When the world feels unsafe: 5 ways to soothe political anxiety

Firstly, the word 'anxiety' doesn’t really cut it, does it? For me, it’s like a gentle, consistent hum in what we therapists call the window of tolerance – an energetic tinnitus constantly reminding me the world feels unsafe.

I’ve 'done the work.' I’ve made friends with my OCD, soothed my rising panic, and as a neurodivergent person, I’ve built a robust toolkit of coping strategies. But this? This is different.

I know it is, and you know it is. I hear my therapist colleagues saying they don’t know how to manage the political anxiety entering the room all of a sudden. But the truth is, it isn’t sudden. Not for my clients. Not for queer and trans people, people of colour, or those with alternative religions and beliefs.

This brand of political anxiety – which is only now reaching a 'mainstream' client base – has been a permanent resident in my life and my therapy room for a decade. To those newly feeling it, and those who have lived with it for far too long, solidarity.

So, how do we live with this? How do we validate the impact world events have on us, whilst ensuring we're still functioning in our daily lives?

Here are five practical ways you can help soothe the political anxiety within you.

No more gaslighting yourself

It’s here, it’s real, and it wants to be heard. Just like any other source of anxiety, the best way to work with it is to listen. Acknowledge it exists and why it exists, and give it space and airtime. Don’t gaslight yourself into thinking it’s all OK. It doesn’t believe things are fine; we want to soothe it, not block it out and tell ourselves everything is fine when we know it isn’t. Let your body communicate its distress to you, just like you would any other valid concern.

Make friends with your nervous system

It’s tempting to try to block fear, or to march on through it. We want to logic ourselves out of it. But fear, anxiety, and that low-level "oh no" feeling that is almost like a ball in your stomach come from the body, not the mind. Intuition is your friend, not your foe, and this response comes from what we call the nervous system. That early alarm system your body sounds when it knows things don’t feel right. We don’t want to block this; those reactions keep us safe.

Instead of seeing these responses as holding us back, we want to teach our nervous system the difference between a news headline and a tiger. We don’t want to stop our body communicating its fear, but we do want to change the speed at which we recover from that shock and turn down the overreaction. Finding a trauma-informed therapist who works with polyvagal theory can really help you do this.

Find community

Back to the nervous system – polyvagal theory suggests we’re evolutionarily wired to feel safer with others than on our own (unless we’ve learnt people aren’t safe). It’s often referred to as “co-regulation”. Now, more than ever, community is key.

Find your people. Whether online or in person, find people who make you feel connected, validated, and safe. Be the same safe base for others. We need each other right now. Spend some of your time talking, listening, and hearing, and some of your time being together to grow love and build hope. We are stronger together.

Organise, but don’t burn out

As Billy Bragg says, “you can be active with the activists or sleep in with the sleepers.” Activism helps because it soothes the part of you that insists you should be doing something.

Do little things that help towards your political goals. You can do big things as well, but it’s important to remember how exhausting political anxiety can be. Doing little things reduces that feeling of dread, but the big ball of oh no is already taking up mental load and energy.

If you can do the big things and they reduce that ball in a way that gives you your energy and mental load back, that’s wonderful. But if you can only do the little things right now, don’t force yourself to do more than you can. Doing something, however small, contributes.

Lean into those feelings

They want to be heard. Talk about them in the therapy room. Write. Sing. Make art. Do what you need to do in order to process those emotions and reduce that ball of oh no.

And I know right now it can feel like emptying a bath with a teacup, but maybe you don’t realise the impact that teacup is having right now. Because whilst the bath might not be empty, if the teacup stops it from overflowing, you’re doing way more for your political anxiety than you imagined.