Kiota.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald.
The world can feel like a dark.
And gloomy place at times, particularly at the moment, with war's economic uncertainty and certain politicians always generating headlines.
It's hard to avoid feeling down.
But in amongst all this doom and gloom, there are plenty of stories worth celebrating in New Zealand, from stars on the rise to businesses making it work in a tough environment. The New Zealand Herald is spotlighting some of these stories in a new editorial campaign.
On the Up.
Later we'll get advice from psychologist to Doogle Sutherland on how to reset our minds and focus on the positive news out there. But first on the Front Page, the Herald's chief content of us sort of publishing, Murray kirknesses with us to explain the thinking behind this series. Murray, what was the inspiration behind this campaign?
It's good question, Chelse, I guess we wanted to continue to do what we always do. We know the media plays a vital role in holding the powerful to account, examining issues that need urgent attention. Helping to drive change
for the better. That will always be the core of what we do, but we also want to We decided we wanted to champion kiwis who were doing great things for their community, businesses that were doing well, celebrate people performing impressive feats, no matter in what field that might be. That there is a lot of negativity and we just felt it was a fine project to get involved with.
What are some of the stories or topics you're hoping to see covered over the next few weeks.
Well, as I just mentioned, it will be everything from the economy to sports field and sports success to volunteers in the heartland rolling up their sleeves doing their the whole gamut across all our verticals and all our regents.
Well, where we're at at the moment, as people are disrupted and the uncertainty only is compounded by a bad news story. People are tired of hearing bad news, even if it's factual, and then they go down these rabbit holes on YouTube or other places, are saying that, well, there's alternative stuff happening, and this is what the media should be reporting. I think also we're in a place where the media itself does have to deal with a
whole lot of changes. People have got other news avenues they can go to, whether or not they're trusted news sources. But there's Instagram, there's YouTube, there's Twitter, there's Facebook. Now.
I know a lot of those trust in media surveys and the like are always calling us the news to be more positive, but it can be different. Culture promote good news at times, right. Is that part of the motivation here? And why do you think people always ask for good news yet always go and click on the car crash stories, bad weather, political scandals.
I guess it's part of the human condition, is it? Seriously? That's my belief. I think one of the challenges with good news, there's several challenges. I think part of the psyche of New Zealand is that a great many people actually don't want to put their head above the para, but that you know, the modest and that's a fantastic attribute to have, let's face it. So that's part of it.
I think there are great stories to be told. We need to think the media needs to think more carefully about the way they tell those stories so that they do get an audience.
When this campaign was first announced, a few other media organizations appeared to take issue with The.
Herald doing this. What's your response to.
Them, Well, I think they got the wrong end of the stick, quite frankly, I think they sort of put two and two together and came up with three hundred and twelve. There were fears that it was going to be a politically led campaign, that it was somehow going to be partisan, that it was somehow aligned to supporting
the government, which is complete nonsense. To be truthful, I actually think all media organizations have a part to play in championing their communities and celebrating success when that's appropriate.
And I don't think we're going to be pretending that everything is suddenly fantastic in the world, right, But it's about finding those bright spots.
And as I said at the very beginning, you know that that core duty of what we do holding the powerful to account. For instance, you know our journalism is powerful, We know it is. They will always remain at our core. This is not instead of this is as well.
As thanks for joining us, Murray, That's my pleasure, Chelsea.
Recent economic data does suggest that New Zealand is turning a corner, but consumer and business confidence isn't I'm aligning with that yet it's just one example of how we might collectively be feeling a little negative right now.
To talk to us about the psychology of what's.
Happening in the world, we're joined now by Dr Dougal Sutherland.
Doogle.
We're not asking you to break doctor patient confidentiality, but when you are talking to clients or even just people out on the street, are they feeling generally positive or negative about the state of the world at the moment.
Oh? Look, I think a lot of people I'm chatting to at the moment are still feeling pretty negative about life. They're still worried about the economy, they're still worried about jobs, they're worried about international politics, they're worried about climate change, you know, and then you're worried about your kids, and you know what you're going to do at the weekend as well. So yeah, I think people are still a bit down on the dumps. To be honest, it.
Has been a rough few years, if not a rough decade. Right.
You could probably name any year in the last ten to fifteen years to argue when things took a turn, and you'd probably have a fair argument. There are a general feeling of malaise that we just can't pass.
And why do you think that is?
Look, I see, I agree. I think you know, in the last decade or so, we have seen an uptick in people feeling unhappy and a bit stressed. For me, there was certainly a real turning point with COVID, and I think for a lot of people that brought things to the four that had been perhaps hidden away or just lurking around in the back. And since that we haven't really kind of a lot of people haven't emerged
from that yet. So there's COVID, and then quickly after COVID there was an economic downturn, and then there was redundancies. And so for me, I think there's that been that general sense of unhappiness, unease, of what I might call languishing, particularly since COVID. It was probably growing before then, but for me, COVID was a real catalyst in seeing people, you know, just feeling that sort of ongoing languishing or feeling generally unhappy.
What can we do to get ourselves in a more forward thinking mindset, particularly with regards to the economy. I suppose if people don't feel like things are improving. It's not really going to improve because we aren't going to get out there and spend money and keep things turning right.
Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, I think that's true. I think that, you know, consumer confidence and the sense that things are improving, they often lead to people reaching into their wallet and saying, why don't we buy that or go out for dinner, and of course that gets the economy turning round again. So I think we do have a bit to play in how we can how we view the world really and how we approach the world. Us worrying about the economy probably isn't going to change it an awful lot anyway.
What can we do to change our mindset in that respect?
