I work in the political field and I see the mental distress daily. I think this is good advice. Everyone needs to do a mental inventory about how news and news about politics affects them. Politics has always been toxic and corrosive. People who live in this sewer like your local elected officials get ground down by all the hate and anger as well as all the temptations. It’s a crucible where human flaws are magnified x10. That’s on the wholesale side. Most of us are on the retail side. We are consumers. So we can have a choice about what we consume.
"Most of us are on the retail side. We are consumers. So we can have a choice about what we consume. " @Margaret - thank you. I found this a helpful re-framing (and true!).
Hey, just a follow up to your "get involved locally" idea: I found a way to actually look forward to elections. I volunteer as a poll worker. It's very intense work, but also calm -- there's a system, and the system works surprisingly well. I also get to meet people who are my neighbors, regardless of whether I am aligned with them on the political spectrum, and we're polite and matter of fact (most of the time).
I realize that not all polling places are like that -- Florida? Arizona's Maricopa County? Not sure I'd recommend it. And I've had one or two times when registration frustrations by the voter were taken out on me. But for the most part, it has completely changed elections for me.
I volunteered as a poll worker in a senior high rise where many needed help to fill out their ballot due to physical disability. Sometimes this involved reading the ballot out loud. Sometimes it involved making sure that they didn't over vote- checking multiple boxes for offices that allowed one choice. Sometimes it involved "spoiling a ballot" and starting over from scratch.
It's worth doing it at least once to see how the balloting process works. The number of ballots at the end of the night has to match the tabulation tape exiting the voting machine including counting absentee ballots and write ins.
Big city precincts can get overwhelmed if they get more people than they expect. And many people are first time voters, ever, or in that precinct so their expectations can be off. Often those people show up expecting the worst because of what they see on TV of those disaster places.
disengaging is certainly helpful - and I so understand your point here, but I wish your focus was in depth “how to regulate in these times”… or “how to disengage while staying present” because, let’s face it, not being engaged is just going to make things more messy. everything is political (yes, absolutely we don’t need to keep reading the polls and the news) but if that guy is elected again, we are really going to need to be able to show up in our communities to make sure we are taking care of each other. I believe that taking care of our nervous systems SO THAT WE CAN show up *should be* our highest priority. and we can, in fact, take care enough to show up enough without burnout. we need both the tools to go within, the tools to remain steady, and the capacity to re-enter the world and remain at peace with all it throws our way.
Yes, this. Sometimes it feels like things are so bad that the only way to stay ok is to disengage as completely as possible, but the stakes are so high that disengaging is indefensible. So I’m left with a sense of moral obligation to be Not OK.
I know what you mean, and I spent many years there too (in my case, I burned out hard, because I care extremely deeply and it makes me crazy that I can't fix everything). I still feel the moral obligation not to opt out of acting (writing letters, voting, giving money, etc.) but have tried to make my output:input ratio as high as possible. What I personally can't handle is a lot of information coming in about things I can't realistically affect, so I try to minimize that part, while still engaging in action where I can.
Thank you, Mae. This is beautifully put. I am the daughter of an activist mother. I saw how she could find pleasure in the middle of challenging oppressive systems--indeed, it was not a binary.
What I do is use the yard signs as a visual trigger to check on my voting dates and put them in calendar.
Maybe I should do a recurring "check state/city election dates" calendar reminder every... quarter? 6 months?
as I was caught off guard by the school board signs popping up for a May 21st election here.
I sometimes will put the notifications a week or so out so I can ask around about candidates to see who is lying or dogwhistling and who might align with my (progressive, beyond liberal views) the best.
That feels like a cool idea. I live in a pretty urban place, so I will *occasionally* see signs in people's windows or their little front gardens. We used to have a lot of outdoor community bulletin boards near bus stops but they've all been removed.
I.e. read the books and track your response. Learn about somatics work. Dance to overrule the stress. Engage with people and laugh and talk about how to create change. Stay alive inside this time!
