whatever your field, find a way to connect your work to a solution. If you’re in tech, work on projects related to sustainability or accessibility. If you’re in marketing, offer your skills to a non-profit you believe in. Connecting your daily labor to a larger purpose is a powerful buffer against burnout and despair.
You were born into a difficult, chaotic chapter of human history. You have every right to be angry, scared, and overwhelmed. Feel those things. They are proof that you are paying attention.
But do not let them be the end of the story. Do not let your righteous anger curdle into impotent rage. Do not let your valid fear paralyze you. Your power is not in your ability to fix the world, but in your ability to refuse to be broken by it.
Control your inputs. Focus on your circle of influence. Take one small, meaningful action today. This is how you stay sane. This is how you fight back. This is how you turn your despair into defiance.
And if you need help, we're here!
References:
Pihkala, P. (2020). Anxiety and the Ecological Crisis: An Analysis of Eco-Anxiety and Climate Anxiety. The Journal of Environmental Education, 51(5-6), 423-440.
Clayton, S. (2020). Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 74, 102263.
Bucay, Y. N., & O'Driscoll, M. P. (2022). Doomscrolling and Gloomscrolling: The Roles of Maladaptive Cognitions and Dispositional Affect in Problematic News Consumption. Health Communication, 1-9.
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 1-28.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H. Freeman.
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., & Roser-Renouf, C. (2021). Climate Change in the American Mind. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
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