Can TV and movies actually be good for your mental health? I certainly think so!

EMOTIONAL REGULATION & NERVOUS SYSTEM • December 9, 2018

What Sarah’s Friday Night Reveals

Sarah, a 36-year-old public defender, comes home on Fridays to a specific ritual: she changes out of her work clothes, heats up whatever she made earlier in the week, and puts on a show she’s seen before. Not a new show — a familiar one. Something she knows the plot of, loves the characters in, can sink into without the cognitive demand of following an unfamiliar story.

She mentioned this ritual somewhat apologetically in session one day, as if she were confessing to something shameful. She half-laughed: “I know I should probably be meditating or journaling or doing something productive. But I just… I need to go somewhere that feels safe for a few hours.”

I told her what I actually think: that her Friday ritual is not laziness and it is not avoidance. It is an intelligent, self-regulating behavior. And the research supports this more robustly than most people realize.

The Research on Screen Storytelling and Mental Health

Dr. Raymond Mar, PhD, psychologist at York University, has spent years studying the psychological effects of narrative fiction — in books, film, and TV. His research demonstrates that exposure to rich, character-driven narratives activates the same social cognition networks that real-world social experience does. People who consume more narrative fiction show higher scores on measures of empathy and theory of mind — the capacity to understand and anticipate others’ mental states.

This makes intuitive sense: stories give us a safe, controlled context for practicing emotional attunement. We feel what the character feels, imagine their perspective, and process emotional material that might be too activating if encountered directly in our own lives.

Dr. Shira Gabriel, PhD, social psychologist at the University at Buffalo, has documented the benefits of parasocial relationships specifically. Her research shows that parasocial bonds provide genuine social belongingness, reduce loneliness, and support self-esteem and positive mood. Crucially, these benefits are not diminished by the non-reciprocal nature of the bond — the psychological system that registers belonging doesn’t require mutuality to function.

For individuals with relational trauma backgrounds — for whom real-world intimacy may be more anxiety-provoking, less predictable, or harder to access — the relative safety of parasocial connection may serve a genuinely therapeutic function. This doesn’t mean parasocial bonds should replace real ones. But it does mean the Friday night TV ritual deserves more respect than it typically gets.

“Stories are a communal currency of humanity.” — Tahir Shah, author and storyteller, In Arabian Nights

Five Psychological Functions TV and Movies Can Serve

1. Emotional validation and normalization. Watching characters navigate experiences that mirror your own — grief, anxiety, complicated family dynamics, the particular loneliness of a driven woman in a world that doesn’t quite fit her — provides a form of recognition that can feel genuinely therapeutic. I’m not the only one who feels this way is one of the most healing experiences available to human beings, and stories deliver it efficiently.

2. Safe-distance processing. Stories allow us to encounter difficult emotional territory at a degree of remove that makes it more bearable. A character’s grief can help us access and process our own, because the safety of fiction allows the nervous system to engage rather than defend. This is part of why people cry at movies even when they’re “fine” — the fictional permission slip allows emotional access that felt too dangerous in direct form.

3. Modeling of coping and resilience. Characters who survive hard things, who make difficult choices, who grow through adversity, model possibilities for the viewer. This is not trivial. For people who didn’t have models of healthy coping growing up, stories can be genuine teachers — demonstrations, in compressed and accessible form, of what it might look like to navigate a situation you’ve never seen navigated well.

4. Nervous system regulation. The comfortable, familiar nature of a favorite show can serve as a co-regulatory tool — the equivalent, neurologically, of the soothing presence of a calm other. For Sarah, her Friday show is regulating because it’s predictable, safe, and pleasurable. Her nervous system genuinely settles in its presence. This is not nothing.

5. Social connection and community. Shared cultural objects — shows everyone is watching, films that become part of cultural conversation — create social connection and belonging. Having something to talk about with people, a shared reference, a reason to gather (even virtually) is part of the social fabric. For people who struggle with the unpredictability of more intimate connection, the relative accessibility of fandom communities can be a genuine social resource.

