While it’s Halloween season, for you, the scariest decorations you’re seeing may be the political signs cropping up in your neighbors’ yards.
If anxious thoughts about national politics are keeping you up at night, know that you’re not alone. A 2020 American Psychological Association (APA) poll found that 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans say that the current political climate is a “significant source of stress” in their lives.
However, choosing to be mindful amid the noise of the 2020 election can change the tenor of your everyday life. With a few simple strategies, you can better manage the stress of uncertainty and regain a sense of control.
Today, Mindfulness Strategies takes a deep dive into how political stress can fuel anxiety. Not only will we outline helpful coping techniques, but we’ll also explore the link between time spent on social or news media and anxiety.
How to Engage With Others about Politics in Healthy Ways
A great deal of anxiety comes from feeling like so many aspects of politics are out of our control. Real change, however, does stem from individuals coming together and making their voices heard about topics that are important to them. For example, you can:
Engage in constructive conversation with people who disagree with you.
Contact both your local and national leaders and let them know how you feel about political issues.
Write or call news media outlets and outline the changes you wish to see.
However, if you find yourself ruminating for hours each day about the election, you may need to stop and take inventory of how politics is affecting you personally. If you’re distracted when you’re with your family, for example, or thoughts about the election are causing you to lose sleep and negatively impacting your work performance, you may need to try a different approach.
Know What You Can Control
What you can’t control this election cycle: what everyone is posting on social media about the election or how the news media portrays your preferred candidate (if you have one). If you’ve placed a political sign in your yard, you may not even be able to control whether somebody steals it in the dead of night.
Now, for the silver lining: the influence you hold over your own life is vast. For the most part, you control:
How much television you watch
How frequently you meditate
How often you engage in creative activities
How often you get outside
The amount of healthy food you consume versus food that doesn’t make you feel well.
Your breathing
Your social media consumption
Your posture
What you read
How often you exercise
How much kindness and empathy you show towards others and yourself
U.S. Adults Say Political Divisions Are Driving Anxiety Levels
The same APA poll that found that political discord was causing stress among Americans also found that 72 percent of all U.S. adults thought the nation was at the lowest point in its history that they could remember.
While it is important to be informed and support causes you believe in, angst about the polarized political landscape can be paralyzing and debilitating. An alarming University of Nebraska-Lincoln study found that 4 percent of American adults surveyed—which is the equivalent of 10 million U.S. adults—reported having suicidal thoughts because of national politics. Reach out to a medical or mental health professional if you feel you need help.
How Social Media Can Affect Your Mood
Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter’s reported purpose is to keep us informed and entertained. At its best, we learn new information and strengthen ties with friends and family. We follow important causes we care about and delight in how cute animal videos make us smile.
Paradoxically, however, spending less time on these platforms may improve your mood. A study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found that research subjects reported significant reductions in the amount of loneliness, anxiety, and depression when they limited their social media use to 30 minutes per day.
Suppose you find you’re having a lot of anxious thoughts about the upcoming election, and you also regularly use social media. In that case, you may want to pause and examine your emotions after you scroll through your feeds. Do you feel angry, frustrated, or sad? If you find your social media habits aren’t serving you well, you may want to consider taking a break.
If you’d like to maintain your social media accounts but also want to set some boundaries around using them, here are some ideas:
Leave your phone in another room when you’re not using it.
Avoid scrolling right before bed.
Remove notifications from your apps.
Place your phone on airplane mode while you sleep.
Resolve to unplug during weekends.
Consider “unfollowing” people who post content that distresses you, or click on “see less from.” These steps will allow you to remain contacts without actually viewing their posts.
“Unfriend” persons whose content makes you upset.
Deactivate your account
Keep in mind that our emotional states are fluid, and you may feel like rejoining your social media accounts at another time. Similarly, you may find that reading or watching the news earlier in the day may not affect you as much as checking in right before bedtime.
Turn Anxiety Into Action
The APA suggests people look for ways to get involved in their local community to reduce stress. They also recommend meditation, progressive relaxation, and mindfulness as a way to feel grounded and connected.
Another way to achieve a sense of agency is to actively work towards causes you care about rather than just reading about them. For example, if you’re concerned about climate change, you could resolve to cut down on food waste through careful planning and mindful eating. If you’re troubled about the economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic on young families, you could volunteer to help at your local food bank.
No matter how small, giving financially to a cause you believe in may also generate positive feelings.
The APA also encourages people to find a new skill to pursue to promote feelings of confidence. More time spent on a new hobby means less time to ruminate about circumstances beyond your control.
Practicing gratitude can also help you appreciate what is going well in your life and the joys of everyday moments.
Using Mindfulness at Work
Whether your team members are interacting in person or through Zoom meetings during the pandemic, they still need well-developed communication skills to thrive collectively. Fostering a positive company culture through collective mindfulness amid the election may reap helpful benefits by reducing friction between team members and strengthening their coping skills.
Mindfulness Strategies
While we can each make mindfulness a meaningful part of our individual lives to reduce our anxiety, improvements in the workplace can help the teams with which we work. To learn more about fostering healthy coping strategies and emotional resilience for your team, consider implementing a mindfulness program. Click here to contact Mindfulness Strategies today to find out what we can do for your company.