Mindfulness tips to help ease anxiety and tension this election season

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. If you’re feeling anxious about next week’s election, or just weighed down by the current political climate, you’ve got a lot of company. The American Psychological Association found in a recent survey that an overwhelming majority of U.S. adults — 77% — are suffering from political anxiety about the future of the nation.

Chronic stress from political anxiety differs from general anxiety, but you don’t have to suffer from general anxiety to be familiar with political anxiety. For some, all the hateful rhetoric thrown around feels like an existential threat.

So, how do we cope with pre- and post-election anxiety? Here with some insight is Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman, Boston University’s chaplain for Episcopal ministry and certified mindfulness instructor. Reverend, thanks for joining us.

The Rev. Dr. Karen Coleman: It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Rath: As I mentioned, we are in a time, in a moment, when so many people feel politically overwhelmed and divided. And also, something we know is not good for our mental health: feeling kind of helpless. Before we talk about mindfulness remedies, talk about how all of this is really bad for us.

Coleman: Um, it’s bad for us because we hold tension in our bodies, and we don’t necessarily know where we’re holding the tension when we are caught up in the tension. So when I’m feeling tension, my shoulders tend to want to rise up to my ears, which then causes my breathing to be shallower and chest-centered.

And sometimes I can catch it. And sometimes, you know, I’m wondering why I have this tension in my body, and it doesn’t really connect with me until I take some time to go “Oh!” and bring my shoulders down from my ears and do some of the mindfulness exercises.

You know, I’m a mindfulness practitioner, and sometimes that’s the last thing to cross my mind — because I’m just caught in the tension. Part of mindfulness is being mindfully aware of what’s going on with our bodies, and everybody is different.

Rath: Well, and let’s talk about the different approaches to how people can get mindfulness practices and techniques, starting off with that last point you just made. How do we make ways to remember to actually do it?

Coleman: I have Post-It notes on my computer. It says “breathe,” because sometimes I forget, you know, to breathe. And when I mean breathe — we’re not conscious of breathing. Breathing keeps us alive. We’re just not conscious of breathing. But, you know, that little Post-It note or something — there are apps that can send you reminders.

Just take, you know, a couple minutes out of your day.

It could be as simple as standing on the T platform and remembering to breathe. It’s something as simple as, you know, maybe adjusting your posture. Something as simple as getting up and going outside and taking a walk, or moving from room to room, you know — something to get you out of the space that you’re actually in, where you’ve held yourself in this tight tension to cause your shoulders or your hands — I know for a friend of mine, their hands clench from the way they grab their pen, you know.

A lot of it, like I said, is just listening to the places where you hold tension.

Tension is not good. Tension raises our blood pressure. Tension raises our stress level. Tension does not allow the blood to flow through our bodies because it’s caught up in this fight-or-flight response that, you know, is, is what we’re hardwired to do.

Rath: So you take a moment to kind of listen to your body, where it’s coming from — if the tension is in your shoulders, or your stomach, or your jaw or wherever. What are some maybe simple breathing techniques that you can do, say, if you’re on the T platform or wherever you are?

Coleman: Well, on a T platform, I wouldn’t suggest you close your eyes. [Laughs.] If you’re at your desk or you’re sitting someplace where you can comfortably close your eyes and close your eyes and kind of escape from the activity around you, you know, if you have a chance, just place your hand against your heart, or try to listen to your heartbeat, and then notice where your body makes contact with the world.

And then, we call it “breathing into those places.” You know, you’re not going to physically breathe into your jaw. You’re not going to physically breathe into your shoulders. But breathe in and release that tension. And just consciously let go, and let your shoulders come down, and feeling that unclenching. Doing a conscious effort to do a full, deep breath.

And this one you can do on the T platform. You know, you can do:

inhale, two, three, four

hold, two, three, four

exhale, two, three, four

And it doesn’t have to be at that count. Find the count that is comfortable for you. What it does is it takes the stress off of your mind and puts it in something that is replenishing and refreshing your body.

Rath: What about the external things? I mean, to the extent that we can control. Obviously, a lot of what we’re talking about getting us stressed out, there’s, you know, social media. Some of us tend to “doomscroll.” Some of us have jobs where we have to. Do you have recommendations for how to maintain balance, or ways that we can at least, like, step away temporarily?

Coleman: Make a conscious effort to step away temporarily from the 24-hour news cycle.

You know, even though there are people I like and I follow and, you know, I want to be very in tune to what they’re talking about. But I found that I was starting to breathe from my upper chest, starting to hold tension in my shoulder, and I just needed to step away.

So for me — and this has worked in our household — in the morning, after I get the first ten minutes of news and weather, I will flip over to the classical radio station or turn on satellite radio and connect with smooth jazz.

And that is out of my — you know, the way I run my morning, you know?

I had my set way of running my morning. But what I found out is that I was starting to absorb, because then I was starting to look at, you know, what’s on social media? What just dropped? What just happened? Scrolling down, scrolling down. And if one platform didn’t give me what I wanted, I moved to another platform. And if that platform didn’t get me what I wanted, I moved to another platform. And I’ve had to stop.

Rath: Reverend, political anxiety obviously doesn’t end when the election is called. And the tensions that we have aren’t going away. And with holidays coming up, there are a lot of people who probably feel nervous about talking with their own family about all these things that are stressing them out so, so much. Are there any kind of mindfulness tips that might help us approach these kind of conversations calmly?

Coleman: You know, something has brought you together as a family — whatever you constitute as a family — so find those wonderful things that have brought you together. Talk about those. You know, share stories that aren’t going to cause any rifts during this holiday.

You know, we’ve held in a lot for quite a number of months, so this is a time to welcome and celebrate each other, as we are all humans on this journey.

Rath: That’s Reverend Dr. Karen Coleman, Boston University’s chaplain for Episcopal ministry and certified mindfulness instructor. Reverend, that was wonderful. Thank you.

Coleman: Thank you.

Rath: This is GBH's All Things Considered.