You’re scrolling. It’s 11:30 PM, the blue light is searing your retinas, and every single headline feels like a punch to the gut. Doomscrolling isn't just a Gen Z buzzword; it’s a physiological trap. We've all been there, sitting in the dark thinking, i need some good news just to believe the world isn't a total dumpster fire. Honestly, it’s exhausting.
The weird thing is, the "bad" news gets all the clicks because our brains are hardwired for survival. Evolutionarily speaking, the guy who noticed the rustle in the bushes (the threat) lived longer than the guy admiring the sunset (the good news). But we aren't running from sabertooth tigers anymore. We're just drowning in high-definition anxiety.
The Science of the "Good News" Deficit
There’s a real reason you feel a physical weight when the news cycle gets heavy. Dr. Loretta Breuning, author of Habits of a Happy Brain, points out that our cortisol—the stress hormone—is designed to alert us to a problem so we can fix it. But when the problems are global, systemic, and flashing on a screen 24/7, that cortisol never drops. You're in a constant state of "alarm."
When you say i need some good news, you’re actually asking for a hit of dopamine or oxytocin to counteract that cortisol soak. It's biological self-defense.
But here’s the kicker: good news is happening constantly. It’s just quiet. Bad news is an event—a crash, a scandal, a disaster. Good news is usually a process. It’s the slow decline of global poverty, the gradual healing of the ozone layer, or a new medical treatment that took fifteen years to perfect. You don’t get a "breaking news" banner for a forest that grew back over a decade.
Progress is Often Invisible
Take the work of the late Hans Rosling. In his book Factfulness, he proved that the vast majority of people think the world is getting worse, even though almost every metric of human welfare—literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality—has improved drastically over the last fifty years.
We’re living through a "negativity bias" epidemic. We ignore the baseline.
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Where the Wins are Actually Happening
If you're sitting there thinking i need some good news right now, let’s look at some tangible stuff. Not "fluff" stories about kittens, but actual, needle-moving progress that often gets buried under political shouting matches.
Energy is shifting faster than we realize. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently noted that solar and wind power are being adopted at a rate that consistently outpaces even the most optimistic forecasts from five years ago. In many parts of the world, building new renewables is now cheaper than continuing to run existing coal plants. That’s not just "nice"—that’s a massive economic shift toward a livable future.
Medicine is hitting sci-fi levels. Have you looked into CRISPR lately? We’re seeing the first actual cures for Sickle Cell disease. This isn't just "managing" a condition; it’s rewriting the genetic code to fix it. Then there’s the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine. Malaria has killed more humans throughout history than almost anything else. Now, we have a highly effective, cheap-to-produce vaccine that is being rolled out across Africa. This is a monumental human victory that barely makes the evening news.
Conservation works when we actually try. Look at the Humpback whale. They were nearly extinct in the 1960s. Today, their populations in the South Atlantic have rebounded from a few hundred to an estimated 25,000. Nature is remarkably resilient if we just stop actively destroying it for five minutes.
Why We Struggle to Find the Light
Why is it so hard to find this stuff? Basically, the "attention economy" is rigged.
Algorithms on social media platforms are built to maximize engagement. Anger and fear are the highest-engagement emotions. A headline that makes you feel indignant will get ten times the shares of a headline about a new sustainable farming technique in Iowa.
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If you're feeling a desperate sense of i need some good news, you might need to change your "information diet." You wouldn't eat literal trash all day and wonder why your stomach hurts. The same logic applies to your brain.
Curating a Better Feed
You have to be intentional. Following accounts like "The Progress Network" or "Good News Network" helps, but it’s also about changing how you consume information.
- Stop the morning scroll. Checking the news within ten minutes of waking up sets your brain to "threat mode" before you've even had coffee.
- Look for "Solutions Journalism." This is a specific field of reporting that focuses on how people are responding to problems, rather than just the problems themselves. It’s not "happy" news—it’s rigorous reporting on effective responses.
- Local matters more. Global news makes you feel powerless. Local news—like a new park opening or a community fridge being stocked—reminds you that you can actually affect your surroundings.
The Mental Health Flip
Seeking out positive developments isn't "toxic positivity." It’s not about ignoring the world's problems or pretending everything is fine. Honestly, that's just as delusional as thinking everything is 100% terrible.
True "good news" is about perspective. It’s acknowledging that while we have massive challenges (climate change, inequality, conflict), we also have a massive, global toolkit of brilliance and cooperation that is working 24/7 to solve them.
When you find that balance, your mental health changes. You move from "paralysis" to "agency." If you believe everything is doomed, you won't do anything. If you see that progress is possible because it’s already happening, you’re more likely to contribute to it.
Your Actionable Good News Plan
If you're at that breaking point where you're saying i need some good news, don't just wait for it to pop up on your feed. It won't. You have to go get it.
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First, go to Fix the News (formerly Future Crunch). They specialize in data-driven stories of progress that the mainstream media ignores. It’s a literal antidote to the doom-cycle.
Second, perform a "Feed Audit." Unfollow three accounts that exist solely to make you angry. It doesn't matter if they are "right"—if they only provide outrage without any path to action, they are draining your battery. Replace them with one source that focuses on innovation or conservation.
Third, look at your own life through a "micro-news" lens. What’s one thing that went right today? Did you have a good conversation? Did the coffee taste particularly great? It sounds cheesy, but training your brain to register small wins builds the neural pathways that help you notice the big ones.
The world is complicated. It's messy. It's often scary. But it's also full of people who are quietly, doggedly making things better. They are out there. The progress is real. You just have to look past the loud stuff to see it.
Start your shift today by visiting the Our World in Data project. See the charts for yourself. Realize that on almost every significant metric of human well-being, we are doing better than our ancestors could have ever dreamed. That isn't an opinion; it's the data. Hold onto that the next time the scroll feels too heavy.