Managing Stress While Your City Burns
How do you keep going when your city is burning? Natural responses to trauma are freeze, fly, or fight. To continue peaceful and consistent engagement, you need to find strategies to manage the freeze, fly, and fight responses and function despite the massive levels of stress hormones that will be in your bloodstream.
I grew up in Diyarbakır, Turkey, a flash point between Kurdish rights activists and Turkish military and police. As such, I have a good deal of experience watching my childhood city and country descend into chaos and watching tanks drive down the streets of a place I call home. I would like to share a few things I have learned that help me keep going when the news gets really bad.
First, check your current status. Are you frozen in place? Are you on your bed in fetal position, scrolling endlessly on the internet? Have you spent more than 90% of your waking hours on the same couch? Stand up. Put your phone down for a minute. Reach up to the sky. Now reach over to one side. Now the other. Take a deep breath. Let it all the way out. Go to the kitchen and get a tall glass of really cold water. Drink the whole thing. Take a few more deep breaths.
On the other hand, if you are numb and avoiding the news, recognize this as a flight response. Your mind is trying to shield itself from stress. In the short term, that’s okay. Sometime the news is just too much. Personally, I set times when I check the news, and I block both the news and social media from my phone and computer during most of the day. Set times for active engagement, and let yourself retreat at other times. It’s a strategic way to preserve your energy.
Overcome your feelings of helplessness by taking one small action to make the world better. Donate $5 to a community organization. Volunteer for a city clean up session if there’s a local need. Call or email your senator. Sign up for a Get Out the Vote initiative. Taking even a small action will remind you that there is hope and you have power and agency in this situation. That is critical for your mental health.
If you find yourself in a towering rage, that is the fight response. Police brutality warrants citizen rage. But since punching police is a bad idea, that rage often gets caged inside. Go throw or kick a ball around. Really. Do it. If you have a garden, get out the hoe and hack some weeds. Go on a run. But be careful. I once ran five miles because I was furious. I couldn’t climb the stairs the next day. After you have let out the physical anger, sit down and write scathing letters to your local police chief, mayor, and senators.
There is a good chance your body will still have enough cortisol (that’s your stress hormone) in it to mess with your appetite and sleep. So here are a few other tips:
· Eat frozen corn, peas, blueberries, or strawberries. Don’t defrost. Just eat them straight and plain from the freezer. When you are too stressed to cook and feel feverish from worry, this works like a charm. Yogurt is also a great option.
· Drink a ton of water — way more than you think you need.
· When you go to bed, put your phone on “Do not disturb” and set it somewhere that you can’t reach it. Unless you are actually the emergency contact for someone who is currently out at a protest, you need to disengage overnight.
· A warm bath and a cup of chamomile tea before bed can do wonders. Alcohol, on the other hand, will betray you.
· Gently stretch your body out before bed. I like to do gentle yoga, but any stretch and deep breathing routine would work.
· If you still can’t sleep at night (it happens) read books that have strong heroes. Don’t watch the news or check social media unless you need to check on your friends. If you do, then make sure to do a relaxing activity afterwards. Resist turning on the TV or opening your laptop.
· Avoid having extra caffeine in the morning, at least in the form of coffee. Stick to your normal amount of coffee, and supplement with dark chocolate if necessary.
If you are struggling with intrusive thoughts, nightmares, or any desire at all to self-harm, please reach out for help. You can call the Suicide Prevention Hotline 1–800–273-TALK (8255) or text the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741 to start a chat).
You are not alone. You are not helpless. We will get through this. Deep breath. Keep going.