7 Mindfulness Tips for Collective Anxiety Relief

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this presentation on mindfulness for collective anxiety. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In today's presentation, we're going to define collective anxiety, explore how media contributes to. What we're going to learn is the hive mind. We'll identify sources of collective anxiety and finish by identifying seven mindfulness tools to begin addressing that collective anxiety. So what is collective anxiety? It's pretty much what it sounds like. It's a sense of impending doom or constant threat that is felt by the majority of people in a group. Now, for example, in the United States, there are lots of different groups, so there's lots of different people that may have collective anxiety. Everybody in the US May not have the same collective anxiety, but what we're talking about is a large swath of people or a group of people who share the same fears and anxieties. So how do collective beliefs develop? Well, through shared experiences and consistent messaging. If your media is telling you things, if your bosses are telling you things, if your family is telling you things, if you keep hearing the same messages, then and. And everybody in that group is hearing those same messages, then it may contribute to everybody believing those messages and developing anxiety. So think about it for a second. What are your beliefs about the world, your safety, and your personal power right now? What influenced those beliefs and are they accurate for you in this context at this time? So what does the real life world tell you? Not the Internet, not your phone, not television, media, but what does the real life world tell you right now about your safety, your personal power and the world? Now, I talked about the hive mind. I am a big sci fi fan, and in Star Trek Next Generation, there is a character called the Borg. The Borg were a group of organisms that were all linked to a central hive mind that told them what to think. So they didn't have to think. They had this input, this data stream coming in telling them what to think. When other organisms were encountered, they were implanted with a device that connected them to the hive mind. And in Star Trek, they call this brain being assimilated. And I want you to think about how our phones, how our digital devices, even how our mainstream media have served as those implants that have triggered us or caused us to become assimilated to a hive mind. People who are of one particular group gravitate towards particular websites, to particular new news sites. People who are of other particular belief systems gravitate towards others, other news sites and other media and other things. So you have multiple groups out there that are gravitating towards websites that confirm their beliefs. And we call this the confirmation bias. Instead of getting a balanced perspective and being able to identify, number one, the reality of what's going on in general, but number two, the reality of what's going on in their world, in their context at that moment. I remember way back when, when the we had nine, 11, you know, it felt very unsafe, it felt very scary. Now we were in a little tiny town in the middle of Florida. The likelihood that we were going to be struck by a terrorist attack was very, very slim. But it felt very threatening. It felt like it was right in our face because it was in our TVs, it was in our homes, it was on the news. So think about how we've become Borg. Like, how does our media, our mobile devices, you know, our phones, what, push notifications. We get our emails, you know, we are attached to our emails and we get emails that we don't want. We get spam emails, but our email also connects us to other people in our group, our social media. And we're going to talk about those alos in a minute. Our news, our television, even the shows that we watch and our movies. How does that create a hive mind? How do. Does media pull. Push a particular narrative? And like I said there, the interesting thing with the Internet is there are different narratives. However, as human beings, we often gravitate toward the narrative that confirms our beliefs and away from any other narrative. As I mentioned, that's the confirmation bias. Alos and clickbait are also problems in the online world, in the digital world. And another term for this is the availability heuristic. Algorithms are going to serve us. Things that the Internet that the hive mind thinks we're interested in. So, and I've used this example before in social media. I do a lot of animal rescue, and if I click on a post about a rescued animal, then all of a sudden my feed becomes inundated with all of these posts for more animals that need to be rescued. And the other stuff sort of disappears and it feels very oppressive and devastating. So our alos, what we see, and my husband and I are very different in the types of things that we look at and we read and the, and the websites that we go to, and we will compare the news and the data and the websites that search engines serve us, and they are very, very different. He's like, I don't see those stories anywhere in my feed. And I'm like, well, I. They're all over my feed. So it's important to consider that the availability heuristic. When you see something repeatedly, you think it is more likely than what it might be. Another example, plane crashes. A lot of people think that planes are super duper dangerous. Well why is that? Because the only plane flights that get a lot of TV attention, that get a lot of media are the ones that crash, not the 20,000, 30,000, however many it is of flights that successfully land every day. So what we have is what's in our face, what's fed to us. We're not reminded of, oh, by the way, you know, all