Bethany Teachman is a Clinical Psychologist whose research focuses on how biased thinking contributes to anxiety disorders. She is a professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training at the University of Virginia and an expert on anxiety.
At the University of Virginia, she runs the Program for Anxiety, Cognition, and Treatment lab which studies cognitive bias modification and uses digital technologies, such as apps and web-based cognitive bias modification programs, in attempts to shift anxious thinking.
She is on the governing board of The Society for Digital Mental Health.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
In your practice. How have things changed in
(00:04):
particular in this electioncycle, as far as people's
anxiety and depression?
Yeah, I think we see it both,you know, in our therapy
practices, but also just indaily life, as we're talking to
friends and families ourselves,right? It's a pervasive
challenge right now with, youknow, over 70% of people saying
that they're really experiencingpretty high levels of election
(00:24):
anxiety right now. So this is areally common challenge that
people are experiencing. I thinkthat there are three factors
that I'd identify that makemanaging this election cycle
particularly challenging. Thefirst is that we're in a 24/7,
news cycle, and so it's reallyeasy to get overwhelmed by it.
So you can sort of have thiskind of pervasive, you know,
(00:46):
whether you're Doom scrolling orwhatever it is that's kind of
pulling you in. You can sort ofbe constantly bombarded with
these really threatening,negative messages, headlines
that say our democracy is atstake. You know, all of these
kinds of things that can make itfeel really overwhelming. And it
can be really take over in a waywhere you don't get breaks. And
so that's one piece that I thinkis causing it to be really
(01:07):
challenging for for some peopleright now. Second piece is that
we are so polarized, and yet thepolls are so incredibly tight
that people are having totolerate a really high level of
uncertainty. And we know thattolerating that uncertainty
tends to breed anxiety for a lotof people, especially
individuals who are morevulnerable to anxiety. And so we
(01:28):
are being asked to sort ofhandle this uncertainty at
unusually high level, thisround. And so I think that's
adding to a lot of the challengefor people. And then the third
piece is, I think because ofpeople feeling some distrust in
the institutions, feeling likesociety's not working the way
that it's supposed to, not onlytied to the elections, but in
(01:49):
other domains as well. There's alot of other scary news stories
that are out there right now.
And so it leads people to havethis sort of sense of
powerlessness, and when you feellike you don't have control over
the important outcomes in yourlife, that makes it extra charge
to manage, it extra hard tomanage, it. The good thing is
that by identifying those threefactors, each of them has
different actions a person cantake to try to help manage the
stress that they're causing.
(02:11):
I'm a doom scroller, you know,and and I used to, I used to
really pride myself on havingcontrol over my subconscious
mind and over habits, habitslike that. But carrying this,
carrying this thing around, youknow, in a moment, going, let's
see, you know, and Gib makes thepoints that that the folks that
(02:33):
are making money off of this,they know what our habits are
now. They knowthey want, they want us to have
that feeling, because that meanthe same the same network, the
networks, they're all, they alldo the same thing that that
engage you and make you feel badand uncertain, then spend their
commercial breaks selling youmedication that stabilizes you
for your uncertainty. So it's,it's like, it's it to me, I can
(02:55):
see the the thing I mean, one ofthe ways I cope as I like to
engage on on sports, because itcreates a lot of the context of
of of dealing with, you know,joy and hardship and
perseverance, all of that,without the feeling of the
stakes of of of politics. Solike, you know, I it's helpful
(03:17):
to have that, to be able toengage with people like, how
about those rams? How about theit? It's a good it's a good
medium to be able to to engagewith that, with people without
having to worry about it'swhere, you know, if I have
friends that support theYankees, and it does not feel as
it does not feel, it. I don'tget as angry about us supporting
(03:40):
opposing teams as we are made tobelieve we should be about
people supporting opposingparties, and that is a useful
tool for me. But you gave usthree, three main causes of
anxiety. Said, ourpowerlessness, our constant
engagement andthen and then and then, our
difficulty managing uncertainty.
(04:01):
Yeah, our disillusion with thewith the uncertainty. What? And
you said there are specificthings for each of those. What
are those specific things?
Yeah, absolutely. You know. Iwant to say, first and foremost,
that, you know, none of theseare like, Oh, this completely
solves the problem. And no, fiveminutes or less, we'll carry
your ink. So, you know, clearlyit's not that. And I also would
(04:22):
want to frame this that Iactually think some anxiety is a
perfectly healthy adaptiveresponse to a stressful
situation. So I talk to peopleabout the goal is to figure out,
how do you manage the impact ofanxiety in your life? Our goal
is not to eliminate anxiety,right? Anxiety motivates us.
It's a really importantcommunication signal. It tells
us that there are threats in ourenvironment we want to respond
(04:43):
to. We don't want to eliminatethat, but we don't want it to
paralyze us. So on the sort offeeling overwhelmed Doom
scrolling side of things,there's two parts. One is
thinking about, how do you wantto manage your media
consumption? And I don't believethere's a one size fits all
answer to this, right? It'sreally trial. An error to figure
out what works for you. So somepeople, I talk to, what they
(05:03):
need to do is really managetheir total time. For other
people, it's more about whenthey check the news and putting
particular boundaries on that,for example, not checking right
before they go to bed, becausethen they're not sleeping and
they're not sleeping has allkinds of other downstream
negative effects. For otherpeople, it's about like actually
paying more attention to whatsites they're looking at,
because they partly to get moreaccurate information, maybe to
(05:26):
get more balanced information.
