Politics adds new anxiety to family get-togethers over the holidays

The schedule changes and chaos of the holidays always add stress, but this year is shaping up to be particularly anxiety provoking, psychologists and psychiatrists say. The strong feelings around last month’s election haven’t faded as much as they normally would, and many people are dreading family reunions more than usual.

While it may have been relatively easy to avoid political discussions over the Thanksgiving meal, the longer break between Christmas and New Year’s means more time for confrontations — and to worry about them, says Nadine Kaslow, a psychologist and professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

Families are coping with post-election anxiety in a variety of ways, Kaslow says, depending largely on how they’ve always dealt with stress: Some are talking more, listening and learning from each other. Others are setting ground rules in advance, promising to avoid talking about politics. Still others are staying away from each other entirely.

Ellen Slawsby, a psychotherapist at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, says many more of her clients than usual are extremely distressed about politics this year. She’s recently heard from patients who haven’t needed sessions in years.

Clients on both sides of the political aisle are afraid of what will come up when family members are in close quarters around the holidays, and they’re worried that permanent damage will be done to relationships, Slawsby says.

She and other mental health professionals  have lots of advice about coping with the political stress. Among her tips: Remember that “we can’t change others, we can (only) change how we respond.”

It’s important to focus on what you have in common with your relatives, rather than your differences, Slawsby says. “That’s the key to the lock.” Don’t give up on your own views, she advises, but honor what’s good about the other person.

And if they cannot honor you? “Then shorten your trip. Sometimes it’s just the healthier choice,” Slawsby says.

Have an escape plan, if you do decide to spend time with family members whose political values differ from your own, suggests Adam Borland, a clinical psychologist with the Cleveland Clinic. Maybe do some research so you’ll have movies you can talk about, or sports statistics, or even the weather, he suggests. “If you’re ever going to go into a holiday celebration with a script, this could be the year to have safe subjects to talk about,” Borland says.

And remember: As a grown-up, you have an option available to you now that you didn’t have when you were a kid. You can leave.

Even if it’s just going for a walk around the old neighborhood or relieving stress with a gym workout, adults should remember that they have more power they did when they shared a roof with people whose values they didn’t share, Slawsby says.

For some families, the holidays may be an island of relief from the stress of post-election politics, says Phil Levendusky, a Harvard Medical School psychologist who heads the psychology department at McLean Hospital outside Boston.

Families that are united but don’t like how other people have responded to the elections may decide to work together for change, Kaslow says.  

Members of minority groups who are concerned about the recent rise in prejudice and discrimination, may be able to gain strength from their mutual support, she adds.

Carl Bell, a Chicago psychiatrist, says he counsels people not to worry about things they can’t control. “I’m not going to waste my time on something that I can’t do anything about,” said Bell, an emeritus clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, adding that happiness is a learned skill. “If it’s not life-threatening, I don’t worry about it.”

If you’re from a high-conflict family, you probably should agree to skip political conversations, particularly in front of children, warns Harold Koplewicz, a psychiatrist and founding president of the New York-based Child Mind Institute, which researches and treats children's mental health and learning disorders. Children pick up on their parents’ stress, and with changes in schedule and the added excitement of the holidays, they may already be dealing with more than they can handle — particularly if they have conduct problems, he says.

Elections are a great time for parents to model resiliency for their children and other members of the family, he says.        

Todd Peters, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, says he advises his patients to try to keep their sleeping, eating and exercise routines as regular as possible, even if they travel over the holidays. Changes to “those sorts of things we know can cause some adults and kids to really get out of whack,” he says.

One thing everyone may be able to agree on is the importance of helping others around the holidays. A trip to a soup kitchen may help relieve everyone’s stress by reminding them how much good they have in their own lives, Koplewicz says, noting that Americans are among the most charitable people on Earth.

“There are more important things than this particular election,” he says, “even though it doesn’t feel that way.”