I was hoping my comment to Martha might also reply to yours. Alas, but *waves hi! My comment was in response to your desire for regulation while engaging meaningfully. Downthread :)
Chris, I love that you wrote: “Who benefits from your attention?” Because, yes, Attention Economy is everything...
To bring in a counterbalance to all the negative news energy - which really drags me down - I like to place my attention on what I call Quiet Activism.
My two current favorites are (1) iNaturalist (app and website, inaturalist.org. Where millions observations of the natural world go on to be used to shape climate policy, a direct result of collective action), and engaging with the (2) Unite Against Book Bans campaign (sponsored by American Library Assn, uniteagainstbookbans.org/toolkit). There are a number of actions we can take to fight the explosion of book ban attempts over the past couple of years.
These are just 2 examples, but there are many things we can do remotely to contribute to collective action on topics we are passionate about.
Yes! This! I disengaged from the political news BS several months ago and my anxiety and stress has gone down substantially. Everything you wrote here resonates and rings true IMO. Thank you for sharing more broadly.
I'm a person who doesn't do elections well, so except for four years ago when COVID prevented it, I leave the country during the presidential election. It gives me something to look forward to and plan for and takes my mind off of more damaging things.
For recommended world history reading: I just started reading "Age of Empire" by Eric Hobsbawm about the lead-in to WWI. So far I'm really impressed that a book from 1987 by a white, British guy takes on issues of class, gender, and race repeatedly in a very matter-of-fact way. It's the third in a series about the 19th century and definitely want to read the other two.
As someone who tuned out of the news cycle a couple of decades ago, I heartily concur with the advice to do so. As a public policy professional, I implore everyone not to conflate self-protection from toxic politics with disengagement from civics. Your vote matters and your voice matters. It might not look like it does but as someone who is within the system, I can assure you it does. I can’t overstate the power of citizens writing in to the relevant authority to request a particular action, particularly if it is well considered.
So by all means, tune out of the race cover-rage, but don’t stop using your voice to speak up for a better world. Put forward your requests and solutions, even if you don’t see immediate results. Public policy wheels often turn slowly but they do turn - and it’s citizens who must set their direction.
How does one stop themselves from compulsively refreshing the news page in their browser? HINT: I use Freedom, its a software that runs in the background that can block all news & politics sites for a defined period of time. When I turn on my computer in the morning, I immediately set a 6 hour session of Freedom. That way, even if I compulsively type news.google.com or x.com into my browser, I get the beautiful message showing up in the browser "You are free. Do something that matters."
To achieve some peace of mind around who we elect and who is spending our tax dollars, some kind of plan to vote seems sane. Right now...make sure you are registered and have a way to vote, whether it is by mail or by transporting yourself to a polling location. Once you have that buttoned down, then you can choose to turn off the ads and overflow of political commentary. All of your suggestions, starting with read a book and take a walk or do something generous for someone--that works. The anxiety on this election goes back to the election where we stayed home and looked away thinking, Oh surely Trump is not going to get elected. What's that saying about insanity? If you repeat what you did before and expect different, you may need to do something different this time.
Hi Chris: I’m new to your work; thank you for this piece. I appreciate your suggestion and permission to avoid most political media; I think it is sage and I’m going to give thought on how to implement it. That said, for folks who think the outcome of the election really matters, I think the advice to 1) not donate to campaigns and 2) only focus on hyper local political issues misses the mark. Donations—even small dollar donations—actually matter for an election’s outcome. Some might argue they matter more than your vote (particularly in a non-swing state). So, while they support more undesirable ads and noise, they also support GOTV efforts (driving people to the polls, etc) and persuasion for more apolitical voters. Second, I believe there are tangible ways folks can engage in the national election (perhaps in addition to focusing on local issues). For example, door knocking and writing postcards to voters have impact on the margin. In an election that (by all accounts from the political media) will be very close, I think we should all be considering how to engage in ways that still protect our mental health. All of this said, I appreciate your call to evaluate and discard what isn’t serving us—or even hurting us.
