Stop ‘doom scrolling’ and do this 10 minutes a day instead, says UNH prof

ven against the challenges brought on the global pandemic of COVID-19, mindful meditation is still the stress-busting salve for many. So says UNH Professor Caitlin Mills and a team of fellow academic researchers, who shared their findings in an article published in The Conversation online last August. Scholarly and medical studies abound on how the COVID-19 pandemic has had an effect on us mentally, and how reading a news article, doom-scrolling through your social media (being sucked in by reading story after story about sad or depressing news), or even just talking to a friend about the latest updates on the virus can increase anxiety and depression.

And while many of the adult population turned to alcohol or food for comfort in these past 20 months, Mills and her peers say the tried-and-true practice of mindful meditation might be a better option.

What is mindfulness, exactly? Technically, it’s a mental state focusing on your present moment. Mindfulness meditation then, is using meditative practices to get to that state of mind.

The article notes that “individuals who practiced mindfulness were not as negatively affected by exposure to COVID-19-related news, suggesting that being more mindful served as a sort of buffer against stress. Our study shows that a brief daily practice of mindfulness meditation not only enhances positive affect, but it also helps protect against the negative impact of COVID-19-related news exposure on emotional well-being.”

Want to try it out? There are many free or low-cost apps for smartphones that offer introductory lessons — making it another promising stress-relief tool to boost mental health that is a “simple-to-implement, cost-effective technique that can be practiced anywhere, anytime.”

Mills came to UNH in 2018 as an assistant professor in psychology. She holds a bachelor’s degree in the topic from Christian Brothers University, and earned a master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. This semester, she’s once again teaching an advanced seminar course in the science of daydreaming.