For others, it's about like,intentionally seeking out some
positive stories. So hopescrolling, you know that
alternative to doom scrolling oftrying to get a little more
balance in there and then, forother people, it's like, very
intentionally, like, I am goingfor a walk and the phone is
nowhere near is not coming withme, right? And taking those like
concrete breaks, I don't believethere's one right answer to
this. I What I encourage peopleto do is like, be a mini
(05:48):
scientist. Say these are the twothings I want to try this week
that I think will help me managehow I regulate media, try them
see what happens to your moodand adjust accordingly. There's
a parallel with it, though,which is just to say it's not,
you know, sometimes I think wehave this conversation. We sort
of said, well, if we could justmanage how we engage with social
(06:08):
media or online activities,that'll solve the problem. I
don't think that's true. Theissue is also like, what are you
doing with the rest of yourlife? Right? So, you know, do
you have a balance of otheractivities? Are you going to
play sports in addition towatching them? Are you doing
things that are fun andrelaxing, things that help you
meet your goals, things thatdistract you, things that you
know? Are you getting sleep? Allof those other things the rest
(06:30):
of your life matters too. Init's not only the media
consumption. Part of what's alsoreally hard right now is that
this is raising, you know,questions about people's
identity, about how they thinkabout themselves, what they
value. It feels bigger than justa political choice. As you said,
this isn't just Mets versusYankees, right? This feels like
it's tied to a whole lot ofbigger issues, and so not just
(06:53):
for yourself, figuring out,like, hey, what does it mean
about me if I vote for thisperson? Does that mean I'm also
on board with X views, orwhatever it happens to be, but
also, gosh, these people that Ilove, my friends, my family,
they're making choices that aredifferent than mine. What does
that mean about who they are andwhether we can be friends, and
what our values are and all? Soit's, you know, I do think
(07:16):
there's actually a lot ofparallels with the teenage
space, with what we're goingthrough right now,
what, what would you say is themost dangerous thing that we can
do right now, during this time,shut down, you know, obviously
expressing hate to others, andthose kinds of things are, you
know, would be first andforemost, I think, as a non
helpful thing to do. But interms of for things that, you
(07:38):
know, how we manage the stressof it, there's a strong urge
when we feel depression, when wefeel anxiety, when we feel high
stress, to just kind of reallywithdraw and go into a bubble or
go under the bed covers, youknow, whatever it happens to be.
And I think that tends not to bevery helpful. So things that
instead help us to feel sociallyconnected, things that give us
some sense of normalcy, doingregular, routine kinds of things
(08:00):
is really, really helpful, butalso doing things that give you
a sense of agency to like,respond to that powerlessness
feeling. And I say to peoplelike, activism doesn't just have
to be like, I'm gonna go canvasand knock on doors. That's a
like, very overt, sort ofexplicit form of it. But you can
also do non you know, if youwant to still be in the politics
(08:21):
side, but do somethingnonpartisan, you know, you
register people to vote orwhatever, you know, drive people
to the polls, right? But youcould also do a lot of things
that help you feel like you areliving in a way more consistent
with your values, and you aremaking a contribution by
thinking about the issues youcare about. So let's say you
have strong views tied to theissues around immigration that
(08:41):
are playing a big role in theelection right now. So go
volunteer with a refugeecommunity that's nearby, right?
Have local impact to help on theissues that you care about.
There's lots of ways that youcan get involved and have an
impact. If you want to dosomething that isn't that
public, like bring like soup toa sick neighbor, all of those
kinds of things not only helpthe other person, but they do a
(09:04):
massive amount of good forhelping your sense of
powerlessness, your sense thatyou have nothing to contribute
to solving the problems thatwe're dealing with as a society.
So if you can fight against thatwithdrawal, that shutting down,
and instead engage, engage withactivities that are aligned with
your values, engage with peoplein your life, sometimes engage
with different views, so thatyou don't stay in your bubble,
(09:27):
like all of those things I thinkare so much more helpful than
the shutting down, even thoughthat's the instinct. And of
course, like take a break whenyou need a break, all those
kinds of things, but don't getparalyzed, because that just
perpetuates the problems thatyou're experiencing and that
we're experiencing as a society.
The I would say that the holidaythat strikes fear into the
(09:51):
hearts of so many people iscoming up right after the
election, and that would beThanksgiving dinner. First of
all, I mean, it's, it's, itreally is the it's the
cornerstone of many great films,too. You know, totally. How do
we deal with that?
Yeah. So, you know, I encouragepeople to think about, what are
(10:13):
their goals for different socialconnections, and to have a
balance of of engagements thatmeet those right? So there'll be
a time where maybe you talk tothe aunt at the Thanksgiving
dinner who like you, shareviews, and you have a quiet
moment in the kitchen andconnect. That's your social goal
of finding like mindedcommunity. Great. That's a
really important type of socialconnection to get. Maybe there's
(10:35):
the part where you just need alittle distraction, and so
that's where you go to the kidstable at Thanksgiving and you
have some fun, and you talkabout the latest LEGO Movie, and
you know what they were forHalloween, and all those good
kinds of things. That's a greatsocial connection, and a great
part of Thanksgiving that givesyou a little bit of a break.