The Both/And: When Screen Time Helps and When It Doesn’t

Here is the necessary nuance: TV and movies can serve genuine psychological functions, and they can also be used for avoidance in ways that ultimately compound difficulties rather than address them. Both things are true. The question is not whether screen time is good or bad — it’s what function it’s serving in a given person’s life at a given time.

The distinction I use with clients is this: is the screen time helping you regulate and restore so that you can engage with your life afterward? Or is it helping you avoid something important — grief you haven’t allowed yourself to feel, a conversation you need to have, a decision you’ve been postponing — in a way that makes those things larger over time?

Both uses are real. Most people use screens for both functions at different times. The useful question isn’t “am I watching too much TV?” It’s “what is this watching doing for me right now — and is that what I actually need?”

Priya, a 40-year-old architect I worked with, realized at one point that she’d been using a particular show to avoid processing her mother’s death. “I noticed I wasn’t crying anymore,” she said. “I was just watching. The show was kind of like a buffer between me and the grief.” That’s a different use than Sarah’s Friday regulation. Neither is inherently wrong — but knowing which one you’re doing matters.

The Systemic Lens: Why Escapism Gets Judged

The cultural judgment of “escapism” is worth examining. In a productivity-obsessed culture, activities that don’t produce tangible outputs — that are purely about rest, pleasure, or restoration — are frequently devalued and pathologized. The person who spends Saturday afternoon watching TV is implicitly coded as lazy, unambitious, or avoidant. The person who spends the same Saturday working is virtuous and driven.

This framework is deeply problematic — and it falls particularly hard on women, who are already under cultural pressure to be perpetually productive, endlessly available, and always optimizing. The woman who grants herself unproductive hours for restoration is often doing something her body and mind genuinely require. The judgment of that rest as laziness is the culture’s problem, not hers.

Additionally, the specific critique of screen time tends to gloss over the genuine quality difference between different kinds of screen engagement. Watching a rich, character-driven drama with emotional depth is a different activity, neurologically and psychologically, than scrolling through social media comparisons. Both involve screens. The effects on the nervous system are quite different.

The judgment of escapism also has a class dimension. The activities that receive cultural approval as “productive rest” — reading literary fiction, attending cultural events, practicing yoga — tend to be expensive and time-intensive. Screen storytelling is cheap, accessible, and available to anyone with a streaming subscription. Its accessibility is part of what makes it culturally suspect. The intellectual gatekeeping of “good” versus “bad” ways to rest often maps neatly onto class privilege in ways that don’t get examined.

For driven women who were raised in households where achievement was demanded and rest was viewed as laziness, the cultural judgment against “just watching TV” can reinforce their own most critical internal voice. The work I do with clients who struggle to give themselves permission to rest often involves examining exactly this judgment — where it came from, who benefits from maintaining it, and what it would mean to consciously release it. The Strong & Stable newsletter regularly addresses the intersection of productivity culture and genuine wellbeing, because these two things are in far more tension than we’re usually willing to acknowledge.

How to Use Screen Time Therapeutically

If you want to be more intentional about what your screen time is doing for you, a few practices:

Notice the function. Before or after watching, ask: what am I looking for in this? Rest? Emotional processing? Distraction? Company? There’s no wrong answer — knowing the function helps you use the tool more deliberately.

Pay attention to what you reach for. The shows you’re drawn to in hard times often say something about what your nervous system needs or what emotional material it’s working on. If you find yourself drawn to particular themes, stories, or characters, curiosity rather than judgment about that is usually more useful.

Notice the after. Do you feel more regulated after watching, or more numbed? Do you feel more connected to yourself and your life, or more dissociated from it? This is useful information about how the particular viewing is functioning for you.

Watch with someone sometimes. The communal experience of watching together — discussing, reacting, sharing — amplifies some of the connective benefits of the story experience. It also turns what could be an isolating activity into a genuine relational one.

Let yourself be moved. If a show or film touches something in you — if it makes you cry, or laugh unexpectedly, or feel something you haven’t let yourself feel — don’t rush past it. Sit in it for a moment. That emotional access is part of the value.