There's a couple of things, And firstly, I might I'd start off by saying there are a couple of things I'd suggest not to do or stop doing if possible. So the first thing I would say is stop fighting against negative feelings. That often we notice that we might be feeling unhappy or upset or anxious, and we battle with that thing. I don't want to feel like this.
You know, oh my god, I'm feeling down again. We know that that sort of battle or that fight with those negative emotions actually makes us makes us feel worse because it just keeps our attention focused on the fact that we're not feeling very good and that we can't get out of it, and so we feel even worse. So learning to I guess the word is accept the fact that there are good times and there are bad times,
and just's a bit like the weather. Okay, you know you can accept that there are rainy days and sunny days. You don't necessarily fight against the rainy day. You don't love it, but you don't fight against it, and the next day will be sunny probably or a day soon. Same with our emotions, rather than fighting against the negative ones, trying to get to a position where you can accept that that will happen, but there will be another positive emotion coming up, So letting go of that fight can
be really helpful. I think also trying stop looking for the next big thing to make you happy, or if only we did this, or we went away to Tahiti, or I bought a big car or whatever. We know that that sort of focus on the next big thing is quite exhausting and actually leads people to miss what what I call those small moments of joy that happen in day to day life. So those are two things
I would say to stop doing. And then there are a couple of things I'd suggest that we could start doing which might be helpful.
And what are those.
Well, firstly, I'd say, train your brain to notice those small moments of joy. Our brain is wired to look for things that make us stressed and depressed because you know, historically those things are dangerous, so it makes it sets that our brain would look out for those But we need to train our brains and train ourselves really to look for those small moments of joy. And there's some
very simple yet really effective things that people can do. Firstly, one thing that you can do individually or in a workplace or as a family. This works really well at the time, but it doesn't have to be at a meal time, can be at a team meeting or anything. Is actually go around and list three good things that have happened today. Now, when I say good things, they
might be very small. It might be the fact that you know, you walk to work or walk from the car and it was a beautiful sunny day and that was it. So we're not talking about oh one lotto it's just noticing those very small moments, and it's helping you train your brain to look for those small moments of joy. Another thing that is often helpful is what
we call savoring the moment. So if you think about somebody that's like a wine connoisseur, you know, you watch them when they drink a glass of wine and they're looking at the label, and they're holding it up to the light, and they're sniffing at several times, and they're swallowing it around them. You know, whether as the rest of us just gulp it back and that's done in
three seconds. That act of really savoring, really digging in and focusing and bringing to mind good things that have happened, and putting your focus in concentration, almost reliving those events, if you will, really helps amplify them and amplifies their impact on your life. But the other thing I would say too is be active in things that you can
do to enhance your positive emotion. I think we often make the mistake of waiting to be happy and hoping that something good might come today, and fingers crossed, I'll feel happy and nothing happens to me, So, oh I feel terrible. But there are things that you can actively do in a planned sort of way to enhance your mood. Now, those are things like we know getting out into nature,
into blue and green spaces can be really helpful. Although the trick there is you need to do that for at least twenty to thirty minutes to get the impact. Don't just pop out for a five minute walk at lunch time. You won't get the effect. So doing things like popping into nature for more than twenty minutes, or trying random acts of kindness, so just you know, and I think we all know that kind of the idea behind random acts of kindness, just going and doing something
deliberately kind to somebody you don't know. Doing those small actions really help, can help proactively boost our positive emotion and shift us away from looking at the at the dreary side and everything that's going wrong in the world, and hopefully that might have an impact on us experiencing a more positive level of emotion in our daily lives.
We talked about doom scrolling on the front page a few weeks ago.
Doom scrolling is I think it all started when marketers realized that clickbait would entice people to stay online and we end up finding these topics that we just want to dive deeper into or we think we need to, and it's actually not a very healthy habit to get into because it's a very unconscious way of consuming media.
Do you think we can get a bit too caught up on going down that negative rabbit hole?
Yeah? Absolutely, And look, social media is designed to capture your attention like that, So I think I think the wise use of social media is a skill that many of us, probably me included, need to learn. That. You know, everything is rigged up for you to be hooked into that, so trying to free yourself from that, I think can be really helpful. Imposing a few I wouldn't say rules, because nobody likes the rules about their life, but imposing
a few guidelines for yourself. Hey, I'm only going to check this for x amount of time or at a certain time of day, I'm only going to spend twenty minutes doom scrolling, and then I'm going to do something else. So limiting your exposure to that can be really helpful. Don't cut it off completely. We've still got to live in the world and be real, but perhaps not getting sucked down into those rabbit holes can be really helpful.
Yeah, what would it be your advice for people to avoid getting sucked in by the news cycle or what's happening or the negativity of the world without fully disconnecting from what's going on.
I think I think a couple of things. I think you know, even things like notifications on your social media. If you have all your notifications on for all your social media platforms and the news sites that you follow, you'll constantly be bombarded with information. Now, most of us probably don't need to be up to date every second with what's what's breaking in the world. So if there are tip if you can reduce your notifications and also have some maybe some planned time, I'm going to check
it at twelve o'clock or six o'clock or whatever. So taking back some control of it, I think is really helpful. Also to being aware that you are the type of person that gets sucked into doom scrolling and going down those rabbit holes. That's not a judgmental thing. It's just noticing that, hey, I'm prone to doing that, maybe I should be doing some things about it. Telling other people that you're trying to do it can be really helpful
with that accountability to somebody else. So I think all those things can be useful and unhooking us from that social media.
Thanks for joining us to god aw some.
Thanks, Chelsea.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld.
Dot co dot nz.
The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.