Emily: thanks for talking about postcards to voters. I've probably written hundreds over the years, for dozens of candidates, and alerting voters to vote by mail options. I consider it a spiritual practice...with a stamp :)
It's unfortunate that "news" has become entertainment. The constant barrage of irrelevancy since the advent of TV and radio, now exacerbated by the Internet and social media, seems to have eroded our will to engage politically and civically. I don't think it's a coincidence that our role as humans has shifted from citizen to consumer.
I think we need to take back what is our right - which is to self represent. Reading books to educate ourselves and fight for what we believe in.
But wow do we balance self-care while also fighting for what is right? It's almost a privilege to be able to ignore one's country's politics and not be affected. The rich already control so many politicians. But ironically, I suppose that makes it even more important than ever.
And consider making friends - in person friends - with someone who disagrees with you politically to reduce the influence to dehumanize them. That's what the media does the most - makes you so scared you dehumanize others.
So very important to stay connected to humans and not ‘otherize’. While the cognitive dissonance in ‘the other’ seems baffling, common ground can still be found. And it’s a more effective basis upon which to converse to understand.
That said, the paradox of intolerance is real (I think), so there are some subjects that are tough to bridge or accept a contrary view to.
I stopped following politics years ago. It's all just noise. I try to vote responsibly & leave it at that. No amount of worrying or stressing I do is going to change anything. So as Melanie says, I make art ;)...b
Yes to this, in particular the "Better Things We Can Do" - Get involved locally. Taking one tangible, physical action towards an election issue that gives you anxiety will make the world of difference to your anxiety - and this is how we actually reshape societies. Thinking about the vast number of people who will stress themselves wild, obsessively reading news, articles, polls, but not actually write an email to their elected representative or volunteer with any group. If you tire yourself out so much with the news cycle that you can't take action, "they've" won.
Commenting so I remember to come back and share this piece!
I work in the political field and I see the mental distress daily. I think this is good advice. Everyone needs to do a mental inventory about how news and news about politics affects them. Politics has always been toxic and corrosive. People who live in this sewer like your local elected officials get ground down by all the hate and anger as well as all the temptations. It’s a crucible where human flaws are magnified x10. That’s on the wholesale side. Most of us are on the retail side. We are consumers. So we can have a choice about what we consume.
"Most of us are on the retail side. We are consumers. So we can have a choice about what we consume. " @Margaret - thank you. I found this a helpful re-framing (and true!).
Hey, just a follow up to your "get involved locally" idea: I found a way to actually look forward to elections. I volunteer as a poll worker. It's very intense work, but also calm -- there's a system, and the system works surprisingly well. I also get to meet people who are my neighbors, regardless of whether I am aligned with them on the political spectrum, and we're polite and matter of fact (most of the time).
I realize that not all polling places are like that -- Florida? Arizona's Maricopa County? Not sure I'd recommend it. And I've had one or two times when registration frustrations by the voter were taken out on me. But for the most part, it has completely changed elections for me.
Well said. Thank you for sharing this.
I volunteered as a poll worker in a senior high rise where many needed help to fill out their ballot due to physical disability. Sometimes this involved reading the ballot out loud. Sometimes it involved making sure that they didn't over vote- checking multiple boxes for offices that allowed one choice. Sometimes it involved "spoiling a ballot" and starting over from scratch.
It's worth doing it at least once to see how the balloting process works. The number of ballots at the end of the night has to match the tabulation tape exiting the voting machine including counting absentee ballots and write ins.
I was a poll worker many years ago, as a teenager, helping my mother. It sticks with you. Thanks for doing it.
Big city precincts can get overwhelmed if they get more people than they expect. And many people are first time voters, ever, or in that precinct so their expectations can be off. Often those people show up expecting the worst because of what they see on TV of those disaster places.
disengaging is certainly helpful - and I so understand your point here, but I wish your focus was in depth “how to regulate in these times”… or “how to disengage while staying present” because, let’s face it, not being engaged is just going to make things more messy. everything is political (yes, absolutely we don’t need to keep reading the polls and the news) but if that guy is elected again, we are really going to need to be able to show up in our communities to make sure we are taking care of each other. I believe that taking care of our nervous systems SO THAT WE CAN show up *should be* our highest priority. and we can, in fact, take care enough to show up enough without burnout. we need both the tools to go within, the tools to remain steady, and the capacity to re-enter the world and remain at peace with all it throws our way.