If what you’ve read here resonates, I want you to know that individual therapy and executive coaching are available for driven women ready to do this work. You can also explore my self-paced recovery courses or schedule a complimentary consultation to find the right fit.

Kira is a 33-year-old research scientist in Seattle who describes her Friday evenings with a specific kind of reverence. After a week of high-stakes grant writing, lab management, and the constant cognitive load of a research environment, she cooks a simple meal, changes into comfortable clothes, and watches television. Not anxiously. Not guiltily. With genuine, intentional pleasure. “It’s the one time in my week when I’m not performing or producing,” she says. “I’m just watching.” What she’s describing is not avoidance — it’s regulated rest, chosen consciously. That’s a very different thing. (Name and details have been changed.)

Both/And, in this context, requires developing a kind of internal discernment: learning to distinguish between the screen time that is genuinely restorative and the screen time that is avoidance — the consumption that leaves you feeling more alive versus the consumption that leaves you more numb. This is not about imposing rules or time limits. It’s about developing the capacity to notice what’s actually happening in your nervous system when you reach for the remote. Are you seeking rest? Or are you running from something that needs your attention?

Both/And: Screen Time Can Heal and It Can Hide

The question “is TV good for mental health?” is a Both/And question, not a yes/no question. The answer depends entirely on how you’re using it, why you’re using it, and what relationship you’re bringing to it. Used as a conscious practice — to access emotion, to model relationships, to regulate your nervous system, to rest genuinely — screen storytelling can be a legitimate part of a healthy life. Used as a total avoidance strategy — to never feel anything hard, to never be alone with yourself, to fill every quiet moment so the grief or the anxiety doesn’t surface — it becomes a form of managed numbness rather than genuine recovery.

The distinction that matters clinically isn’t “how much screen time” — it’s “what is this screen time doing?” Is it offering genuine rest and regulated connection, after which you feel refreshed and more available to your life? Or is it running continuously to prevent you from being present to yourself? The driven woman who watches two hours of a beloved drama on Friday evening and wakes Saturday morning feeling rested and connected is using screen time differently than the one who’s binge-watching through every weekend because stopping means facing something she isn’t ready to face.

Sarah is a 36-year-old product director who started weekly therapy six months ago. In our early sessions, she mentioned almost guiltily that she’d been watching a particular long-running drama series for the fourth time. “I know it’s probably not healthy,” she said. “Like, I should probably be meditating or journaling.” I asked her what she noticed while she was watching. She described feeling genuinely relaxed, moved by certain storylines in a way that felt like a release of something she’d been holding, and comforted by characters who felt like old friends. That’s not avoidance. That’s actually a very sophisticated use of a narrative container to access and process emotion in a regulated way. The fact that it involves a screen doesn’t make it less legitimate.

The cultural water that ambitious women swim in deserves naming explicitly. Joan C. Williams, JD, distinguished professor at UC Hastings College of Law, has documented extensively how women in high-status professions face what she calls the “double bind” — judged harshly when they’re warm (read as not competent enough) and judged harshly when they’re competent (read as not warm enough). Add a relational trauma history to that bind, and the inner monitoring becomes nearly continuous. Healing has to include a clear-eyed look at how much of the exhaustion isn’t yours alone — it’s a load you’ve been carrying for systems that were never designed to hold you.

How to Use Media Mindfully as Part of a Genuine Healing Practice

In my work with clients, I’ve had more than a few people almost apologize when they tell me they watched the same show three times in one month, or that they cried harder at a fictional character’s loss than they did at their own. I want to say plainly: I don’t think that’s something to apologize for. What you’re describing is often something genuinely functional — your psyche using the protected container of fiction to access feelings it can’t quite reach directly. That’s not avoidance. That’s a sophisticated form of emotional processing, and it’s worth understanding rather than dismissing.

