By Dr. Emmett Miller

As the 2024 election season drags on in the midst of highly unstable world politics and climate change-driven disasters, you may begin to feel like you’re on an anxiety rollercoaster – with worry, fear, and obsessive thoughts sometimes morphing into rage or despair. All these are symptoms of stress.

And it’s not just you—everyone’s feeling it. The political climate is more polarized than ever, with each side sticking to its playbook. Political ad spending is set to skyrocket to a whopping $12 billion in 2024, and the constant barrage of intense emails, texts, AI-generated fake news, and TV attack ads could make anyone feel overwhelmed.

Elections could, and perhaps should, be a time of reflection and hope, as we exercise the freedom of our democracy. Instead, right now in our country, we face toxic polarization. It seems that listening to and respecting differing perspectives has been replaced by denial, contempt, and refusal to even consider others’ viewpoints. In addition, we face disinformation from foreign internet trolls aiming to sow chaos among our populace and shake our faith in our institutions. But if you’re wise, you can call on your inner peace and power to choose how you react.

Now, you might be thinking, “Dr. Miller, how am I supposed to stay calm with all this craziness?”

Well, let me introduce you to your two mental roommates: your conscious mind and your subconscious mind.

Your conscious mind is like that wise, thoughtful friend who helps you parallel park in a tight spot or plan a long road trip.

Your subconscious? It’s more like that buddy who reacts automatically— drinking “one for the road,” or shouting obscenities at someone who cut them off in traffic. It’s the force that causes you to salivate at the thought of sucking a lemon and to brake at a red light. I call it your monkey mind because it functions at the level of a chimpanzee’s brain. Especially important is its fight-or-flight reaction, the true source of our stress, because whenever you are exposed to frightening “news,” the subconscious reacts as if it were a life-or-death emergency and pumps cortisol and adrenalin into your system, preparing your muscles and reflexes for flight, or a fight to the death.

This monkey mind operates in a bipolar manner – everything is for or against, friend or foe. It creates enemies, fuels arguments, and generates negativity. We react emotionally without realizing why, even though we don’t want to! That’s because it sends neuronal signals to block your higher mind, your prefrontal cortex, from thinking and acting intelligently and wisely. It doesn’t dare take the time for contemplation because it thinks you need to react to this dire emergency in split seconds.

In short, then, the subconscious mind is the central driver in the anxiety we feel as political parties fill the airwaves with paid advertisements and the internet trolls bombard us with clever messages designed to trick us into voting the way they want. That anxiety can trigger us to believe what we’re told by the most frightening ads and outlandish stories, entirely outside of our conscious awareness. Soon I will show you how this happens and how common it is.

How to Harness the Power of Election Stress for Long-Term Change

Simply stated: In our modern world, the stress we experience, and its accompanying emotions and addictive escape behaviors, are often inappropriate and harmful. While these reactions once prepared our ancestors for physical dangers thousands of years ago, they now drain our energy, disrupt our plans and, most importantly, impair our ability to think wisely.

Wise thinking and action involve making conscious choices that we can look back on with pride and satisfaction in the future. This wisdom arises from the proper use of our prefrontal cortex. To help you acquire this indispensable skill, I will share with you this powerful four-step process:

1. Relax your body, thoughts, and “monkey mind” to enter the present moment.
2. Freed from emotional baggage, identify the real problem and potential solutions.
3. Mentally project into the future, imagining the likely outcomes of each choice.
4. Select the decision that yields the most positive long-term result.
5. Initiate intentional movement toward this goal.

Navigating Pre-Election Challenges

Over the coming weeks, I’ll share effective strategies for you to not only survive but thrive during this period. Consider it a special training course provided by the world. Following are a few constructive physical actions you can take to make it through, sanity intact:

1. 1. 1. Vote carefully and wisely.
      2. Donate to organizations aligned with your beliefs.
      3. Engage in calm, well-reasoned conversations with open-minded individuals.
      4. Join groups that share your values and intentions.

Beyond such actions, there’s not much you can do, no matter how much your monkey mind wants to be the hero.  Keep in mind always that such subconsciously triggered actions like worrying about the future, raging at political zealots, or cursing at the news is temporarily relieving, but is not only futile but harmful—to you as well as others— and is a terrible substitute for a wise and effective strategy.

I’ll guide you through brief exercises to connect with your inner wisdom and make life-enriching choices. Each time you use these mind tools, you’ll be training your “monkey mind” to respond to your higher mind’s directions, and training your higher mind how to guide your subconscious, to quiet it, and rewire it—much like training  horse and rider. By the time the election concludes, you’ll have developed powerful skills to manage any life challenge, an important life transformation

Let’s begin this transformative journey… Click on the play button below to experience a sample of my new ‘Mini Meditation’ called 5-Minute Election Stress Relief.

Below is a collection of guided imagery programs I have selected to support you in finding:  

Election Calm