Yes, this. Sometimes it feels like things are so bad that the only way to stay ok is to disengage as completely as possible, but the stakes are so high that disengaging is indefensible. So I’m left with a sense of moral obligation to be Not OK.
I know what you mean, and I spent many years there too (in my case, I burned out hard, because I care extremely deeply and it makes me crazy that I can't fix everything). I still feel the moral obligation not to opt out of acting (writing letters, voting, giving money, etc.) but have tried to make my output:input ratio as high as possible. What I personally can't handle is a lot of information coming in about things I can't realistically affect, so I try to minimize that part, while still engaging in action where I can.
Thank you, Mae. This is beautifully put. I am the daughter of an activist mother. I saw how she could find pleasure in the middle of challenging oppressive systems--indeed, it was not a binary.
What I do is use the yard signs as a visual trigger to check on my voting dates and put them in calendar.
Maybe I should do a recurring "check state/city election dates" calendar reminder every... quarter? 6 months?
as I was caught off guard by the school board signs popping up for a May 21st election here.
I sometimes will put the notifications a week or so out so I can ask around about candidates to see who is lying or dogwhistling and who might align with my (progressive, beyond liberal views) the best.
That feels like a cool idea. I live in a pretty urban place, so I will *occasionally* see signs in people's windows or their little front gardens. We used to have a lot of outdoor community bulletin boards near bus stops but they've all been removed.
I.e. read the books and track your response. Learn about somatics work. Dance to overrule the stress. Engage with people and laugh and talk about how to create change. Stay alive inside this time!
I was hoping my comment to Martha might also reply to yours. Alas, but *waves hi! My comment was in response to your desire for regulation while engaging meaningfully. Downthread :)
Make art. It comes in varied forms, i.e., offering something for everyone. Especially "non"-artists.
Chris, I love that you wrote: “Who benefits from your attention?” Because, yes, Attention Economy is everything...
To bring in a counterbalance to all the negative news energy - which really drags me down - I like to place my attention on what I call Quiet Activism.
My two current favorites are (1) iNaturalist (app and website, inaturalist.org. Where millions observations of the natural world go on to be used to shape climate policy, a direct result of collective action), and engaging with the (2) Unite Against Book Bans campaign (sponsored by American Library Assn, uniteagainstbookbans.org/toolkit). There are a number of actions we can take to fight the explosion of book ban attempts over the past couple of years.
These are just 2 examples, but there are many things we can do remotely to contribute to collective action on topics we are passionate about.
Yes! This! I disengaged from the political news BS several months ago and my anxiety and stress has gone down substantially. Everything you wrote here resonates and rings true IMO. Thank you for sharing more broadly.
I'm a person who doesn't do elections well, so except for four years ago when COVID prevented it, I leave the country during the presidential election. It gives me something to look forward to and plan for and takes my mind off of more damaging things.
For recommended world history reading: I just started reading "Age of Empire" by Eric Hobsbawm about the lead-in to WWI. So far I'm really impressed that a book from 1987 by a white, British guy takes on issues of class, gender, and race repeatedly in a very matter-of-fact way. It's the third in a series about the 19th century and definitely want to read the other two.
As someone who tuned out of the news cycle a couple of decades ago, I heartily concur with the advice to do so. As a public policy professional, I implore everyone not to conflate self-protection from toxic politics with disengagement from civics. Your vote matters and your voice matters. It might not look like it does but as someone who is within the system, I can assure you it does. I can’t overstate the power of citizens writing in to the relevant authority to request a particular action, particularly if it is well considered.