Then there's the parts where yousit down with the person who's
(10:56):
like, apolitical, yourgrandmother, and you have a
conversation just about like,you know, the food and how it
was made, or whatever it happensto be, and that's your like,
social connection. That's yournormalcy. And then when you're
ready, you have a bit ofconversation, if you choose to
do so, with the people who havedifferent ideas than you, right?
You can set boundaries on howyou do it. You can decide if you
(11:17):
think it'll go well and it'sworth doing, or if you think you
want to say, like, hey, let'sjust enjoy dinner and not have
this be part of theconversation. There isn't a
right or wrong, but it doesn'thave to be. The whole meal. Is
the screaming match like most ofthe movie,
right? Well, it's definitely afactor. Yeah, it's a by the, by
the, you know, third glass ofwine, the the idea of talking to
(11:41):
somebody who's diametricallyopposed politically starts to
become a lot more appealing, andthen the way they approach it
becomes a lot less productive.
Exactly. So, like thinking, youknow, so part of it is actually,
you know, think in advance aboutyour particular family structure
and what's going to work well inthat situation. So I just, I
don't believe in, like, here'sthe one answer that works for
every family. I do think it'simportant to think ahead about
(12:04):
like what, what you think willbe productive or won't be
productive. If you're havingthose conversations, you know,
the advice is to have them in away where you try to come from a
point of listening and trying tounderstand the other person's
perspective, rather thanstarting off from a judgmental
place, and it being a, you know,screaming match and all those
kinds of things, try to assumegood intent where you can, you
(12:27):
know, all of those things thathelp for like, just healthy
communication apply here. But Ialso think it's reasonable to
check in with yourself about,like, Are you in good shape to
have this conversation? Eitherbecause of the alcohol, the
sleep, your stress level, how itwent in, you know, November 5,
and how you how you're feelingabout right, like, all of those
(12:48):
kinds of things that maydetermine, is this a good time
to have that conversation, or isit not? And some of what I think
about is also not just like, howproductive Is it likely to be,
but how important is it that wehave the conversation for our
relationship? So there are somepeople where we can disagree,
and that's kind of okay, like wedon't need to come to a great
(13:10):
understanding, and maybe weignore that piece of it with
other people, though it's likethis is affecting our
relationship, and I care aboutyou and I love you, and we need
to figure out how to continue tolove and care about one another
while we have differences, andso we need to have that
conversation. I still probablywouldn't do it during
Thanksgiving. I would do it, youknow, do it afterwards. But, you
(13:30):
know, it's a judgment call oflike, is, is it likely to be
productive, and whether or notit is, do we need to have it?
Because this is, this is yourrelationship really matters and
it's affecting it.
We have a friend is actually hisname is Greg, evident, and his
dad, I remember going to partiesand birthday parties and stuff
(13:51):
like that. And every now andthen something would erupt. And
I remember every time he wouldjust say, You know what, because
people would look at him, youknow, to be there, to be the
referee. Or you go, you knowwhat, I love everybody, and they
and they could not tear him outof that, which is, I love
everybody. Is that? Is that, isthat helpful, or is it, is it
divisive? Do you think,I think it's going to depend on
the family context, right?
(14:13):
There'll be times where, youknow, I'm sorry that I'm saying
it depends, but I think that'skind of the truth, right? So if
you're in a family where peopleare like, that's a diffuse, you
know, helps diffuse thesituation. That's great. If
you're in a family where thatreally ticks people off, and
they say, Come on, take a side,then that's not going to go so
well. So I think it's going tobe a bit of a trial and error.
(14:35):
But I think regardless thatvantage point of saying, like, I
love you, and this is reallyhard, is a much better way to
have the conversation, right?
Both of those have to coexist inthe conversation. So, you know,
it sounds like he was going forthat, you know, and staying in
the it sounds like he was tryingto stay neutral and be
(14:55):
Switzerland in it a little bit.
And sometimes people want you tolike. Like, you know, choose an
allegiance. So that won't alwayswork, but regardless of which
way you go, whether you'reSwitzerland or you're picking a
picking a side again, doing itfrom that place of saying, I
love you, and that's present inthis conversation, as well as
(15:15):
acknowledging like this is areally tough conversation to
have. Yeah, I think it's not theelection in isolation, right?
We're seeing a sort ofconfluence of a lot of
challenging things that arehappening in our world right
now. And so that raisespeople's, like, general stress
level. And so it makes addingthis on top extra difficult. And
(15:37):
I think, you know, part ofwhat's challenging is, is that
it's a real marathon. It's notreally a sprint. Like Tuesday is
probably not going to answer allof our questions, even about,
you know, it's not going toanswer all of our questions
about the outcomes of theelection, for starters, right?
But even beyond that, the reasonthat it's so hard right now is
(15:58):
the extent of polarization, isthe extent of uncertainty is the
extent of, you know, all ofthose other things and those
challenges exist even afterNovember 5. So people are really
anxious about the next fouryears and what that leadership
is going to look like, and whatthat's going to mean for this
country and the people they lovemuch more than it is about what
happens on this day. And so Ithink we have to help people
(16:20):
with kind of acknowledging that,that you can have sadness about
it, and yet you can still moveon. Because we actually, like
we're pretty good at toleratinguncertainty in lots of other
areas of our life, right? Likeyou don't know exactly what's
going to happen in your job orin your relationships or in your
health or in 8 million otherthings, right? So we have a lot
(16:42):
of practice of toleratinguncertainty, but we don't do a
good job in some domains, and Ithink it's in part because in
some domains that we're in,unless we have clear evidence of
a problem, we tend to assumesafety, right? So you're both
sitting in chairs right now, butI doubt you checked the like
legs of your chairs to make surethey weren't going to snap. When
you sat down, you just sat downbecause, like, you can't
(17:04):
function otherwise we assume,like, a general sense of like,
things are okay in this domain.
