Warning: While this post talks about the impacts of politics, this is not a political post. Readers are welcomed to consider their own viewpoints, media consumption patterns, and means by which they may benefit from making adjustments to benefit their mental health.
“I don’t know what it is this year, but everything surrounding the election just feels out of control.”
“I really don’t care so much about it, I just can’t get away from all the damn ads… Like, how did you even get my phone number and email address? Just leave me alone!”
“I know every general election there’s always a big push to get people out, but have you seen some of the stuff that’s out there? This is crazymaking - like banana-pants!”
“I don’t even know who I can talk to about just common sense issues, because it’s like everyone is so far left or so far right that I’m going to be cast out as some pariah for thinking differently.”
“I’m new to this whole thing, but is this normal? I mean I know where I stand on the important stuff and I know who I’m voting for, but this is all just too… intense!”
While coming up in my training as a mental health counselor, I was always taught that there was a strong need to stay out of religions, sports, and politics in the counseling session. This may have been because in part, our role as clinicians is to be an advocate for the client and topics that can be highly divisive may have a negative impact on the rapport within the therapeutic relationship. At the time, I was a group facilitator and as such, I needed to maintain open and effective relationships with many people, encouraging the group to work collaboratively on their shared goals and avoid areas which foster division and infighting.
It doesn’t take much to see why religion, sports, and politics were considered danger zones.
However, of course, there are times when themes within these very topics are the focal points of a person’s distress and as such cannot be avoided. A couple who are reconciling their faith and religious beliefs while confronting the prospect of divorce; A young man whose family lives and breathes Sunday night football who is coming to realize that he may have a problem with gambling; A woman who struggles to attend family engagements where she believes that members on the other side of the political aisle are going to cause her to feel uncomfortable… These are all very real concerns that can absolutely cause significant distress.
Within the past month or so, in my own personal work as well as noting conversations that have arisen within our clinical team, focus has been slowly however notedly shifting to the current election cycle. And, predictable as it may be, it has been attracting increasing amounts of attention as we build closer to the general election.
On a personal note, while I stand for and applaud the rights we as Americans share regarding our freedom of speech, I do find myself raising an eyebrow at how it appears that the political space has been capitalized upon. 24 hour news platforms continue to churn out content and political pundits do extremely well financially. There’s always been a lot of money in politics, and in the past generation, we see that there’s now a lot of money in talking about politics.
Beyond the monetization of this space, it would also appear that the drivers being used to sway swing voters or ensure registered voter turnout are emotional in nature - namely anxiety and fear. You will find these themes on both sides of our political spectrum. And they’re not wrong! A heightened emotional state will activate a certain level of stress response, which provokes action.
While this trend in our politics is another important topic to address, I’ll maintain our focus in this post on the topic at hand and validate that yes, as we continue on in this election season it is going to be natural for you to experience some heightened stress or anxiety. Many may be able to naturally tune it out or address it with their routine resources and life maintenance strategies. For some, however, these may only offer limited effectiveness or just simply not make the cut.
For those who notice increases in their election related anxiety and struggle to regulate their emotional or affective response, it may be necessary to factor in other strategies. While there are innumerable to consider, we offer several to try.
Integrate Moments of Mindfulness
Nevermind integrating mindfulness as a means to mitigate anxieties surrounding the current election cycle - this is something we all can benefit from now, yesterday, regardless of the political climate. So much of our day to day life is centered around thought. Our thoughts, the thoughts of others, and then of course the metacognition of what we think of our thoughts (we can really go down a rabbit-hole there, but let’s not) has the propensity to take us away from the here and now, inevitably leading to a more stressed life experience.
Add onto this the notion that these thoughts are stressful or anxiety inducing, this then only enhances the experience of stress. As humans, we’re not built to stay in stress states for long periods of time, as eventually it will have its wear on our mental health.
No one gets a badge of honor for enduring high levels of anxiety for prolonged periods of time. We all need a rest sometimes, and it takes fortitude and humility to recognize when we need to apply the breaks and take care of ourselves. Practicing Mindfulness can play a significant role in any self care routine.
Deep Breathing: Typically, when we’re in a stress state, our breathing is short and shallow, kept tight in our chest. This style of breathing is helpful for when the body is active - perhaps during physical activity - however does not lend to relaxation. We all have the capacity to adjust our breathing, it only requires some mindful attention.
There’s many different styles of breathing (or breathework) and they can be used for different things, but for beginners, it may suffice to focus on a box breath, or square breathing. After a sign-like exhale, breath in for a 4 count; hold for 4; exhale for 4; rest for 4… and continue (squares have 4 sides of equal length, shift your breathing to be equal on all parts. Get it?). Maintain this for 3-5 minutes, while focusing your mind on your breathing, and see if you notice a difference.
Grounding Exercises: When our anxiety is keeping us stuck in our heads, we can be best helped by getting out of our minds and into our bodies. There are a variety of somatic based exercises that can help do this, but again, for beginners, we can just focus on a basic grounding skill. Let’s take the 5 4 3 2 1 Grounding Exercise…
Identify 5 things you see
4 things you can touch
3 things you can hear
2 things you can smell
1 thing you can taste
By focusing the mind’s eye into our bodies, we’re giving our brains a break and perhaps offering ourselves an opportunity to take in what’s going on around us. Pair this with some deeper breathing and you’ve got a strong combo for a mindful rest.
