How to Hold Yourself Together When the Region Is on Fire

The World Health Organization's estimate is that one in five people who experience war or conflict develops depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, or sees existing conditions worsen. That is not a fringe outcome. It is the ordinary consequence of an ordinary person living through something no one is built for.

Two things are worth saying before any advice. First, distress in these circumstances is not a malfunction. Fear when there is something to fear is your threat system doing exactly what it evolved to do. Second, none of what follows is a substitute for care if you need it, and it is not a suggestion that breathing exercises solve a war.

What it is: the measures with the best evidence behind them, for the situation most people are actually in.

Sleep first, because everything else depends on it

Sleep is the first thing conflict takes and the thing whose loss makes every other symptom worse. Poor sleep amplifies threat perception, shortens temper, degrades judgement and deepens low mood, which then further degrades sleep.

What helps, in order of impact:

• A fixed wake time, held regardless of how the night went. Wake time anchors the body clock far more reliably than bedtime.
• No news in the hour before bed. This is the single highest-yield change most people can make.
• Get out of bed if you have been awake 20 minutes. Sit somewhere dim, do something dull, return when sleepy. Lying awake trains the bed as a place for vigilance.
• Accept broken sleep without catastrophising it. Fragmented sleep during a crisis is normal and recovers. Fear of not sleeping is itself a major cause of not sleeping.

Ration the news, do not abandon it

The instinct to check constantly is rational in origin and harmful in practice. Refreshing a feed feels like vigilance but delivers almost no actionable information, while keeping the stress response continuously switched on.

Complete avoidance is not the answer either, particularly for people with family in affected areas, where information is genuinely needed.

A workable middle:

• Two fixed times a day, for a set duration.
• Text over video. Footage of violence produces a much stronger physiological response, and repeated exposure to graphic imagery has measurable effects even on people at a safe distance.
• Two or three sources you have decided to trust, rather than an algorithmic feed optimised for whatever keeps you scrolling.
• Never in bed. See above.

The related habit of slow, deliberate media consumption is something we have written about in why slow media beats a digital detox, and it applies with more force here.

Keep the structure, even when it feels absurd

Routine is not denial. Meals at set times, work if there is work, a walk, a shower, a made bed. These are not distractions from the situation. They are the scaffolding that keeps a person functioning inside it.

People who maintain daily structure through prolonged crises consistently do better than those who do not, and the effect is not small.