Constant worrying about Trump is a threat to your health

Like many millions of Americans, ever since Trump was elected president on November 5, a mere twelve days ago that seems like much longer, I've been consumed with anxiety about what this means for the United States and the world.

In short, nothing good. Or at least, very little that is good.

Naturally I'm speaking from my perspective as a Democrat who heartily supported Kamala Harris. I realize that Trump supporters feel differently. But I'm speaking to those who, like me, see Trump as a threat to democracy, the environment, equal rights, justice, the economy, Ukraine, and so much else. 

We have to resist Trump whenever and wherever possible. That's a given. However, we can't constantly worry about what Trump will do in the next four years. That way isn't good for our mental and physical health. 

And it's important that we remain strong -- to fight the good fight against Trump's malevolent authoritarianism.

Maybe you've heard of the book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. It's about stress. Humans and other animals are hard-wired by evolution to react strongly when faced with imminent danger, like a lion stalking a herd of zebras.

When the lion attacks, the zebras run like crazy. Hormones in their brain and body are instantly released to aid them in escaping from the threat to their life. But after the attack is over, the zebras return to grazing. 

That's how the sympathetic nervous system was intended to work. In his book, Mind Magic, neuroscientist and neurosurgeon James Doty says about the autonomic nervous system:

This part of the nervous system developed early in our evolution as a species and has two divisions. The first to evolve was the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), whose job it is to ensure our physical survival and the survival of our genes, and whose primary activity is to engage the fight, flight, or freeze response. 

...Because it evolved to act in life-or-death situations, it moves along very short neurons and therefore has the power to completely commandeer our physical and emotional resources in a split second, filling our body with stress hormones like cortisol and tensing our muscles for action.

Later, the human nervous system evolved further with the addition of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), also known as the rest-and-digest response, whose job is to return the body to a peaceful resting state, a process known as homeostasis. 

The switch to rest-and-digest is accompanied by a wide variety of physiological changes to promote balance and harmony: our muscles relax, our heart rate and blood pressure decrease, and we produce more saliva for digestion.

Nature didn't intend that we be in a constant state of anxious arousal. Our brain and body are basically unchanged from prehistoric times when early humans, like zebras, were faced with dire life-or-death threats that required a rapid fight, flight, or freeze response, soon followed by a rest-and-digest response (assuming the threat didn't end in death).

We live in a very different world now. Few of us have direct threats to our life. Instead, our modern world is filled with situations that provoke feelings of anxiety in us, such as the election of a president, Donald Trump, who is viewed by many as posing a serious threat to values they hold dear.

Instead of going back to grazing on what sustains us, as zebras do after a threat appears and disappears, often we remain in a stressful state -- because what we fear isn't a near-at-hand danger that can be dealt with, but a distant danger outside of our control.

James Doty goes on to say:

The problem is that while evolution takes millions of years to adapt to environmental change, humans have profoundly changed our environment in only a few thousand years. In fact, we lived as hunter-gatherers in groups of fifty to a hundred until only six to eight thousand years ago.

Unfortunately, today's fast-paced and anxiety-provoking world is riddled with the sorts of uncertainties and frustrations that trigger the fight, flight, or freeze response and keep it chronically activated by unreal, imagined, or insignificant threats. 

Essentially, we are responding to a passive-aggressive comment in a colleague's email through the same system that was designed to process a saber-toothed tiger attack. As we will see, the chronic activation of the fight, flight, or freeze response and its release of inflammatory proteins has damaging effects on the body, including an increase in heart disease and a weakened immune system.

I don't see Trump as an imagined or insignificant threat. He's a clear and present danger to not only the United States, but the world as a whole. Like I said, when there's an opportunity to resist him, we need to do what demands to be done. 

But we can't remain on guard against Trump all the time. He can't be a constant inhabitant of our mind. We can't react to every crazy thing he does as if it was a saber-toothed tiger attack. We need to keep informed about what he and his administration are up to, while engaging in activities that relax and rejuvenate us as much as possible.

Everybody who opposes Trump will have to find their own ways of doing this. I've meditated every day since 1969, when I started learning yoga while in college. Currently I enjoy brief guided meditations rather than the hour or two of meditation that I used to practice.

On my iPhone I switch back and forth between Sam Harris' Waking Up app and the Calm app. Today I went back to listening to the Daily Calm, which I find more relaxing than the daily guided meditation offered by Waking Up. 

Trump is going to do what he's going to do. Yes, that's a tautology. But it reminds me that by and large, it's going to be up to leading Democrats in Congress and various states to stand in Trump's way when he poses a danger. 

I can support those efforts. Yet I can't let my mental and physical health be threatened by constant worries about what Trump has done, is doing, and will do. I've got to graze on the pleasant grass in my life, not be incessantly looking around for threats from a president who isn't anywhere near me, physically.

Comments

[Carmen]

Amen brother.

[jim Theisen]

Life is short and even shorter for some of us. One man is not going to change your world. Give it a change ... you might even like the little changes that are likely.