Uncertainty about the election getting to you? Is anxiety the dominant feature of your emotional landscape, maybe with a small sprinkling of impending doom?
You are not alone. A recent survey found that 69 percent of American adults are seriously stressed about the 2024 presidential election.
It’s difficult not to be worked up about politics in today’s polarized climate. Regardless of which side of the political aisle you sit on, you may find yourself glued to your browser or TV, gobbling up every tiny tidbit of news and feeling your stress levels skyrocket.
Concern is justified. Frankly, articles like this one piss me off: everyone ought to keep their concern, and use it to motivate them into action. It’s fucking absurd that we’re here talking about “managing stress” and not “organizing counter-protests to Trump’s impending next coup attempt.” You want to make yourself useful, Arstechnica writer? Fucking tell us about that!
Anxiety and concern are not the same thing. If you’re only able to motivate yourself through stress and fear, do you. But many people don’t find anxiety to be a useful motivator. In fact, for many people, it has the opposite effect.
And this isn’t an Ars Technica writer. This is actually reprinted from The Converation, which is a platform that solicits academics to author articles intended for a broader audience than, say, academic journals. She’s an associate professor and licensed psychologist with a PhD.
Yeah, I know. And the article trying to gaslight us into mistaking the latter as the former is part of the problem!
OK