Consider your Content
When attempting to address levels of anxiety surrounding this election cycle, it’s going to be important to factor in how you’re being exposed to your stressors: your sources, how frequently, and for how long.
Far be it beyond anyone to tell you where to receive your media content from. It’s a free country, completely your decision! The matter to bring to attention here is to understand exactly what types of content you are consuming. Specific to political content, consider if the information you are receiving is primarily reporting or commentary. News reporting tends to be rather brief, information, matter of fact; whereas commentary is primarily longform, focused on opinion or interpretation of a specific event. Commentary opines on motives, potential outcomes or consequences of specific events.
A hunch would be that if you’re experiencing heightened stress surrounding the upcoming election, you may be exposed to more commentary than actual reporting. While there is a place and purpose for commentary, you’d be well served to reduce this exposure to aid in lowering your levels of anxiety. Specific news networks are generally known to lean toward specific ends of the political spectrum, while others (albeit few) remain more neural on politics and while they address political reporting, may dedicate more time to local or international news stories.
A note to keep in mind, in addition to political reporting and commentary, you will also find that certain programs lean more toward discourse, where thought leaders on opposing sides of an issue would have an opportunity to share their views in either a debate-like fashion or in an effort to find common ground despite having fundamental differences. On the whole, discourse is a positive thing, as one would hope that our leaders have the capacity to hold true to their beliefs while being able to work collaboratively with others. That being said, consumption of discourse content may also contribute to heightened levels of stress and might be best to be reduced as well.
One last consideration is that 24 hour news networks are tasked, it is their imperative, to make sure that viewers continue tuning-in. They are paid through advertisements and in order to keep ad revenue coming in, they need to maintain certain standards in ratings and viewership. These venues are prime sources for commentary. Of course, you may have several choice programs you prefer to receive your content from. Some are just going to be designed in such a way to attempt to keep the audience engaged, and they may seek to do this by working on the emotions of their viewers.
While considering the content through which you receive your political news, you may also want to make some other adjustments.
Reduce Screen Time: Phones, Tablets, Laptops, or Televisions - we could all benefit from reducing the use of our devices. The thought here is that regardless of what type of news media you consume, if you are exposing yourself to less of it, it may help in reducing your exposure to these stressors. You may choose to designate certain time frames during the day to watch a news program or scroll through the headlines, however avoid the doom scroll, media binge.
Mute Notifications: As connected to devices as most of us are these days, many apps offer notifications for pertinent updates. Perhaps there’s a flash sale on an item in your cart, or it’s double points day at your favorite java joint. For news media, these notifications are usually focused on breaking news. While not all of this content is focused politically, it remains an access point to onboarding a fresh set of stress. Unless you have an absolute need of being informed of news cycle events the minute the news breaks (and yes, there are some careers paths that rely on minute-by-minute intel to inform major decisions), it’s probably best you pause, mute, or otherwise turn off these notifications for the time being. You can always reevaluate if you want to turn them back on at a later time.
Adjust the Algorithm: With all other efforts in place, you may still find that highly politicized content can still creep in when using social media or online in general. With potentially years worth of tracking viewing habits, your routine websites and social apps are able to funnel media content, suggested pages, or general ads based on your past patterns of usage. This could make it difficult for anyone with a digital footprint to avoid politicized content while on their social apps or online. You do have the capacity, however, to make adjustments and destress your online experience. Within your internet browser and some social media apps, you have the capacity to reset or delete your cached content. This is in essence deleting your browsing history, therefore changing the algorithm of what ad content, posts, and page suggestions get highlighted on your feed. Some media apps, however, do not offer an option to do this. In that event, you may choose to adjust the algorithm on your own by searching for completely unrelated content. If you’re a sleeping kittens or playful puppies kind of person, get ready - once you start to search for this new content, much more will find its way onto your feed all on its own. Just understand that the more you click onto political related content, the more you will see it creep in.
Talk it Out
Sometimes we all have things we need to get off our chest. Much like what we do in a counseling session, at times just being able to connect with another person to process our thoughts and emotions can help alleviate building stress. The key is to be willing to talk about it with others and to have trusted confidants to be able to check in with.
A big differentiator here is that we’re suggesting to focus on talking about the stress or anxiety - not necessarily the political content that is amplifying the emotion. Conversely, if you find yourself routinely interacting with others who are frequently talking about highly politicized material, then you may want to consider letting them know where you’re at with your emotional tolerance for this content at the current moment.
Hey, with everything going on right now, I could use a pause from politics. I’d rather just have our time be about relaxing and catching up if its all the same to you.
I just can’t right now. Whenever I talk about this stuff my anxiety gets going and it just messes with my day. Let’s put a pin in that and just change topics of conversation for now.
Focus on how you’re doing, and what you think would be helpful to work towards feeling better. Whomever you’re connecting with, be it a friend, family member, or coworker, chances are they’ll be supportive, and may even share some of their own experience and what has been helpful for them.
After making efforts to moderate your stress levels (internally - through mindful practices; externally - through moderating political content exposure; interpersonally - by enriching connections with reliable social connections), if you’re continuing to struggle with election anxiety, please know you’re not alone. With our current political climate, there are many others who experience similar stresses.
If the symptoms of your anxiety begin interfering with day to day activities, making it difficult to focus or concentrate, negatively impact your sleep, or lead you to isolating from others and activities, you want to speak to a professional to process these emotions and their impacts. Our clinical team at NJ Recovery & Wellness has clinicians who can work with you on other means to manage these intense emotions during an intense timeframe.
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