It starts innocently enough. You pick up your phone to check the weather. Twenty minutes later, you are reading headlines about disasters and outrage going on around the world. Now you feel worse than when you started checking if the rain was heading your way.
You are doomscrolling, and if this is happening to you, it’s alright. You are not alone. It’s a common complaint for many in North Carolina.
The good news is Emberhaven offers you the counseling you need to help you stop doomscrolling in Greensboro and High Point North Carolina. Understanding why you do it is the first step in breaking the cycle.
What is Doomscrolling
Doomscrolling refers to the habit of consuming large amounts of negative news and distressing content online, often for far longer than intended. The term gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the behavior has only intensified since. Researchers distinguish it from ordinary news consumption by its compulsive quality. You keep going even though each scroll makes you feel worse, not better.
It is worth noting that staying informed is not the same thing as doomscrolling. Reading a few reliable news sources each day is reasonable civic behavior. The difference is what happens after that. When reading tips into rumination, when your body tenses while your thumb keeps moving, when you find it genuinely hard to stop, that is the problem this article addresses.
A Harvard Health study showed constantly consuming depressing or negative news can have an impact on your mental health.
Why Your Brain Keeps Scrolling
The brain’s threat-detection system evolved to pay close attention to danger. A piece of alarming information activates the same neural circuits that would have helped your ancestors escape a predator. The brain treats a disturbing headline as something that demands attention, even when there is nothing you can physically do about it.
Social media platforms amplify this tendency. Their algorithms are optimized to maximize engagement, and negative content consistently generates more of it. Moral outrage, fear, and uncertainty all produce more clicks, shares, and time on screen than neutral content. The result is a feed curated specifically to keep you scrolling. Your brain’s threat-response system and a powerful recommendation engine are working against you at the same time.
Intermittent reinforcement makes it harder still. Occasionally you do find something useful or even positive, which keeps you checking back. This is the same mechanism that makes slot machines compelling. The unpredictable reward keeps the behavior going.
Signs Doomscrolling Is Affecting Your Mental Health
Most people who doomscroll know it is not great for them, but the actual impact is easy to minimize. These are some concrete signs the habit has become a real problem for your mental health and daily functioning.
You feel more anxious or irritable after checking your phone or reading the news. Your sleep suffers because you scroll in bed or because distressing content plays in your head at night. Maybe you feel emotionally numb or detached, as if you have consumed too much to feel anything clearly. Or you have trouble concentrating on tasks that require sustained focus. Do you find yourself sharing distressing content with friends or family in ways that spread the distress rather than create connection. You feel a sense of helplessness or hopelessness that lingers well after you put the phone down.
Any one of these on its own is worth paying attention to. Several of them together suggest that doomscrolling is feeding something larger, such as anxiety, depression, or chronic stress, that may benefit from professional support.
How You Can Stop Doomscrolling
Before considering therapy, there are evidence-informed behavioral changes worth trying. They will not work for everyone, and for some people they address only part of the problem. But they are solid starting points.
Set Designated News Times
Give yourself two specific windows per day to check news, and hold to them. Outside those windows, close news apps and social platforms entirely. The goal is not to stay uninformed but to make information-seeking intentional rather than automatic. Many people find that 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening gives them more than enough information while reducing overall anxiety significantly.
Curate Your Feeds Deliberately
Unfollow or mute accounts that consistently generate distress without giving you anything actionable. This is not about avoiding hard truths. It is about asking whether a given source is leaving you better equipped to think clearly or just leaving you more agitated. A few trusted sources beat an endless firehose of takes and reactions.
Use Your Phone’s Built-In Tools
iOS Screen Time and Android Digital Wellbeing both allow you to set daily limits for specific apps. When the limit is reached, you have to make an active decision to override it. That extra step of friction interrupts the automatic reach-and-scroll sequence. It is a small barrier, but behavioral change research consistently shows that small barriers work.
Build a Transition Ritual
When you feel the urge to scroll, try a brief physical alternative instead. A short walk, a few minutes of slow breathing, or a quick task with your hands can interrupt the anxious loop that drives doomscrolling. The transition does not need to be elaborate to be effective. The point is to insert something between the urge and the phone.
Charge Your Phone Outside the Bedroom
This one change removes the most common entry point for late-night and early-morning scrolling. A cheap alarm clock replaces the function while eliminating the temptation.
When the Problem Goes Deeper Than Habit
For a meaningful number of people, doomscrolling is not primarily a habit problem. It is a symptom. Anxiety, depression, and unprocessed stress all feed the behavior in ways that behavioral tricks alone cannot fully address. If you have tried the strategies above and still find yourself caught in the cycle, or if the emotional fallout from scrolling is severe, therapy is worth considering.
Doomscrolling driven by anxiety has a particular pattern. The scrolling functions as a checking behavior, similar to repeatedly checking that the stove is off or that you sent an email. It feels like it should reduce anxiety by keeping you informed, but it reliably makes anxiety worse. That feedback loop is a hallmark of anxiety disorders, not just bad habits.