Television, film, and storytelling more broadly can serve as meaningful therapeutic tools when used with awareness — not as a replacement for actual healing work, but as a complement to it. The key is the difference between using media to feel and using it to numb. When you’re watching something that makes you cry, think, or feel a complicated knot of emotion you don’t have a word for, that’s your nervous system doing something. When you’re watching four hours of ambient television to not feel your 9pm despair, that’s something different. Both are human. Only one is useful.

One of the most powerful aspects of narrative — whether in a show, a film, or a novel — is what therapists call universality: the experience of recognizing yourself in another person’s story and feeling, suddenly, less alone in what you’re carrying. That recognition is itself therapeutic. For clients who struggle to name what they’re feeling directly, encountering it through a character often opens a door. I frequently ask clients what they’ve been watching and what’s been landing, because it often tells me exactly what they’re ready to look at in our work together.

This is particularly relevant for those carrying grief, loss, or experiences that haven’t yet found language. Grief that feels too big for words can sometimes be accessed more easily through a piece of music or a film that touches the same emotional register. That’s not a workaround — it’s a legitimate entry point. And once the emotion has been accessed, it can be brought into the therapeutic space and worked with more directly, using approaches like Somatic Experiencing to help the body process what the narrative touched, or Internal Family Systems (IFS) to understand which parts of you were reached.

Where I do want to name a note of caution: media can also function as a dissociative tool, particularly for people with significant trauma histories. If you notice that you’re using shows or films to leave your body — to stop feeling, to escape the present, to avoid your own life — that pattern deserves attention. Not shame, but curious attention. What is the media helping you not feel? Bringing that question into therapy can be genuinely productive.

If you’re in an active healing process, I often encourage clients to notice what they’re drawn to — not to police their media choices, but to treat those choices as data. If you keep returning to stories about estranged families, or about women rebuilding after loss, or about people who finally get to say what they really mean — that pull is worth wondering about. Your psyche is often very clear about what it’s working on, even when your conscious mind is still catching up.

The goal of healing isn’t to become someone who doesn’t need the comfort of a good story. Stories have always been how humans metabolize experience. The goal is to use that comfort with awareness — to let it be one part of a fuller healing life. If you’re curious about what a fuller healing life might look like for you, I’d love to explore that together. You can learn more about therapy with me or reach out directly to talk about where you’re starting from. The things that move you are telling you something. They’re worth listening to.

If you find that your media consumption is increasingly weighted toward avoidance — hours of scrolling that leave you feeling worse, binging that goes past the point of nourishment into numbness — that’s information worth paying attention to. Not to judge yourself, but to get curious. What are you moving away from? What would it mean to turn toward it, even briefly, even with support? Trauma-informed therapy is one place where that turning-toward becomes possible in a genuinely safe container. That question is worth sitting with — and, if needed, exploring with support.

What I see consistently in my work with driven, ambitious women is that the body holds the truth long before the mind catches up. By the time a client lands in my office describing what isn’t working, her nervous system has been signaling for months — sometimes years. The tightness in her jaw at 3 a.m., the way her shoulders climb toward her ears during certain conversations, the unexplained fatigue that no amount of sleep seems to touch. These aren’t separate problems. They’re a single integrated story the body is telling about an emotional terrain the conscious mind hasn’t been able to face yet.

Sarah texted me a few weeks after that session, slightly amused: “I watched three episodes of my comfort show last night after a hard week and felt zero guilt about it. First time ever.” She paused, then added: “I think I needed permission. From research, apparently.”

You have it. The Friday night show, the comfort rewatch, the parasocial friend group — these are not shameful. They are among the many ways human beings find comfort, connection, and restoration in a world that asks a great deal of them. Use them wisely. Let yourself enjoy them. And notice, with curiosity rather than judgment, what they’re doing for you.

One of the most important things I tell clients in early sessions is this: the patterns we’re going to look at together aren’t character flaws. They’re the residue of strategies that once kept you safe. The over-functioning, the difficulty resting, the way you find yourself absorbing other people’s moods before you’ve registered your own — every one of these adaptations made sense in the original environment that shaped them. The work isn’t to shame the strategy. It’s to update the system that keeps generating it.

Medical Disclaimer

Medical Disclaimer