We're not doing that. We aredoing this kind of really quick,
catastrophic leap of uncertaintyequals bad outcome. Uncertainty
means I can't handle badoutcomes. And so we have to help
people to kind of re evaluate,reframe what it means to not
know, to recognize that notknowing is a state we actually
(17:28):
can handle. We can think abouthow we will deal with different
ways of different types ofoutcomes, and how we would
actually cope in thosesituations, but to help with
that catastrophic thinkingthat's going on right now so
that it doesn't balloon in theways that it is. So that's a
long answer to say it's a hardtime.
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, Ithink Gib had a great, great
(17:50):
piece of ice advice, advice too,because it works for me. Would
just go for a hard workout too.
When you feel like you're Oh,yeah. I mean, yeah. So I if you
can, if you can get present inthe physical it does a lot, like
you mentioned going for a walk,which is fine, but if you can
get present in the physical itdoes a lot for dealing with the
anxiety. Because you say anxietyis a good thing, and I hear you,
but anxiety is meant to protectus from the saber tooth tiger
(18:11):
that might be behind thatboulder. It's not meant to make
us scared of sending an email,right? And so we have to
content. I find it physicallyworking out, but getting into my
body contextualize anxiety in away that is helpful to me. Do
you have other practices, othertopics and things that we can,
(18:33):
we can latch on to, to get usout of that, out of the anxiety,
around, particularly aroundaround politics, but around any
kind of ungrounded anxiety.
Yeah, and maybethere's a link that you could
provide us to for people who arewho are flooding and need help
right away. Sure,yeah. So, you know, I think part
of it is helping people tolearn. How do you distinguish
(18:56):
between a false alarm and a realalarm, right? So, as you said,
anxiety is adaptive if you'rebeing taste chased by a bear in
the woods, right? It's not soadaptive when we have false
alarms going off. So helping to,like, realize, like, wait a
second, is there a realemergency right now, or is there
not a real emergency? Can beuseful as part of it, but
exercise, absolutely, goingoutside, spending time with
(19:16):
loved ones, doing things thatare not about politics or
stressful things, right? Goingto watch a funny movie together,
all of those things that giveyou social support, that allow
you to have fun, allow you tohave some distraction, allow you
to relax, all of that's reallyhelpful. And then the other
piece I mentioned is doingthings that give you meaning,
right? So, doing things thatallow you to feel like you are
(19:37):
making contributions, whetherit's in politics or not, all of
those things actually can helpwith managing the anxiety, along
with, you know, of course, sleepand all of the basic self care
stuff that, you know, is cliche,but actually, like, really
important, because we don't dovery well when we're not in good
shape on those things. Butexercise is a beautiful example
(19:58):
of. So the range of things that,you know, we need to have a
balance of activities in ourlife that are going to help us,
and obviously, like, if you'rereally, really struggling, and
none of these sort of generallife suggestions are working for
you, you know, seek counseling.
There's lots of folks who areable to help with, you know,
sort of managing extremeanxiety. It's something we're
(20:19):
actually pretty good attreating. But unfortunately,
because anxiety leads toavoidance, a lot of people don't
come in for the help that theyneed. Do
you have a, do you have arecommendation for for a hotline
if things get really bad? Sure.
I mean, so, you know, obviouslythe suicide hotline 988, is a is
a good one for if things arereally, really bad. But a good
(20:40):
place to go is ada.org orabct.org That's the anxiety and
depression Association ofAmerica, or the association of
behavioral and cognitivetherapies. Both of those
websites have lots of resourcesavailable for managing
depression, managing anxiety,how to find a therapist in your
area, all of those kinds ofthings, and loads of good
(21:00):
resources that can help people.
And I have my ownrecommendation, and it actually
comes from an old comic who's nolonger with us. His name is Bob
Newhart. Oh, I know, yeah. Yousee these videos? Stephanie, so
he does a, he does a series ofvideos where he plays a
psychiatrist and he sits behindthe desk. You know, do you know
these? Yes, sits behind thedesk, and people come in, and
(21:23):
they're just go through thiswhole thing and whole thing. And
he's taking notes andeverything, and then, and then
the person goes, so, so what,you know? What should I do? And
he goes, I have, I have itright? Here. He goes. He leans
in. He goes, Just stop it. Stopit, right?
I haven't seen it. Maybe not thebest strategy,
(21:50):
yeah, and it's, you know, Irecommend watching it, just for
the laugh. There is a whole setof very fun experiments where
people have shown that when wetry to suppress thoughts, it
often will rebound for us. Solike if I say to you right now,
whatever you do, do not thinkabout a pink flamingo. Don't
picture the Pink Feathers, don'tpicture the wings, don't picture
the thin legs. Of course, that'sthe only thing that's going to
(22:11):
be on your mind, right? So we'velearned that those strategies
may not be our best ones, butI'll take Bob Newhart any day
for a break.
