This election and its recent impact on international, national and personal wellbeing is devastating our ability to cope and feel productive. So let’s try to understand this stress and how it works. Layering of stress with our everyday work and homelife issues is taking a toll on our functioning.
Research shows the distress we feel around politics can harm our physical and mental health — and it’s only getting worse. In 2016, the presidential election caused significant stress for 52 percent of adults — this year, that number jumped to 69 percent. Additionally, according to the APA’s Stress in America 2024, many U.S. adults said they were worried that the election results could lead to violence (74 percent of respondents) or that the 2024 election could be the end of democracy in the U.S. (56 percent of respondents).
The problem we are having is that this election and the political activity that has recently ensued is overwhelming in its volume, velocity and impacts. Humans are not built to deal with these assaults effectively. When there is too much change we move into our “Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn and Flop” (5 Fs) responses.
Alvin Toffler wrote FUTURE SHOCK, in 1970, to help us anticipate that technology and related changes would devastate functioning for many of us. He said, “Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.”
The thing about change is that all change: good or bad, can cause stress. But when we think it is a bad change, it has added to it, the impact of anger. Anger and fear on the spectrum of feelings are on the “negative or Fight or Flight” causing side of the spectrum. On the other hand when we feel joy, peace and love we are calm. Having a new president that we didn’t want is more likely to cause the fear and anger response. Threats like fighting with our friends and families over the election caused feelings of anger and loss. In America (and probably the world) we have a lot of angry people because of tariffs, inequality, jobs, money, the ecology, and empire building.
Fight and Flight is an understandable concept. Although fear and anger have negative connotations, their message to us is that we want something to change. It triggers us to action, if we can figure out what action to take. The Fight or Flight response tells us to run from danger or fight it. Many of us want to fight it, but the impact of so much trouble piled together makes us feel impotent and helpless. Then we freeze, fawn or flop.
Freeze is when we stop and have no idea what to do, Fawn is when we sort of bow down to the stress and people-please or capitulate. Flop is when we just lie down and feel overwhelmed. People in America are having all these responses. We must help our people cope with this, and we need to give them real useable tools.
In the psychiatric field we work with traumatized individuals. The truth is, most of us have had prior trauma of some sort, so in “Psych,” we apply “trauma informed care.” That concept is that we assume everyone has had some trauma and we provide support.
Now Americans, who already had some prior traumas, are having many new traumatic experiences and combined stressors. Psychologist Dan Seigle explains that when we perceive danger, our brainstem is triggered by a fear or anger message that comes from our limbic system (in the middle of our brain) to turn on the stress response of the 5 F’s. When that occurs there is a simultaneous triggering of lots of body responses to help us fight or flee, but we also have an automatic shutting down of many of our logical thinking powers that are located in our cortex and frontal lobes. When that happens,we can’t think logically and only want to fight. Our chemistry puts us on a hamster wheel of thoughts that keep us riled up. Political issues are likely to stress people to the point of not being able to get a grasp on what to do about the problem.
The commonsense approaches for individuals to use are:
- Stop focusing on disturbing news and social media.
- Carefully navigate complicated differences of opinion with family and friends who differ with you in political perspectives.
- Take care of your physical and mental health.
- Engage in political activism.
- Use relaxation and mindfulness.
The problem with this is that sometimes we feel stuck in our stress. The trauma resiliency model suggests a variety of mindfulness and grounding activities to use when we feel activated to anger or discouraged to the point of flopping.
Mindfulness is a term that frames the idea of getting our minds out of the past, and the future and the negative worries or memories. It encourages you to return to this moment: “here and now!”
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To be mindful we need to use our body and our surroundings to connect with ourselves and our environment. We do this by connecting with our 5 senses. Name things or colors that you see, notice what you hear, feel your hands or feet touching and sensing things within your grasp. Notice your breath entering and exiting your body. Tell your muscles to loosen and soften. Taste your food, notice the cold of ice or the heat of your tea. Smell the roses and live your life now. So many things are easier to cope with when we can enjoy the moments of our life.
If you are reading this publication, you are interested in politics. If you are trying to help people be more politically active, please understand their stress when you give guidance.
- Keep the guidance simple but complete.
- If you want them to come to a meeting or rally, tell them when, where, why and what to wear. Give them a phone number of a human to contact if needed.
- If you want them to call a congressperson, include the number or numerous numbers and email. (I personally spent hours trying to contact my senators and got consistent “call failed” notices. STRESS!)
- If you think they can make an impact on agency or bureau closings or immigration issues, be specific on what they can do.
- Human understanding and connection reduce stress and encourages motivation.
- Offer political stress “support groups”, not just monthly party meetings. (Lebanon County is doing this.)
- Provide information in voice communication and human interaction. This internet connecting is efficient, but it is what Alvin Toffler thought would encourage FUTURE SHOCK, Technology can offer too much information and too little real connection.
The political environment is very stressful. It is overwhelming to many. Let’s use some practical approaches to calming people’s nerves so we can give them the brain and physical energy to make a contribution toward a better world.
