Are you feeling whiplashed by the news cycle? Is it making you stressed, anxious, and angry? You’re not alone.
The American Psychological Association’s 2024 survey of 3,305 American adults reported, “More than 7 in 10 adults said the future of the nation (77%) is a significant source of stress in their lives, with the economy (73%) and the 2024 U.S. presidential election (69%) following closely behind.” Similarly, the American Psychiatric Association’s 2024 survey of 2,200 adults reported, “43% of adults [felt] more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. Adults [were] particularly anxious about current events (70%)—especially the economy (77%), the 2024 U.S. election (73%), and gun violence (69%).”
How does news turn into stress? “Flooding the zone,” the constant barrage of new and unexpected events, and the associated uncertainty they engender trigger the brain’s anxiety, fear, and stress centers and overload them.
Uncertainty is a huge stressor for all animals. The brain’s stress response is designed to make animals vigilant and watchful for predators, and when they’re attacked, it provides the energy to fight or flee.
When operating at peak, the stress response is lifesaving. It’s like your car engine. When you’re at rest, the engine is idling; when you need your stress response to power your focus, you’re humming along at optimum speed. But when you go into overdrive, with the constant bombardment of stressful, unexpected events, you burn out or freeze.
Without a way to channel that energy, the stress turns into anxiety and anger, with all the effects of those emotions, including sleepless nights, loss of appetite, inability to focus, and impaired relationships. If the whiplashing goes on too long, it can result in depression and even physical illnesses, including impaired ability to fight infection, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and some cancers.
What can you do about it? First, move that needle back from overdrive to optimal speed by engaging in stress-reducing activities. Then do things to channel that stress energy into actions that help you take control.
To reduce your stress, gather with friends. Social support and positive relationships are very effective ways of reducing stress. UCLA psychology professor Shelley Taylor coined the term “tend and befriend” when she noticed that stressed female mice gathered their pups and huddled with other female cage-mates. This works with us humans too. Carnegie Mellon psychologist Sheldon Cohen was one of the first to show that social support buffered against stress and stress-related illnesses. So, share a meal with friends and family.
Another way to reduce your stress is to find or create a place of sanctuary. This can be as small as a favorite chair in your home or a bench in a garden or park, or as large as a forest or mountaintop. Getting out into nature—“forest bathing”—is an important way to reduce stress. While you’re in your sanctuary place, breathe deeply to activate your vagus nerve’s relaxation response.
If you can’t get out into nature, try guided imagery to take you to your favorite place in your mind. You can download guided imagery recordings from the internet to help you get there. You can even use virtual or immersive reality nature spaces to reduce stress and anxiety. As little as 15 minutes a day in such spaces has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety and improve sleep.
Or try low-tech methods. Read a book, a prayer, or a favorite poem. My father’s favorite psalm was the 23rd—I imagine that it helped take him to a place of sanctuary in his mind while he was interned in a concentration camp in Russia during WWII. That psalm takes you to green pastures, still waters, and a place of peace. It gives you hope, even if you are in the valley of the shadow of death. Prayer and gratitude practice are other powerful ways to find peace and reduce your stress response.
Once you’ve settled your stress response with these measures, find meaning. Viktor Frankl’s all-time best-selling book, Man’s Search for Meaning, describes how he and others who found meaning in their lives were able to better survive the Nazi concentration camps than those who had no meaning.
When you’re in your place of sanctuary, dig deep and ask yourself: What is most important to you in your life? Is it your family, your loved ones, your life’s work? Helping others? Whatever it is that gives your life meaning, throw yourself into that.
This brings me to the last item on the list: Turning anger, anxiety, and stress into action. The stress response is the fuel that your brain uses to give you the energy to take action. So, use that fuel to do what you can. Taking action will help you gain control over the situation, and the more control you have, the less stressed you will feel.
Even if doing so feels like a tiny drop in the massive ocean of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and divisiveness that surrounds us, if each one of us turns our stress response to positive action, to doing good, then maybe together we can all get through this and make the world a better place.