these other millions of people had a very safe trip and then clickbait. Clickbait is prevalent not only in, you know, just general advertisements, but in headlines for the news for different things. People are less likely to click on things that are happy, that are non threatening. They are much more likely and we're programmed to do this. They're much more likely to notice and respond. Click on things that prompt a threat, that prompt that stress reaction. So if you look at the headlines, if you look at what you're being served, a lot of times it is clickbaity because it triggers a stress reaction. It triggers something in you that says, oh, I may not be safe or maybe I need to know this in order to stay safe. Messages we get from those algos and the clickbait. Everything is bad. If, if you start clicking on stories or posts or whatever about things that have gone wrong, then you may start seeing more stuff about that or if you're clicking on things about war or famine or something else, then you're going to be served headlines, you're going to be served prompts to click on things like that. So it's going to feel like everything is bad. They're not serving you the puppies and the kittens and the rainbows. You also may start believing that the world is dangerous. So it's important to look for the facts when every, when you start feeling like everything is bad, step back, look in real life, look out your door, look for exceptions. Is everything bad or are there things that are important in your rich and meaningful life, are they going okay, you know, look around your house, do you have your health, do you have, you know, are you safe within your house? Whatever helps you feel or recognize that everything is not bad. Yeah, some things suck right now and there's no doubt about that, but some things always suck. And you can't look back through a period in time where there wasn't something that was going badly. It just wasn't in our face as Much. And then the world is dangerous. Well, yes, it is, unfortunately. That's just the way life is. But is your world dangerous in this little segment where you are in your house, in your car, at your job, Is it dangerous? Are you safe in your particular context? I know I turn on the news and we live, you know, about 30 miles outside of Nashville. And Nashville regularly on the daily, has violent assaults, has violent incidents, whether it's shootings or stabbings or whatever. And that is very stressful. But then when I step back and I look in our little world, in our city and the surrounding cities, there's not, we don't, we don't hardly ever make the headlines. And you know, thinking again, we have maybe 30, 000 people in our county. You go over to Nashville and they've got millions. And so the proportion of people that are experiencing violence isn't nearly as big as one might think, because it's not. There's, this is not happening in a community of 30 000. This is happening in a community of like 1.5 million or something. So it's important to really, you know, do some math and consider the reality. Yes, it's unfortunate and it sucks and these things are awful. But how unsafe are you actually? And finally, I'm helpless. And this kind of goes with the world is dangerous. Again, look for the facts. Are you completely helpless to protect yourself, to change your situation? There are some things that you're not going to do. You're not going to go to certain places at midnight by yourself. That's probably not a good choice. But you are empowered to choose doing things that help keep you safe. We also see biased presentation, one sided or not, all the facts. It's important to recognize things like cannabis are coming up right now. And a lot of people are very passionate about their feelings on cannabis legislation. But it's important to recognize, for example, when something is legalized or made. So at the federal level, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be legalized or made. So at the state level, so it's important to recognize this. And a lot of times if your particular media stream is wanting to get you upset or energized or motivated to do something, they're going to present only their side. So this happened. However, and, and it's important to recognize what's going on. So for example, cannabis legislation, if the feds decriminalize cannabis, okay, it's no longer criminal at the federal level, doesn't mean it's no longer criminal at the State level. So if you are very anti cannabis, it's important to look at your state level and say, am I in my area, in my state, Is this going to affect me at all? And sometimes they only present part of the issue. You know, you have a lot of things that politicians want to motivate you to do that people want to motivate you to do, but they fail to present the, the entire picture, you know, the pros and the cons, because there's pros and cons of everything. And it's up to us to step back and go, okay, you know, that sounds pretty awful. Is there any opposing viewpoint? Is there any more information that I need to get the whole picture? And then as I mentioned before, flooding the media regularly floods us with what they want us to see. And I mean social media through the algos as well as news media and you know, even television, if there is a message that they want to get out, then it's going to be pushed out. And the more you see it, the more you believe it. It's like, okay, well it's on this website, this website and this website, so it must be true. And it's important to step back again and look at the reality. Is this, I, I'm being told this over and over and over again to try to get me to change my belief. But is this something that I really want to change my beliefs about? How is this controlled narrative contributed to the development of collective anxiety? How