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Hey friends, welcome to Radio Headspace and Tuesday morning, I'm your guest host for the week, Arthur C.
Brooks. So as you know, it's election time, and you probably have a little bit of anxiety about that.
I don't blame you. Between the news cycle, social media, preparing for your family dinners during the holidays, well it can be tough.
Today I want to address these deep -seated feelings of anxiety that can emerge during election season.
While we can't just get rid of all of our election anxiety, there are some things we can do to calm things down before and after we head to the ballot box.
Let's talk about that.
During ordinary times, during healthier times perhaps, most people wouldn't be thinking that much about elections, but we live in a time where social media and ordinary media are surrounding us, and we're getting delivered to us like with a hypodermic needle, information and messages from politicians
and people around politicians and activists and everybody else saying, look, this might be the last democratic election we ever have.
This is the most important election of our time.
We've heard it all.
The truth of the matter is that we live in a hyper -partisan, polarized environment that's so filled with news and information that we can't escape the messages.
And the result of that is, well, you're only human, and you're going to start to process that kind of alarm, that kind of panic that they're trying to elicit in you.
They're successful, is the bottom line, and the strategy we need to start to adopt is to fight back, to fight back against the panic that people want us to feel.
Now, I'm not saying don't be concerned about politics.
It's perfectly natural.
It's a good thing to do, but we don't want it to wreck our lives, so we need to understand how to manage our happiness, even with other people while they just as soon we'd be unhappy, because that makes us better fodder for political battles.
As a younger man, I have to say I cared more about politics than I do now.
I remember feeling really angry and at one point not being able to sleep.
Now, again, I'm a social scientist, so I was a younger scholar at that particular time, but I wasn't studying this.
I wasn't looking as much at happiness as I currently do, and I certainly wasn't looking at happiness in the context of elections.
Well, I remember one night I had a pretty sleepless night about what was going to happen in an election.
At about three o 'clock in the morning, I realized I'm being manipulated, and that is the reason I turn to studying what I'm studying right here.
I'm dedicating myself to trying to be a happier person through the election season than I want you to be a happier person as well.
That starts with awareness.
That starts with awareness of the fact that your life is your life, and you need to live it intensely locally with the people that you love and the things that you can actually affect.
And when you're having a sleepless night because of what somebody's telling you about an election, what an activist is telling you actually might happen in the country that you can't control, well, will you become the product, and it's time for you to fight back.
When you're feeling a lot of election anxiety, there's a few things that you can actually do to fight back so that you aren't the product and you can actually get a little bit better sleep.
Now, again, I am not going to recommend that you don't pay attention to politics and that you not care.
I want you to be a responsible citizen.
I want me to be a responsible citizen as well.
I just don't want it to take over our lives.
So I hear a few practices that you might consider.
Number one, remember, consuming news and holding political opinions, that's not citizenship.
There's a really good scholar at Tufts University, he's a political scientist by the name of Eden Hirsch, who's written about the fact that increasingly people screaming at partisan news shows is substituting for people getting involved in their local communities.
Real citizenship is getting really involved in actual issues.
And that means helping people who can be helped as opposed to simply holding strong opinions.
So stop thinking that your level of information that you're getting from the news is any substitute from something that you can do and start getting more involved locally.
You'll feel a lot better and you'll actually have an impact.
Second, start rationing your consumption.
It's really important to recognize that if you're looking at information about politics all day long, you're not getting anything new.
Probably after the first 15 minutes, according to the best research, you're not going to see anything that you haven't learned before in the day.
So that's what I recommend.
If you're going to look at political information, good for you.
That's just fine. Do it first thing in the morning and do it for 15 minutes and turn it off and have a deal with yourself.
I'm not going back to it again until tomorrow.
And you're going to find that you're weirdly happier.
Here's the third idea.
Turn off the partisan rants and turn them off on your own side.
The people who agree with you are more likely to push your buttons.
Turn those off because actually that's the source of your unhappiness, is listening to the people who agree with you, but who are particularly outraged and trying to make you more outraged.
Turn off the outrage machine and you will feel better.
So here's your three assignments if you choose to take them.
Remember, getting involved is more important than reading news.
Number two, you're not going to learn anything new after 15 minutes.
So ration your consumption.
And number three, turn off the rants, especially those on your side.
Do these things. You're going to feel a lot better.
That's it for me today.
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 scienceofhappier .com.
That's all one word, scienceofhappier .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 really soon.