Thank you so much for your help.
It's been incredibly helpful,and good luck yourself getting
through all of this madness.
You as well. You as well. Greatto talk with you. Thank you.
Bye. Now. Bye.
In your practice. How have things changed in
(00:04):
particular in this electioncycle, as far as people's
anxiety and depression?
Yeah, I think we see it both,you know, in our therapy
practices, but also just indaily life, as we're talking to
friends and families ourselves,right? It's a pervasive
challenge right now with, youknow, over 70% of people saying
that they're really experiencingpretty high levels of election
(00:24):
anxiety right now. So this is areally common challenge that
people are experiencing. I thinkthat there are three factors
that I'd identify that makemanaging this election cycle
particularly challenging. Thefirst is that we're in a 24/7,
news cycle, and so it's reallyeasy to get overwhelmed by it.
So you can sort of have thiskind of pervasive, you know,
(00:46):
whether you're Doom scrolling orwhatever it is that's kind of
pulling you in. You can sort ofbe constantly bombarded with
these really threatening,negative messages, headlines
that say our democracy is atstake. You know, all of these
kinds of things that can make itfeel really overwhelming. And it
can be really take over in a waywhere you don't get breaks. And
so that's one piece that I thinkis causing it to be really
(01:07):
challenging for for some peopleright now. Second piece is that
we are so polarized, and yet thepolls are so incredibly tight
that people are having totolerate a really high level of
uncertainty. And we know thattolerating that uncertainty
tends to breed anxiety for a lotof people, especially
individuals who are morevulnerable to anxiety. And so we
(01:28):
are being asked to sort ofhandle this uncertainty at
unusually high level, thisround. And so I think that's
adding to a lot of the challengefor people. And then the third
piece is, I think because ofpeople feeling some distrust in
the institutions, feeling likesociety's not working the way
that it's supposed to, not onlytied to the elections, but in
(01:49):
other domains as well. There's alot of other scary news stories
that are out there right now.
And so it leads people to havethis sort of sense of
powerlessness, and when you feellike you don't have control over
the important outcomes in yourlife, that makes it extra charge
to manage, it extra hard tomanage, it. The good thing is
that by identifying those threefactors, each of them has
different actions a person cantake to try to help manage the
stress that they're causing.
(02:11):
I'm a doom scroller, you know,and and I used to, I used to
really pride myself on havingcontrol over my subconscious
mind and over habits, habitslike that. But carrying this,
carrying this thing around, youknow, in a moment, going, let's
see, you know, and Gib makes thepoints that that the folks that
(02:33):
are making money off of this,they know what our habits are
now. They knowthey want, they want us to have
that feeling, because that meanthe same the same network, the
networks, they're all, they alldo the same thing that that
engage you and make you feel badand uncertain, then spend their
commercial breaks selling youmedication that stabilizes you
for your uncertainty. So it's,it's like, it's it to me, I can
(02:55):
see the the thing I mean, one ofthe ways I cope as I like to
engage on on sports, because itcreates a lot of the context of
of of dealing with, you know,joy and hardship and
perseverance, all of that,without the feeling of the
stakes of of of politics. Solike, you know, I it's helpful
(03:17):
to have that, to be able toengage with people like, how
about those rams? How about theit? It's a good it's a good
medium to be able to to engagewith that, with people without
having to worry about it'swhere, you know, if I have
friends that support theYankees, and it does not feel as
it does not feel, it. I don'tget as angry about us supporting
(03:40):
opposing teams as we are made tobelieve we should be about
people supporting opposingparties, and that is a useful
tool for me. But you gave usthree, three main causes of
anxiety. Said, ourpowerlessness, our constant
engagement andthen and then and then, our
difficulty managing uncertainty.
(04:01):
Yeah, our disillusion with thewith the uncertainty. What? And
you said there are specificthings for each of those. What
are those specific things?
Yeah, absolutely. You know. Iwant to say, first and foremost,
that, you know, none of theseare like, Oh, this completely
solves the problem. And no, fiveminutes or less, we'll carry
your ink. So, you know, clearlyit's not that. And I also would
(04:22):
want to frame this that Iactually think some anxiety is a
perfectly healthy adaptiveresponse to a stressful
situation. So I talk to peopleabout the goal is to figure out,
how do you manage the impact ofanxiety in your life? Our goal
is not to eliminate anxiety,right? Anxiety motivates us.
It's a really importantcommunication signal. It tells
us that there are threats in ourenvironment we want to respond
(04:43):
to. We don't want to eliminatethat, but we don't want it to
paralyze us. So on the sort offeeling overwhelmed Doom
scrolling side of things,there's two parts. One is
thinking about, how do you wantto manage your media
consumption? And I don't believethere's a one size fits all
answer to this, right? It'sreally trial. An error to figure
out what works for you. So somepeople, I talk to, what they
(05:03):
need to do is really managetheir total time. For other
people, it's more about whenthey check the news and putting
particular boundaries on that,for example, not checking right
before they go to bed, becausethen they're not sleeping and
they're not sleeping has allkinds of other downstream
negative effects. For otherpeople, it's about like actually
paying more attention to whatsites they're looking at,
because they partly to get moreaccurate information, maybe to
(05:26):
get more balanced information.