When doomscrolling coexists with sleep problems, persistent low mood, difficulty concentrating, or a sense of disconnection from your life, depression may be the underlying driver. The negative content reinforces a cognitive bias toward threat and catastrophe that depression already produces on its own.
Therapy Approaches That Help
Several evidence-based therapy approaches address the anxiety and stress patterns behind problematic doomscrolling.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) works directly with the thought patterns that make negative news feel urgent and irresistible. A CBT-trained therapist helps you identify the specific beliefs driving the behavior, such as the idea that you must stay informed to feel safe, or that not knowing is more dangerous than knowing, and then tests those beliefs against reality. Research consistently supports CBT as a first-line treatment for anxiety and related compulsive behaviors.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) takes a somewhat different approach. Rather than challenging beliefs directly, it helps you clarify your values and commit to actions that serve those values, even when uncomfortable emotions are present. For doomscrolling, ACT can help you tolerate the uncertainty that drives the behavior without acting on it automatically.
Mindfulness-based approaches build the skill of noticing urges without acting on them. Over time, the gap between the impulse to scroll and the decision about whether to scroll widens. That gap is where behavioral change actually happens.
Stress management therapy, which Emberhaven offers at both its Greensboro and High Point locations, addresses the underlying load that makes doomscrolling so compelling. When overall stress is high, the brain seeks stimulation and distraction, and your phone is always nearby. Reducing the structural stress in your life makes the compulsive checking less necessary.
Mental Health Resources in Greensboro, High Point, and Across North Carolina
Residents of Greensboro, High Point, and surrounding communities in the Triad have several public resources available alongside private therapy. The North Carolina Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Use Services maintains a treatment locator and information about state-funded services for people who may not have insurance or whose coverage is limited. Guilford County, which encompasses both Greensboro and High Point, is served by Guilford County Public Health, which can direct residents to appropriate community mental health resources.
For general mental health information and a therapist locator, the National Institute of Mental Health provides clear, research-backed guidance. The American Psychological Association has also published findings on news consumption and stress that are relevant to anyone struggling with media-related anxiety.
Why Choose Emberhaven Counseling
Emberhaven Counseling operates outpatient therapy offices in both Greensboro and High Point, North Carolina, making in-person care accessible across the Triad. The practice also offers telehealth for any North Carolina resident who prefers to meet with a therapist online.
Emberhaven’s licensed counselors work with anxiety, depression, stress management, trauma, and the kind of chronic mental fatigue that makes habits like doomscrolling so hard to shake. The practice does not operate a waitlist. When you reach out, the intake team matches you with a clinician based on your needs and schedule, and verifies your insurance before your first session so there are no surprises about costs.
The practice accepts most major insurance plans, including BlueCross BlueShield, Aetna, United Healthcare, Healthy Blue, Carolina Complete Health, AmeriHealth Caritas North Carolina, WellCare, Humana, UnitedHealth Community Plan, and more than 20 others. You can verify your insurance coverage online before committing to anything.
Emberhaven holds licensure through the North Carolina Board of Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors (NCBLCMHC) and is affiliated with the Licensed Clinical Counselors of North Carolina (LCCNC), reflecting the clinical standards the practice holds itself to. You can meet the Emberhaven team and read more about each counselor’s background and specialties before scheduling.
How To Get Started at Emberhaven
If you live in Greensboro, High Point, or anywhere in North Carolina and recognize yourself in what this article describes, reaching out to a therapist is a reasonable and practical next step. You do not need to be in crisis to benefit from professional support. Persistent anxiety, chronic stress, and the low-grade mental fatigue that comes from consuming too much bad news are all legitimate reasons to seek help.
You can reach the Emberhaven Greensboro office at 743-867-6529, located at 5587 Garden Village Way, Suite D, Greensboro, NC. The High Point office is at 1623 York Avenue, Suite 104, High Point, NC, and can be reached at 743-867-7187. Both offices are open Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. You can also schedule an appointment or verify your insurance online.
If you are not sure which therapist is the right fit, Emberhaven’s intake process does that matching for you. You can also read about what to expect at your first session before you come in.
Crisis and Emergency Information
Emberhaven is an outpatient counseling practice and is not a crisis center. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide or self-harm, or are in a mental health emergency, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. For emergencies involving immediate danger, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency department.
Helpful Links
The following sources informed this article and offer additional reading on doomscrolling, media consumption, and mental health.
- American Psychological Association: Stress in America and News Consumption
- National Institute of Mental Health: Anxiety Disorders
- National Institute of Mental Health: Depression
- Harvard Health: Dangers of Doomscrolling
- University Hospitals: Doomscrolling: Breaking the Habbit
- Nationwide Children’s: Doomscrolling and Brain Rot
- NC DHHS: Mental Health Services in North Carolina
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline