This is how I was making my political anxiety worse. Can you relate?

I have struggled with anxiety since I was a child, which sometimes manifests as obsessive thoughts. I will be seized by a sudden fear or worry and start to obsessively try to “work out” the solution. This often results in getting stuck inside convoluted thought-spirals that simply generate more questions. It’s a pie eating contest where the first prize is more pie.
I am always tempted to try and reason my way out of these spirals. Some part of me is convinced that if I could just get to the bottom of the spiral, I could resolve it and find closure and peace.
I’ve had to learn to reject this temptation for a number of reasons. One is that these thought-spirals seem to be bottomless. Whenever I think I’ve reached solid ground, a new worry crumbles it beneath me. I often get so sideways anyway that I no longer remember what set me off in the first place; I’m just lost in a tumble cycle of nebulous dread.
It took me a while to realize that engaging with the thought spirals also made them stronger — as though I was exercising particular mental muscles while at the same time telling my brain, “These spirals are super helpful. Keep ‘em coming!” When you treat anxieties like they’re important, it strengthens the part of your mind that finds and fights them.
What this has taught me is that sometimes the best way to fix a problem is to stop focusing on it. “Don’t focus so intensely on your problems that you can’t see the solution,” taught Brother Milton Camargo in 2023, First Counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency. Sometimes our problem is not the problem. Sometimes our problem is our focus on the problem.
Never has this been more true than in our current political climate. While it’s true that we are facing unprecedented circumstances in terms of candidates and policies, it doesn’t necessarily follow that increasing our focus on politics will make things better. “There’s a strong case to be made that for many people, politics is a form of chronic stress,” says Brett Ford, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who studies how political engagement affects our emotional well-being.
The American Psychological Association recently reported that “close to half of U.S. adults say politics is a significant source of stress, citing problems such as lost sleep, shortened tempers, and obsessive thoughts.” University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Kevin Smith’s research has found that “significant proportions of Americans report that because of politics, they lose sleep, have damaged social relationships, and can’t stop paying attention to social media.”
We know the importance of being politically informed, but unfortunately, much of our political diet is empty calories. “If the social science … is any indication, we likely know less than we think,” writes Walker Wright, who works in public policy. In a 2020 article, he made an evidence-based case for an American citizenry with heated opinions, but little civic or policy knowledge. For instance, “a 2018 poll found that 67% of Americans cannot name all three branches of government. Another poll found that a sizable minority (39%) of Americans think or are not sure if low GDP is better for the country than high GDP.”
Like my anxious thought spirals, our political engagement often generates plenty of dread, but little actionable information. For many Americans, being politically informed simply boils down to engaging in the emotional catharsis of extreme partisanship. And the more clicks we give to the sources of emotionally charged partisan rhetoric, the more we tell them “this is helpful. Keep it coming.”
This combination of high emotionality and low information generated by overconsumption of politics likely makes our political situation worse. Incentivized by partisan clicks, news media outlets continue to burn institutional trust by peddling outrage and activist journalism. Meanwhile, our political junkfood leaves voters filled with fear and feelings of powerlessness, making them vulnerable to radical messages that promise to make the bad guys go away in exchange for power.
My struggles with anxiety have shown me that sometimes I need to stop strengthening the mental muscles that fight and find anxiety, and instead engage in activities that strengthen those that find goodness and light. Not only does this help me escape the useless spirals, it leaves me better able to solve problems rather than just ruminate about them.
I thought of this as I’ve read the Mormon chapters of the Book of Mormon — the nadir of the text’s narrative, with the primary peoples, the Nephites and Lamanites, competing for most depraved society. Even though the narrator has spared us the worst details, he provides an insider account of the fall of the Nephites, who first lose their righteousness, then their humanity, and finally, their lives.
It’s therefore very significant that even as his people are being “swept off … as dew before the sun,” Mormon never describes the grievances which lead them to war. The Nephites and Lamanites did not become enemies overnight and they likely had injured each other, individually and collectively, for many years.
But if Mormon wanted us to see the real causes of the Nephites’ destruction, perhaps he thought that meant omitting the resentments and injustices which had blinded his own people to what they had become. The Nephites were not destroyed by the Lamanites, but by pride and anger, which eventually consumed them with hatred for God, the Lamanites, and themselves.
This is why I’ve come to see the emphasis which church leaders have placed on civility as a way to stay focused on solutions rather than problems. This is not to say that the political issues of our day are not real or important, only that we just end up contributing to them when we are consumed by them. Maintaining a soft heart, even toward our political “enemies,” is to refuse Satan’s invitation to make politics a central source of meaning and identity. It’s a choice to be guided by what we love rather than what we fear.
Each political “side” has already begun rehearsing their victim narrative should they lose, ensuring the national conflict will persist long after the ballots are counted. You’re going to be asked in the coming months to focus on anger and unfairness. Choose carefully which spiritual and emotional muscles you want to strengthen.