is this controlled narrative made people start believing? I need to have my mobile device with me at all times in order to stay safe. I need to have my push notifications on, I need to have this with me, otherwise I might miss something and be in danger and back. Think back in the 80s we didn't have those mobile devices. We had to look around IRL and say, am I safe right now? What's going on right now? And I think we were a lot less anxious because we weren't constantly being inundated by what was going on. You know, I'll date myself a little bit here. I remember when President Reagan got shot and that was all over the news, but the news was on the television and the television was in my house and I didn't hear about it until I went home that evening after school and, you know, saw the news report. So it's important to recognize that media, that flooding, that constant input contributes to our anxiety because if we believe we need to have it on 247 to stay safe, then we're constantly being bombarded with Clickbait, negativity, etc. The media also tries to convince us that we need to believe what they tell us, not what you see. So you go to your, go outside, go to your grocery store, go to your local mall, go wherever, and what is the condition? What is going on in your part of the world? What is going on? You know, are the shelves full? Are the shelves bare? Are people struggling to pay their bills in your area? Or are they making it just fine? What is going on in your part of the world? Another thing media tries to get us to believe is that everybody who's anybody is doing it. They are buying this product or they're doing this activity or they look like this. And it's important for us again to step back and look and say, okay, I'm looking around at the people around me and they are not waif, like in their stature, you know, everybody who's anybody is not trying to get rid of all of their body fat, for example. And other messages that you get from media, you know, whatever the message is that's telling you you should do this, look around in your environment, the people you care about, are they doing it? Or is this what the media is trying to convince you? And what else? What, in what other ways has media, especially digital media, made us feel like we have to have it with us, made us feel like it's basically implanted? If it could be attached to us, it would. Collective anxiety themes that I constantly see in subscribers, in comments as well as in practice. People think it's all bad and we are doomed. If you don't think or feel a certain way, then you're not acceptable. And oh, by the way, going back to we need to have our digital devices with us all the time, what you feel, think or say changes. And you must be online to get that memo. And if you don't get that memo, you're screwed. People can steal your identity, troll your posts, or virtually attack you 247, 365. So you have to be hypervigilant, you have to be online, you have to be checking. Well, yeah, unfortunately we live in a situation where people can steal our identity, but it's going to be important to identify. You know, if I post something on my wall on one of my social media sites, okay, if somebody trolls it, okay, you know, they have the right to say whatever they want to, but it doesn't necessarily have to trigger me. And finally, even if you grow and change, you will be held forever hostage for your past mistakes or opinions. And this one really Bothers me because people may have an opinion about something and based on the information they have, but as they have more information or as they grow, as they develop, as they have new experiences, they may change their opinions. So it's important to recognize that people can do better and we need to focus on what they are doing to do better, as opposed to things that may, we may have disagreed with or we may have not liked that they did in the past. What does your hive mind tell you is going on? So what is your mobile device? All the news resources that you go to, all the media, what does it tell you is going on? Is it true? You need to check it out. The only person who can decide whether you believe whether it's true is you and whether it's true or not. But especially if it's true, is it something that directly impacts you right now? And I mentioned cannabis legislation because that's a hot button topic right now. All right, we know that there's cannabis like pretty much everywhere. Is cannabis legislation something that's going to directly impact you right now? Well, no, it hasn't even passed yet. And even if it does pass, you know, in the state that I live in, I don't know if it'll ever be legalized. So going through those different things, is it something that's going to directly impact you in the next week or in six months? So even thinking at those different time periods, time frames, then you can identify, is this something I'm being told this, I don't like it, but is it really going to affect me at all? Or is it just something that I really don't like? And then you can choose from that point, if it's something that's really not going to affect me, but I hate it, is it worth investing my energy? Or is there a whole bunch of other stuff that I could focus my energy on? So this mindful path out of the hive. And if you watched Star Trek, Next Generation, you're familiar with the Borg and the Borg Cube. Define your rich and meaningful life. What do you want in your rich and meaningful life? Who's important? What's important? What activities, what things? Okay? And I've done videos on defining your rich and meaningful life and making a vision board, something that you can look at and go, okay, you know, these 17 things that are important, these are going well. These five, not so much. All right, you know, it's balance and is also important. We are not able to get rid of media. You may be able to unplug for 24 hours. 