It's hard for me to block out all the noise lately, and I know I'm certainly not the only one feeling this way. 

I've had multiple conversations in the last week with friends who feel beaten down by the flood of terrible news. The thing is, it is terrible... we can't ignore it and hope it'll just go away on its own. In part, that's what got us into this collective mess in the first place.

We need to keep paying attention, while also taking care of our brains so that we can keep up the fight.

If you are feeling a little/lot anxious for any reason at all, you might find this calming GIF helpful. It's been floating around on the Internet for a few years, but thought it might be a good time to dig it out of the archives and share again.
 

take deep breaths in and out along with this GIF.

feel instantly better.

Black sand/rock beach photo from Reynisfjara in Iceland. (I know I shouldn't have, but I took one of these rocks home with me and it is another useful calming tool.)