So by all means, tune out of the race cover-rage, but don’t stop using your voice to speak up for a better world. Put forward your requests and solutions, even if you don’t see immediate results. Public policy wheels often turn slowly but they do turn - and it’s citizens who must set their direction.
How does one stop themselves from compulsively refreshing the news page in their browser? HINT: I use Freedom, its a software that runs in the background that can block all news & politics sites for a defined period of time. When I turn on my computer in the morning, I immediately set a 6 hour session of Freedom. That way, even if I compulsively type news.google.com or x.com into my browser, I get the beautiful message showing up in the browser "You are free. Do something that matters."
To achieve some peace of mind around who we elect and who is spending our tax dollars, some kind of plan to vote seems sane. Right now...make sure you are registered and have a way to vote, whether it is by mail or by transporting yourself to a polling location. Once you have that buttoned down, then you can choose to turn off the ads and overflow of political commentary. All of your suggestions, starting with read a book and take a walk or do something generous for someone--that works. The anxiety on this election goes back to the election where we stayed home and looked away thinking, Oh surely Trump is not going to get elected. What's that saying about insanity? If you repeat what you did before and expect different, you may need to do something different this time.
Hi Chris: I’m new to your work; thank you for this piece. I appreciate your suggestion and permission to avoid most political media; I think it is sage and I’m going to give thought on how to implement it. That said, for folks who think the outcome of the election really matters, I think the advice to 1) not donate to campaigns and 2) only focus on hyper local political issues misses the mark. Donations—even small dollar donations—actually matter for an election’s outcome. Some might argue they matter more than your vote (particularly in a non-swing state). So, while they support more undesirable ads and noise, they also support GOTV efforts (driving people to the polls, etc) and persuasion for more apolitical voters. Second, I believe there are tangible ways folks can engage in the national election (perhaps in addition to focusing on local issues). For example, door knocking and writing postcards to voters have impact on the margin. In an election that (by all accounts from the political media) will be very close, I think we should all be considering how to engage in ways that still protect our mental health. All of this said, I appreciate your call to evaluate and discard what isn’t serving us—or even hurting us.
Emily: thanks for talking about postcards to voters. I've probably written hundreds over the years, for dozens of candidates, and alerting voters to vote by mail options. I consider it a spiritual practice...with a stamp :)
It's unfortunate that "news" has become entertainment. The constant barrage of irrelevancy since the advent of TV and radio, now exacerbated by the Internet and social media, seems to have eroded our will to engage politically and civically. I don't think it's a coincidence that our role as humans has shifted from citizen to consumer.
I think we need to take back what is our right - which is to self represent. Reading books to educate ourselves and fight for what we believe in.
But wow do we balance self-care while also fighting for what is right? It's almost a privilege to be able to ignore one's country's politics and not be affected. The rich already control so many politicians. But ironically, I suppose that makes it even more important than ever.
And consider making friends - in person friends - with someone who disagrees with you politically to reduce the influence to dehumanize them. That's what the media does the most - makes you so scared you dehumanize others.
So very important to stay connected to humans and not ‘otherize’. While the cognitive dissonance in ‘the other’ seems baffling, common ground can still be found. And it’s a more effective basis upon which to converse to understand.
That said, the paradox of intolerance is real (I think), so there are some subjects that are tough to bridge or accept a contrary view to.
I stopped following politics years ago. It's all just noise. I try to vote responsibly & leave it at that. No amount of worrying or stressing I do is going to change anything. So as Melanie says, I make art ;)...b
Samesies! I do my civic duty and vote but tune out the absolute CHAOS that politics brings to the party. Art soothes the soul.
Yes to this, in particular the "Better Things We Can Do" - Get involved locally. Taking one tangible, physical action towards an election issue that gives you anxiety will make the world of difference to your anxiety - and this is how we actually reshape societies. Thinking about the vast number of people who will stress themselves wild, obsessively reading news, articles, polls, but not actually write an email to their elected representative or volunteer with any group. If you tire yourself out so much with the news cycle that you can't take action, "they've" won.
Commenting so I remember to come back and share this piece!