48 hours, maybe even a week if you're really, you know, gung ho. But for most of us, the way we work, the way we communicate, etc, we are going to have to deal with the media. Whether it's television shows or news broadcasts or email, we're going to be involved in it in some way. So how can you have a rich and meaningful life, feel safe and empowered, and have media as a part of it? It's, it's just a reality. Now when you get online, have what I call a need based purpose. If the media causes you stress, causes you anxiety, then when you do get online, make sure you have a reason for doing it. Why are you using your energy to go online right now? And we're going to talk about the impact in a minute. Always assume bias, even within yourself. And I mentioned multiple times earlier that as humans we like to confirm what we believe. If we believe it's unsafe, then we're going to be clicking on those articles or those websites that tell us the world is an unsafe place. So assume bias and look for alternative points of view. They may not be a hundred percent accurate. You know, virtually no point of view is a hundred percent accurate because there's so much that there's so many blind spots. But always assume bias and try to find balance if you want to. One of the things I used to have my kids do when they were younger, if they felt strongly about something I said, okay, you know, I hear what you're saying now, I want you to argue the other side. And it was always an interesting experiment. It didn't always change their point of view. A lot of times it didn't change their point of view, but it encouraged them to see the other side and see a bigger picture. Remain mindfully aware of your, of the impact of the media on your pacer health. And so when you get online, how does it affect you physically? Does it stress you out? Does it drain your energy? Does it make it harder to sleep affectively? Does it cause you distress? Does it cause you anger, anxiety, depression? Cognitively, does it make you start questioning things? Or does it make you feel overwhelmed and confused? Relationally, when you get on social media, is it detracting from, from the time you could spend with the people that are important in your rich and meaningful life? So be aware of the media and its sort of nefarious impact. And again, I'm not talking just about search engines or social media. I'm also talking about television. And because we can quote, binge watch movies and television shows for hours and hours and hours. But when you're doing that, you're also not engaging with the people and the activities, even that it might be important in your rich and meaningful life. Recognize what you can and cannot or will not control. There are some things, like trolling, for example. If somebody's trolling posts that you do, you could go on and you could argue with them. Or you could spend your time just constantly being hypervigilant so you can go in and block people and that's exhausting. Is it worth your energy? You cannot change their opinion likely. Okay, so I'm not going to try to what we call in my area of the world, spit into the wind. But I'm also going to choose not to try to do that. I know I can't do it or it's very unlikely that I can be successful. So I am going to choose. I will not try to control this. I'm going to use my energy to control the things I can to make my center of the world, to make my little area be as rich and meaningful as possible. And then identify ways to get your needs for information, support, etc meant. Okay, here we go. In real life, that could be actually calling somebody on the telephone or you know, if we want to keep a digital device in there. I have a lot of friends who don't like talking on the telephone and I don't particularly love it either. But we can text and we are texting back and forth, communicating with one another, but we're not getting outside input if you will. So identify ways to get your needs for things met in real life. Now information for example. All right, you are probably going to have to go online. So what sources of information are helpful? And like with health information, I always encourage you all to go to PubMed because that's where the journal articles are. Get it from the horse's mouth. Not just the one study that they cherry picked that confirmed what they wanted to tell, but what's the big picture? An immense amount of time and research goes into producing these videos. So please continue. Support our continued mission to make practical tools available by donating@docsnipes.com donate joining the channel@docsnipes.com YouTube or even sharing the videos with others to help them get some of this information and watching the ads because the ads do help defray some of the expense of the production Sometimes collective anxiety develops when a group of people share a set of beliefs and fears. Modern media strongly contributes to collective anxiety through controlled messaging and 247 access access like Hugh in the episode of Star Trek Next Generation. Iborg Love that one. It is often very scary for people to disconnect. He reports feeling very overwhelmed because he went from having thousands of voices in his head to only having his. And he hadn't heard his own voice for so long, he didn't know what he thought anymore, or ever. But like Guinan says from that same episode, resistance is not futile. Spend time letting your world tell you what's going on. Become mindfully aware of your feelings, thoughts and needs, and resist being told otherwise. Set those boundaries if you feel a certain way. Okay? Don't let the media, don't let the Internet tell you how you should feel, and remain mindful of the impact of your screen time on your rich and meaningful life.