It’s World Mental Health Day this Friday, and this year’s theme – mental health in catastrophes and emergencies – couldn’t feel more on the nose if it tried. Here, Managing Director Ellen Widdup reflects on how, as the world lurches from crisis to crisis, those of us in PR, comms, or digital have developed an unofficial extra job title: Professional Doomscroller.
We’re paid to keep our eyes on the news. All of it. And lately that feels less like “staying informed” and more like trying to drink from a blender mid-spin while someone adds more ice cubes.
In the last few weeks alone Nigel Farage has been teasing a comeback like a Big Brother contestant waiting to re-enter the house and Donald Trump is well, still the star of his own kind of bonkers reality show.
Meanwhile conflicts across the globe – from Ukraine to the Middle East – continue to dominate headlines with gut-wrenching daily updates and the cost-of-living crisis still looms over the UK, reshaping policies, priorities, and (inevitably) headlines. So much so that 51% of UK consumers admit to obsessively checking their banking/finance apps – described as “financial doomscrolling.”
Just to keep things extra spicy, climate disasters also keep popping up and, after the hottest summer on record which raised alarms about extreme weather and future climate risks, its feeding into a growing sense of climate anxiety.
For anyone, that’s a lot.
For those of us whose job it is to read, watch, clip, analyse, post and respond to it… it’s constant.
But while “doomscrolling” has become a punchline, it’s also genuinely linked to anxiety, burnout, and feelings of helplessness.
In one recent study, 74% of those with problematic news consumption reported mental health problems, and 61% reported physical health issues. So yes, your “quick lunchtime scroll” might actually be messing with your cortisol levels.
The thing is, we can’t not keep up. We need to know the headlines, the context, the angles – whether we’re prepping a client’s reactive statement or just trying to spot the next trend before it peaks.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth – repeated exposure to crisis coverage affects mental health, even if you’re not personally involved in the events.
It’s like sitting in a car with the alarm blaring all day – eventually, you stop noticing the sound consciously, but your nervous system doesn’t.
This year’s World Mental Health Day theme shines a light on exactly that – the way global instability and emergencies impact people’s mental health, and the need to ensure everyone has the tools and support to cope.
We may not have the power to influence global events – Farage is going to Farage, Trump is going to… well, Trump – but we can protect our brains from being chewed up by the 24/7 news cycle.
Here are a few genuinely helpful strategies we’ve found in the Satsuma office:
In PR, we can’t avoid the news cycle. But we can stop it from swallowing us whole. Doomscrolling might feel like part of the job description, but mental health is not optional admin – it’s essential if we want to keep showing up for clients, teams, and ourselves.
World Mental Health Day is a reminder that stepping back isn’t self-indulgent – it’s self-preservation. Especially when Farage, Trump, and the general circus of 2025 seem hell-bent on testing everyone’s blood pressure.
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