Something has happened
Bad news, a loss or a sudden change can leave you upset, numb, confused or unsure what to do next.
Making sense of everything can wait.
You only need to deal with what belongs to this moment.
For the next minute
Check the next practical need
You do not need to explain or retell what happened.
Look only at the next hour.
Is there one obvious practical need?
That might be getting somewhere, contacting someone, eating or drinking, or finding one piece of information.
If one need is obvious, choose that.
If nothing is obvious, you can stop for a moment.
If you have a few minutes
Separate now from later
Make two short headings:
Now
Later
Under Now, put only what genuinely belongs to the next few hours.
That might be one phone call.
Getting somewhere.
Eating something.
Finding one piece of information.
Telling somebody what has happened.
Under Later, put everything that does not need solving yet.
A complete plan can wait.
You are giving today less to hold at once.
You do not have to talk about it yet
You might want someone with you.
You might want to tell somebody what happened.
You might prefer some quiet.
Any of those can be reasonable.
There is no need to describe everything before you are ready.
If it is coming through a screen
Choose when to look again
If the event is something you are following in the news or online, you can choose when you will look again.
Until then, you can close the feed.
Closing it is not pretending the event did not happen. It simply stops the same material arriving continuously.
For the rest of today
Keep one ordinary thing
If it feels manageable, keep one familiar thing from your usual day.
- Make your usual drink.
- Eat something familiar.
- Take a shower.
- Walk the dog.
- Put on clean clothes.
- Go through part of your normal evening.
It does not need to distract you or make you feel better.
It is simply one piece of the day that still has a known shape.
You do not need to make meaning of it yet
You may eventually need to make decisions, understand what happened or work out what changes now.
You do not have to do all of that today.
For now, it can be enough to know:
Something happened.
I am dealing with what needs dealing with now.
The rest can wait.
Need urgent help? Seek the closest medical help.
About this tool
This page adapts principles from psychological first-aid guidance, including attention to immediate needs, practical support and not pressuring people to recount an event in detail. Outcome evidence for psychological first aid itself remains limited and heterogeneous, so these adapted principles should not be read as proof that PFA prevents later mental-health problems. A small 2026 laboratory trial of group psychological first aid found no overall benefit at two weeks and raised concerns about possible adverse effects among participants with higher initial distress. It did not test the practical self-help steps on this page. NICE recommends against psychologically focused debriefing for PTSD prevention or treatment. A meta-analysis of television coverage of mass-trauma events links greater exposure with more post-traumatic and acute stress symptoms, but the evidence is observational and does not prove that closing a feed treats distress.
Last reviewed: 8 October 2026