For others, it's about like,intentionally seeking out some
positive stories. So hopescrolling, you know that
alternative to doom scrolling oftrying to get a little more
balance in there and then, forother people, it's like, very
intentionally, like, I am goingfor a walk and the phone is
nowhere near is not coming withme, right? And taking those like
concrete breaks, I don't believethere's one right answer to
this. I What I encourage peopleto do is like, be a mini
(05:48):
scientist. Say these are the twothings I want to try this week
that I think will help me managehow I regulate media, try them
see what happens to your moodand adjust accordingly. There's
a parallel with it, though,which is just to say it's not,
you know, sometimes I think wehave this conversation. We sort
of said, well, if we could justmanage how we engage with social
(06:08):
media or online activities,that'll solve the problem. I
don't think that's true. Theissue is also like, what are you
doing with the rest of yourlife? Right? So, you know, do
you have a balance of otheractivities? Are you going to
play sports in addition towatching them? Are you doing
things that are fun andrelaxing, things that help you
meet your goals, things thatdistract you, things that you
know? Are you getting sleep? Allof those other things the rest
(06:30):
of your life matters too. Init's not only the media
consumption. Part of what's alsoreally hard right now is that
this is raising, you know,questions about people's
identity, about how they thinkabout themselves, what they
value. It feels bigger than justa political choice. As you said,
this isn't just Mets versusYankees, right? This feels like
it's tied to a whole lot ofbigger issues, and so not just
(06:53):
for yourself, figuring out,like, hey, what does it mean
about me if I vote for thisperson? Does that mean I'm also
on board with X views, orwhatever it happens to be, but
also, gosh, these people that Ilove, my friends, my family,
they're making choices that aredifferent than mine. What does
that mean about who they are andwhether we can be friends, and
what our values are and all? Soit's, you know, I do think
(07:16):
there's actually a lot ofparallels with the teenage
space, with what we're goingthrough right now,
what, what would you say is themost dangerous thing that we can
do right now, during this time,shut down, you know, obviously
expressing hate to others, andthose kinds of things are, you
know, would be first andforemost, I think, as a non
helpful thing to do. But interms of for things that, you
(07:38):
know, how we manage the stressof it, there's a strong urge
when we feel depression, when wefeel anxiety, when we feel high
stress, to just kind of reallywithdraw and go into a bubble or
go under the bed covers, youknow, whatever it happens to be.
And I think that tends not to bevery helpful. So things that
instead help us to feel sociallyconnected, things that give us
some sense of normalcy, doingregular, routine kinds of things
(08:00):
is really, really helpful, butalso doing things that give you
a sense of agency to like,respond to that powerlessness
feeling. And I say to peoplelike, activism doesn't just have
to be like, I'm gonna go canvasand knock on doors. That's a
like, very overt, sort ofexplicit form of it. But you can
also do non you know, if youwant to still be in the politics
(08:21):
side, but do somethingnonpartisan, you know, you
register people to vote orwhatever, you know, drive people
to the polls, right? But youcould also do a lot of things
that help you feel like you areliving in a way more consistent
with your values, and you aremaking a contribution by
thinking about the issues youcare about. So let's say you
have strong views tied to theissues around immigration that
(08:41):
are playing a big role in theelection right now. So go
volunteer with a refugeecommunity that's nearby, right?
Have local impact to help on theissues that you care about.
There's lots of ways that youcan get involved and have an
impact. If you want to dosomething that isn't that
public, like bring like soup toa sick neighbor, all of those
kinds of things not only helpthe other person, but they do a
(09:04):
massive amount of good forhelping your sense of
powerlessness, your sense thatyou have nothing to contribute
to solving the problems thatwe're dealing with as a society.
So if you can fight against thatwithdrawal, that shutting down,
and instead engage, engage withactivities that are aligned with
your values, engage with peoplein your life, sometimes engage
with different views, so thatyou don't stay in your bubble,
(09:27):
like all of those things I thinkare so much more helpful than
the shutting down, even thoughthat's the instinct. And of
course, like take a break whenyou need a break, all those
kinds of things, but don't getparalyzed, because that just
perpetuates the problems thatyou're experiencing and that
we're experiencing as a society.
The I would say that the holidaythat strikes fear into the
(09:51):
hearts of so many people iscoming up right after the
election, and that would beThanksgiving dinner. First of
all, I mean, it's, it's, itreally is the it's the
cornerstone of many great films,too. You know, totally. How do
we deal with that?
Yeah. So, you know, I encouragepeople to think about, what are
(10:13):
their goals for different socialconnections, and to have a
balance of of engagements thatmeet those right? So there'll be
a time where maybe you talk tothe aunt at the Thanksgiving
dinner who like you, shareviews, and you have a quiet
moment in the kitchen andconnect. That's your social goal
of finding like mindedcommunity. Great. That's a
really important type of socialconnection to get. Maybe there's
(10:35):
the part where you just need alittle distraction, and so
that's where you go to the kidstable at Thanksgiving and you
have some fun, and you talkabout the latest LEGO Movie, and
you know what they were forHalloween, and all those good
kinds of things. That's a greatsocial connection, and a great
part of Thanksgiving that givesyou a little bit of a break.
Then there's the parts where yousit down with the person who's
(10:56):
like, apolitical, yourgrandmother, and you have a
conversation just about like,you know, the food and how it
was made, or whatever it happensto be, and that's your like,
social connection. That's yournormalcy. And then when you're
ready, you have a bit ofconversation, if you choose to
do so, with the people who havedifferent ideas than you, right?
