Hey friends, welcome to Radiohead Space, and Wednesday morning.
I'm your guest host for the week, Arthur C.
Brooks. Well, this week we've been talking about how to maintain happiness during an election cycle, and a crucial aspect of this is post -election blues.
I think in the last two election cycles, we've all experienced some post -election results that were pretty surprising and not so happy, no matter where you sit on the partisan spectrum.
It's normal to feel a sense of shock or sadness in the aftermath of an election that didn't go your way.
Over the past 20 years, there's been a big increase in the intensity of how elections affect people psychologically, and there's a lot of reasons for that.
We're not just delicate flowers.
We're bombarded. There's all sorts of ways for media, traditional media, and social media, and politicians and companies to inject messages into your consciousness.
One of the things that we've started to identify in the mental health profession is something called post -election stress disorder.
This is when there's a lot of attention to an election.
It feels like the stakes are really high and then it doesn't go your way.
It's a new designation.
Believe it or not, there are people who are specializing in treating post -election stress disorder with all sorts of traditional and non -traditional therapies.
Now, if you don't believe that it's a real problem for your happiness, there's a pretty interesting study that went back to the 2012 presidential election between President Barack Obama and his challenger, Mitt Romney.
That might seem like a small election by today's standards, but it was a pretty big deal to a lot of people.
And what they found is that people for whom the election went in the wrong way 60 % the day before the election said that they were happy the day after 30 % said that they were happy.
You might be thinking, okay, but the winners, they went a lot.
And so it kind of balances out at a societal level.
Not so much. It turns out that the people who won or the people who is side one in 2012, the Obama voters, they weren't happier after the election than they were the day before the election.
So what we have is kind of a net loss with with these elections and we're likely to see the same kind of thing today.
We need to take care of our happiness because a lot of people are going to be experiencing a lot of post election blues.
So how do you deal with that?
I have five recommendations that are tested by science to make the day after an election that didn't go your way better.
Number one, one of the things that human beings are uniquely capable of doing, it's an incredible cognitive feat, is counterfactual reasoning.
It's a kind of rumination where we imagine the past being different and thinking about how the present would be different as a result.
We're able to do this so that we can look back on mistakes that we've made.
Part of the reason is because we learn a lot from regret when we counterfactually think about a different past and think about a new present and a better future.
What we're doing is we're learning, we're updating so we don't make mistakes again.
The trouble is that we use that for things that weren't our decisions.
So if you have post election blues, almost certainly part of what will be propelling those blues as you're thinking to the election and imagining if Arizona had gone a different way and Wisconsin had gone a different way or whatever.
Don't do that because counterfactual reasoning serves no purpose.
When you find yourself doing that, interrupt the process by saying, I listened to that lesson on headspace.
I shouldn't be counterfactually ruminating right now and you will stop.
Practice number two, don't personalize the loss.
I like sports like a lot of people and I have my favorite teams.
My favorite soccer team is Barcelona, Barca.
I lived in Barcelona for years and years and years.
As a matter of fact, for the past 35 years, I've lived there on and off and I never miss a game.
I get those weird cable channels and streamers that are so hard to get so I can watch every Barca game.
And and I find myself saying, we won.
Well, who's the we?
I don't play for Barca.
I'm a professor. I don't know how to play soccer.
But when I say that, it's because I like to personalize the wins and I sometimes personalize the losses as well.
And that's just good, clean fun when it comes to sports.
It's not fun and it's not healthy or good when you do it with respect to politics.
I realize that you have opinions.
That's normal. That's fine.
That's good. But when your candidate loses, you didn't lose.
No, and the whole country didn't lose either.
If you personalize the loss to feel that I lost, well, that's going to be a problem for you because you're going to put into motion all the cognitive processes, all of the parts of your brain will be stimulated that say that there's been a a loss to you, that you have a sense of sadness that you should be feeling
grief, believe it or not.
There's a part of your brain dedicated to feeling grief and loss.
If you personalize politics too much, if you personalize the loss, that will light up like a Christmas tree and you'll feel like you lost an election.
And that's not something you want to feel.
It's not something you need to feel.
Lesson three, don't catastrophize a loss.
Now, I know the media is trying to tell you that this is the most important election in your lifetime.
I'm 60 years old and I've heard that for every single election since I've been able to vote.
I hear it again. I hear it again.
And I hear it again.
Nonsense. Look at a little bit of history.
If you're losing today, well, good news.
Your win is coming.
It's going to be great.
The whole point is don't catastrophize that this is the end of history.
This is the end of the country.
It isn't. People want you to think that because the activists want to activate you.
Remember, when you're angry, when you hate, you become somebody's product and catastrophe is the best way to capture your brain.
Lesson four, go local.
The single best way for you to take your attention off national and international issues is to look at the issues that you can actually change.
Go do something that really benefits people and you will feel weirdly better.
And the fifth lesson is this.
Turn off the outrage machine.
Turn off the television.
Turn off your social media for Pete's sake.
Stop reading those things and watching those things is making you feel awful.
That's like scratching poison ivy.
Look, the day after the election, it's bleeding.
Stop doing that. It's going to get infected.
It's just going to get worse.
Do these things. You'll feel a lot better.
And who knows, maybe you'll be able to go help somebody who is suffering just like you were.
That's it for me today.
Thanks so much for listening.
Do you want to learn the science backed insights that are the real keys to a life of meaning purpose and ultimately happiness?
Go to science of happier dot com.
That's all one word science of happier dot com and use the code headspace for an exclusive discount.
For even more of my insights visit arthurbrooks .com.
And if you find yourself struggling with election anxiety, check out the How to Stop Worrying About Politics Meditation on the Headspace app.
It offers practical exercises to help you navigate this stressful time with ease.
I'll see you back here soon.
