When Politics Affects Your Health: Stress, Well-Being & How You Can Respond

I may be stepping into deep water here, and I’m willing to do it because more and more people in the U.S. (and around the World) are noticing that politics isn’t just a topic…it’s now a chronic stressor that affects both your mind and body.

Since my Blurb is called Alternatives for Natural Health, I feel I need to give you options. But first, we need to look at how people are being impacted by the current situation.

National surveys report that a majority of adults see the future of the nation and political conflict as major sources of anxiety and stress. Many people even change their behavior from reducing news intake to trying to avoid political talk altogether just to protect their peace of mind.

This Stress Isn’t Just “Mental”,  It’s Physical, Too

Scientific research is documenting how political stress can resemble other forms of chronic stress:

• A university dissertation found that ongoing political stress predicts worse physical outcomes (like high blood pressure and poor sleep), and greater anxiety and depressive symptoms above and beyond general life stress.
• A recent Emory University study showed that stress tied to political issues was significantly linked to generalized anxiety, depression, and perceived stress, especially for people who feel deeply affected by political decisions in their lives.
• Other research suggests political polarization — the feeling that others’ views are very far from your own — correlates with poorer self-reported physical health and more days of bad health each month.

In other words, politics doesn’t just make people worry; it can trigger bodily stress responses that, if repeated over time, may harm your long-term health.

From a natural health perspective, this unrelenting stress can undermine immune function, disturb digestion, disrupt sleep, and increase inflammation, all of which make it harder to thrive physically and emotionally.

More Than Coping: Healing Through Better Engagement

Most people think of stress management as personal self-care by taking herbs, meditation, exercise, baths, and breathwork. All of these are excellent, and I’ve written about them all. But what if the source of stress is social, ongoing, and tied to how we relate to others?

That’s where a growing network of organizations is stepping in, not to change anyone’s politics, but to improve how we engage with disagreement itself.

Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement

While you may not be aware, I went to Law School at Northwestern, so I want to first write about the work that they are doing to bring the temperature down.

Northwestern has founded the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement, which focuses on cultivating skills for respectful, constructive interaction across differences. Research shows that simply improving communication, which includes listening deeply, recognizing cognitive biases, and practicing empathy, can reduce emotional tension and promote psychological flexibility.

Their programs help people build these skills through curriculum, outreach, and community events, and importantly, they are focusing on evidence of what actually works instead of hopeful guesswork.

For me, since I focus on well-being, this matters because how we interpret and respond to stress is a key part of reducing our level of stress. When interactions feel safer and more purposeful, the nervous system is less likely to shift into a chronic fight-or-flight mode.

There are Other Organizations Bridging the Divide

Some of the other groups that are involved with changing the situation:

• Braver Angels brings people with different political views together for structured, respectful conversations, reducing hostility and building shared understanding.
• Listen First Project and the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) emphasize listening before debating, a practice aligned with mindful communication and a compassion-based approach to stress.
• Community initiatives like Living Room Conversations create small, facilitated dialogues that help people cultivate curiosity instead of conflict.

The bottom line is that these aren’t “political persuasion” efforts. Instead, they are wellness-oriented approaches to human connection that acknowledge stress is social as well as personal.

Why This Matters for Your Health Journey

From a natural-health point of view, dealing with stress isn’t just about what you do… It’s also about how you relate to the world around you.

Chronic stress contributes to inflammation, digestive disruption, sleep troubles, immune dysregulation, and mood imbalance. The bottom line is it can really affect your health!

So…if politics is a chronic stressor for you (and it increasingly is for many people), then it’s worth exploring both internal strategies, such as mindful breathing, meditation, exercise, and rest.

You also want to explore relationship strategies, such as better communication, empathy practices, and community dialogue.

Please keep in mind that helping people engage with disagreement more skillfully doesn’t require changing beliefs…it’s exploring how we interact. And that alone can help lower your stress, restore calm, and support your well-being.

P.S. Northwestern is making this a required course for all first-year students. Imagine if all schools and universities had this type of approach for their students, how it would change their stress levels!