You can set boundaries on howyou do it. You can decide if you
(11:17):
think it'll go well and it'sworth doing, or if you think you
want to say, like, hey, let'sjust enjoy dinner and not have
this be part of theconversation. There isn't a
right or wrong, but it doesn'thave to be. The whole meal. Is
the screaming match like most ofthe movie,
right? Well, it's definitely afactor. Yeah, it's a by the, by
the, you know, third glass ofwine, the the idea of talking to
(11:41):
somebody who's diametricallyopposed politically starts to
become a lot more appealing, andthen the way they approach it
becomes a lot less productive.
Exactly. So, like thinking, youknow, so part of it is actually,
you know, think in advance aboutyour particular family structure
and what's going to work well inthat situation. So I just, I
don't believe in, like, here'sthe one answer that works for
every family. I do think it'simportant to think ahead about
(12:04):
like what, what you think willbe productive or won't be
productive. If you're havingthose conversations, you know,
the advice is to have them in away where you try to come from a
point of listening and trying tounderstand the other person's
perspective, rather thanstarting off from a judgmental
place, and it being a, you know,screaming match and all those
kinds of things, try to assumegood intent where you can, you
(12:27):
know, all of those things thathelp for like, just healthy
communication apply here. But Ialso think it's reasonable to
check in with yourself about,like, Are you in good shape to
have this conversation? Eitherbecause of the alcohol, the
sleep, your stress level, how itwent in, you know, November 5,
and how you how you're feelingabout right, like, all of those
(12:48):
kinds of things that maydetermine, is this a good time
to have that conversation, or isit not? And some of what I think
about is also not just like, howproductive Is it likely to be,
but how important is it that wehave the conversation for our
relationship? So there are somepeople where we can disagree,
and that's kind of okay, like wedon't need to come to a great
(13:10):
understanding, and maybe weignore that piece of it with
other people, though it's likethis is affecting our
relationship, and I care aboutyou and I love you, and we need
to figure out how to continue tolove and care about one another
while we have differences, andso we need to have that
conversation. I still probablywouldn't do it during
Thanksgiving. I would do it, youknow, do it afterwards. But, you
(13:30):
know, it's a judgment call oflike, is, is it likely to be
productive, and whether or notit is, do we need to have it?
Because this is, this is yourrelationship really matters and
it's affecting it.
We have a friend is actually hisname is Greg, evident, and his
dad, I remember going to partiesand birthday parties and stuff
(13:51):
like that. And every now andthen something would erupt. And
I remember every time he wouldjust say, You know what, because
people would look at him, youknow, to be there, to be the
referee. Or you go, you knowwhat, I love everybody, and they
and they could not tear him outof that, which is, I love
everybody. Is that? Is that, isthat helpful, or is it, is it
divisive? Do you think,I think it's going to depend on
the family context, right?
(14:13):
There'll be times where, youknow, I'm sorry that I'm saying
it depends, but I think that'skind of the truth, right? So if
you're in a family where peopleare like, that's a diffuse, you
know, helps diffuse thesituation. That's great. If
you're in a family where thatreally ticks people off, and
they say, Come on, take a side,then that's not going to go so
well. So I think it's going tobe a bit of a trial and error.
(14:35):
But I think regardless thatvantage point of saying, like, I
love you, and this is reallyhard, is a much better way to
have the conversation, right?
Both of those have to coexist inthe conversation. So, you know,
it sounds like he was going forthat, you know, and staying in
the it sounds like he was tryingto stay neutral and be
(14:55):
Switzerland in it a little bit.
And sometimes people want you tolike. Like, you know, choose an
allegiance. So that won't alwayswork, but regardless of which
way you go, whether you'reSwitzerland or you're picking a
picking a side again, doing itfrom that place of saying, I
love you, and that's present inthis conversation, as well as
(15:15):
acknowledging like this is areally tough conversation to
have. Yeah, I think it's not theelection in isolation, right?
We're seeing a sort ofconfluence of a lot of
challenging things that arehappening in our world right
now. And so that raisespeople's, like, general stress
level. And so it makes addingthis on top extra difficult. And
(15:37):
I think, you know, part ofwhat's challenging is, is that
it's a real marathon. It's notreally a sprint. Like Tuesday is
probably not going to answer allof our questions, even about,
you know, it's not going toanswer all of our questions
about the outcomes of theelection, for starters, right?
But even beyond that, the reasonthat it's so hard right now is
(15:58):
the extent of polarization, isthe extent of uncertainty is the
extent of, you know, all ofthose other things and those
challenges exist even afterNovember 5. So people are really
anxious about the next fouryears and what that leadership
is going to look like, and whatthat's going to mean for this
country and the people they lovemuch more than it is about what
happens on this day. And so Ithink we have to help people
(16:20):
with kind of acknowledging that,that you can have sadness about
it, and yet you can still moveon. Because we actually, like
we're pretty good at toleratinguncertainty in lots of other
areas of our life, right? Likeyou don't know exactly what's
going to happen in your job orin your relationships or in your
health or in 8 million otherthings, right? So we have a lot
(16:42):
of practice of toleratinguncertainty, but we don't do a
good job in some domains, and Ithink it's in part because in
some domains that we're in,unless we have clear evidence of
a problem, we tend to assumesafety, right? So you're both
sitting in chairs right now, butI doubt you checked the like
legs of your chairs to make surethey weren't going to snap. When
you sat down, you just sat downbecause, like, you can't
(17:04):
function otherwise we assume,like, a general sense of like,
things are okay in this domain.
