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We’ve been enduring a stress epidemic for several decades now, with sharp increases in stress-related illnesses, our feelings of being overstressed and anxious, and the physical load of stress that we carry around every day. The consequences are severe, for our health, our well-being, and even our longevity.
And now we’re experiencing a major new surge in feelings of stress, according to the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America Survey, following the November election and the January Inauguration. This surge threatens to become a tsunami, judging from just the first couple of months of the Trump administration. Immigrants who are undocumented fear the breakup of their families, and even those who are in the U.S. legally are subject to questioning and detention. Working and middle class families worry that their health insurance will disappear. The disruption of social norms and the fraying of the social fabric affect everyone. And all of this threatens to accelerate the social inequality that is at the root of the rising stress epidemic, according to a new study from the Hamilton Project, Money Lightens the Load.
What to do? Are we destined to suffer from rapidly worsening outcomes for health and well-being? Or can we protect ourselves against this looming stress tsunami? The best recent psychological and biological evidence on coping with stress highlights three major categories to focus on: connection, consciousness, and control. We need to revisit how to deploy them in today’s unprecedented circumstances.
We’ve known for some time that social connection is a major way to protect ourselves against the negative effects of stress, which harms our health because of excess cortisol carried in the body over time. At a core biological level, strong social connections engender the “good feeling” neuro-hormones—serotonin and oxytocin—both of which act as direct counter agents to cortisol. The psychological benefits of mutual support are well established. Nurturing and sustaining our social networks of family and friends becomes even more important when the level of ambient stress moves sharply higher. It can help move us away from “fight or flight”, and toward “tend and befriend.”
But social connections that help us, as well as those who are near and dear to us can also be linked to the need for coordinated responses to rising social threats. Collaborative “resistance” to social threats provides the individual benefits of being connected to a meaning-making effort and can be effective in preventing harm to others.
We can also protect against the stress tsunami by exercising conscious mindfulness that allows us to focus on what is happening in the present moment, and keeping that in perspective, rather than indulging in past anger or remorse, or fear of the future. It’s important to distinguish this from ignoring what is happening by burying our heads in the sand. Taking some time away from the relentless flow of societal stressors is a valuable tactic on occasion, but disappearing from the scene altogether generates additional stress through lack of information and worries about things one should be doing.
Regaining a sense of control, and recognizing the control that we do have, is the third big category of stress management, and beyond that, as a game-changer for how we experience stress. This too has both personal and societal aspects. A perceived lack of control is among the most debilitating factors psychologically and in terms of stress biology—in the extreme, learned helplessness leaves us shattered. We can look to those areas where we do still have control, and look for opportunities to expand it, both at work and in daily life. There are limits, of course—perceiving that we have control where the reality is the opposite is short-lived. But even planning to exercise more control begins to have stress-reducing effects, as does taking initial steps to enact a plan. Joining with others to take action that takes back control where possible—such as through political action, or building a civil society—provides an added dimension of effectiveness.
Being aware of the major new stressors that are amplifying the existing stress epidemic is a first step. Choosing and deploying our social connections, conscious mindfulness, and action to take back control are evidence-based pathways for dealing with new and threatening circumstances.
