We often hear about professional burnout among people in helping professions. During a war, however, emotional exhaustion affects a much wider group — almost everyone who is regularly exposed to a stream of painful news.
One expression of this exhaustion is emotional numbing. What once caused a strong response gradually seems to stop reaching us. We want to look away, scroll past and not watch. This may look like adaptation, but it is often the mind protecting itself when there is too much pain, fear, helplessness and compassion.
Helplessness is another factor. When we read about terrible events, the natural response is a wish to do something. Often we cannot directly influence what happened. This creates helplessness and guilt that ‘I am all right’. Some people begin to restrict their own joy as if they have no right to continue living. This does not reduce anyone else’s pain; it only deepens exhaustion.
Secondary traumatisation also matters. A person does not have to participate directly in an event for the mind to respond as if it were a trauma. Detailed accounts, especially involving children, may become so overwhelming that they lead to tears, irritability, nightmares or a disproportionate response to small events. Sometimes tears over spilled coffee are not about the coffee at all.
This is why information hygiene matters. When a person knows their limits, chooses reliable sources deliberately, reads text instead of watching video more often, and limits the amount of news and time spent in feeds, the mind has a chance not to remain permanently overloaded.
A simple exercise is to track how much time you spend reading news for one day. The next day, reduce that time by half. Then try a day without news or even discussing it. This is difficult because news offers an illusion of control. In reality, we can control only our own life, rhythm and ways of caring for ourselves.