We're not doing that. We aredoing this kind of really quick,
catastrophic leap of uncertaintyequals bad outcome. Uncertainty
means I can't handle badoutcomes. And so we have to help
people to kind of re evaluate,reframe what it means to not
know, to recognize that notknowing is a state we actually
(17:28):
can handle. We can think abouthow we will deal with different
ways of different types ofoutcomes, and how we would
actually cope in thosesituations, but to help with
that catastrophic thinkingthat's going on right now so
that it doesn't balloon in theways that it is. So that's a
long answer to say it's a hardtime.
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, Ithink Gib had a great, great
(17:50):
piece of ice advice, advice too,because it works for me. Would
just go for a hard workout too.
When you feel like you're Oh,yeah. I mean, yeah. So I if you
can, if you can get present inthe physical it does a lot, like
you mentioned going for a walk,which is fine, but if you can
get present in the physical itdoes a lot for dealing with the
anxiety. Because you say anxietyis a good thing, and I hear you,
but anxiety is meant to protectus from the saber tooth tiger
(18:11):
that might be behind thatboulder. It's not meant to make
us scared of sending an email,right? And so we have to
content. I find it physicallyworking out, but getting into my
body contextualize anxiety in away that is helpful to me. Do
you have other practices, othertopics and things that we can,
(18:33):
we can latch on to, to get usout of that, out of the anxiety,
around, particularly aroundaround politics, but around any
kind of ungrounded anxiety.
Yeah, and maybethere's a link that you could
provide us to for people who arewho are flooding and need help
right away. Sure,yeah. So, you know, I think part
of it is helping people tolearn. How do you distinguish
(18:56):
between a false alarm and a realalarm, right? So, as you said,
anxiety is adaptive if you'rebeing taste chased by a bear in
the woods, right? It's not soadaptive when we have false
alarms going off. So helping to,like, realize, like, wait a
second, is there a realemergency right now, or is there
not a real emergency? Can beuseful as part of it, but
exercise, absolutely, goingoutside, spending time with
(19:16):
loved ones, doing things thatare not about politics or
stressful things, right? Goingto watch a funny movie together,
all of those things that giveyou social support, that allow
you to have fun, allow you tohave some distraction, allow you
to relax, all of that's reallyhelpful. And then the other
piece I mentioned is doingthings that give you meaning,
right? So, doing things thatallow you to feel like you are
(19:37):
making contributions, whetherit's in politics or not, all of
those things actually can helpwith managing the anxiety, along
with, you know, of course, sleepand all of the basic self care
stuff that, you know, is cliche,but actually, like, really
important, because we don't dovery well when we're not in good
shape on those things. Butexercise is a beautiful example
(19:58):
of. So the range of things that,you know, we need to have a
balance of activities in ourlife that are going to help us,
and obviously, like, if you'rereally, really struggling, and
none of these sort of generallife suggestions are working for
you, you know, seek counseling.
There's lots of folks who areable to help with, you know,
sort of managing extremeanxiety. It's something we're
(20:19):
actually pretty good attreating. But unfortunately,
because anxiety leads toavoidance, a lot of people don't
come in for the help that theyneed. Do
you have a, do you have arecommendation for for a hotline
if things get really bad? Sure.
I mean, so, you know, obviouslythe suicide hotline 988, is a is
a good one for if things arereally, really bad. But a good
(20:40):
place to go is ada.org orabct.org That's the anxiety and
depression Association ofAmerica, or the association of
behavioral and cognitivetherapies. Both of those
websites have lots of resourcesavailable for managing
depression, managing anxiety,how to find a therapist in your
area, all of those kinds ofthings, and loads of good
(21:00):
resources that can help people.
And I have my ownrecommendation, and it actually
comes from an old comic who's nolonger with us. His name is Bob
Newhart. Oh, I know, yeah. Yousee these videos? Stephanie, so
he does a, he does a series ofvideos where he plays a
psychiatrist and he sits behindthe desk. You know, do you know
these? Yes, sits behind thedesk, and people come in, and
(21:23):
they're just go through thiswhole thing and whole thing. And
he's taking notes andeverything, and then, and then
the person goes, so, so what,you know? What should I do? And
he goes, I have, I have itright? Here. He goes. He leans
in. He goes, Just stop it. Stopit, right?
I haven't seen it. Maybe not thebest strategy,
(21:50):
yeah, and it's, you know, Irecommend watching it, just for
the laugh. There is a whole setof very fun experiments where
people have shown that when wetry to suppress thoughts, it
often will rebound for us. Solike if I say to you right now,
whatever you do, do not thinkabout a pink flamingo. Don't
picture the Pink Feathers, don'tpicture the wings, don't picture
the thin legs. Of course, that'sthe only thing that's going to
(22:11):
be on your mind, right? So we'velearned that those strategies
may not be our best ones, butI'll take Bob Newhart any day
for a break.
Thank you so much for your help.
It's been incredibly helpful,and good luck yourself getting
through all of this madness.
You as well. You as well. Greatto talk with you. Thank you.
Bye. Now. Bye.
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