Avoid Doomscrolling by Charging Your Nature Battery

When opening your phone to check the news or scroll on your favorite social media platform, the doomscrolling spiral is excitedly awaiting its opportunity to burst on the scene. Five minutes of scrolling time turns into 20 and before you know it you’re still in bed and it’s been an hour. The ability to have millions of articles, opinions and apps at our fingertips has taken over our world in a powerful way. 

While these moments are frequently experienced, they can be avoided. Staying informed on what’s happening in our world doesn’t mean falling down the seemingly endless pit of bad news. In fact, breaking the cycle of constant scrolling can provide nourishment to your prefrontal cortex, which has been taken over by the fear processing amygdala, and chemically allow your brain to reset.  

Doomscrolling – a term that came to light in 2020 amidst the COVID pandemic – refers to constant reading of specifically negative news from an online platform. While your mind may jump to solely news outlets as providers of doomscrolling, the group is bigger than that. More recently, apps like Instagram and TikTok have become a source of news for many, especially young people, as well.

Our brains are wired to focus on danger, heavily increasing the stress that we experience on any given internet scroll. After an extended period of time reading articles, this stress can and often does follow us into our lived reality. While this is natural, it doesn’t have to be as constant as it is and escaping into nature is the perfect remedy. 

So the next time you read a bit of news, pair it with putting the phone down and reconnecting with nature and yourself (accessibility to rugged forests or wide beaches not required). Here are some ways to escape the potential of doomscrolling.

Plant Your Newest Passion: A Windowsill Garden Awaits

Getting your hands dirty is one of the most gratifying and easiest ways to connect with nature that can be accomplished from the comfort of your own home. No gardening experience, fancy tools or vast backyard needed to accomplish this goal. A windowsill garden is a phenomenal way to reset your mind and replenish your pantry. Empty jam, pasta sauce or fruit glass jars you haven’t gotten around to cleaning or disposing of? Coincidentally the remedy for both doomscrolling and your jars is one and the same. 

Head down to your local nursery, hardware store or even online and procure: pebbles/decorative rocks, potting mix and starter herbs of your choice. You’re ready to begin. Following online instructions to bring a mini herb garden to life has just created your newest hobby to ring in the spring. 

By physically being away from your phone, doomscrolling will be kept to a minimum here while also reminding you of your power to create something beautiful that helps the ecosystem that lives in your neighborhood (while saving you some money on your next herb or produce purchases). You’re not just helping the neighborhood ecosystem, you’re also helping your internal ecosystem. Gardening – windowsill or other – has shown to reduce stress, increase focus and regain serotonin by being exposed to a natural mood booster, mycobacterium, that lives in soils. 

Books and Libraries are a Brilliant Alternative

If your green thumb is still dormant and 2026 is not your year for it to blossom, not to worry – your doomscrolling can still be solved. In the era of digital media that we live in, it has become habit to do practically everything online, including reading. In doing this, it’s easy to find yourself in the news app when you mean to open your online book app. 

A simple solution to this problem is to hit the books, the physical ones! Research has shown there are several physical and psychological benefits of reading paper books. These range from making the tales come to life in the reader’s head when physically flipping the page to increasing the amount of empathy in one’s heart by reading different experiences. This mental creativity and empathy can reach far beyond what one thinks their mind is capable of and gets us thinking about more than just the information we are fed.

After seeing how affordable and quick it is to access a book online, it could be easy to be dissuaded into producing a physical book. Enter, libraries. Public libraries, of which there are 410,000 internationally, are a blueprint of being an eco-friendly citizen by offering reusable pieces of learning to gain more knowledge and perspective of the world. They share books within the library networks while sharing books in the community, creating a web of learners. They also create an environment of change through workshops and talks that welcome all backgrounds and perspectives. So, consider stopping by your local library (it’s free!), check out a book or check out the vibe in general. You’re bound to learn something.

Take a Hike with a Twist: Absorb the Sounds Around

Often, a hike or walk around the neighborhood is something that is accompanied by a phone, either to track steps or take photos. However, taking a walk without the phone not only removes distractions and the potential for wandering into doomscrolling territory but it also lets you listen to the world around you. 

A walk with minimal disturbance from the outside world provides an opportunity to appreciate nature once again. Listening to the coo of a bird, the croak of a frog, a trill of an insect or the rustling of leaves reminds us of the beauty of the natural world and can reignite the desire to save and nurture the natural world around us. These phoneless, sound conscious walks can also highlight the importance of taking a step back and slowing down. 

Studies have proven that getting outside to take a daily walk, for example, can regulate sleep cycles and improve the quality of at night, as well as reducing risk of depression and anxiety. An excellent mode of combating doomscrolling then can be a 20 minute walk. After reading an anxiety-inducing article, instead of finding the next terrifying thing to look at, take a reset walk outside to lower stress levels and ground yourself. 

Documentaries Over Doomscrolling

Okay, you’ve tried the other methods and they just aren’t calling you like the screens are. An understandable pull. Instead of the phone screen time however, an opportunity to learn and grow awaits in the form of documentaries. 

Countless stories happen everyday from all corners of the world that are never covered. Though documentaries have the power to capture these untold stories and reveal more along the way.

The genre of documentaries hosts a wide range of topics, all of which are waiting to teach you something and get your brain thinking about the world in a new way. Nature documentaries have especially jumped on the scene, with emphases on the natural world, the built environment and/or the animals that reside within them both. The online information can and should still be absorbed, but in documentary form you’ll be uncovering things you may not even think to look up. 

The End of Doomscrolling Doesn’t Mean Staying Uninformed

Even while understanding the impacts of doomscrolling and introducing some ideas to stop it before it starts, an underlying truth still remains: news of all sorts is important and needs to be read.  However, it doesn’t have to be all-consuming or addictive. 
Putting your phone down to take a break and reconnect with the communities around you is directly keeping you informed and fostering growth.

Pillar two of EARTHDAY.ORG’s 2026 Earth Day theme emphasizes the importance of shared interests and interconnected outcomes. This year holds plenty of opportunity to connect your community through shared environmental goals and interests. Host an event in your area and register it through the EARTHDAY map, or join one in a city near you!

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is cleared for use with attribution. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at [email protected]. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.