stress: An app with a meditation just for the election»

The final debate started relatively peacefully, at least by 2016 standards. But, by the end, you may have been watching with fists clenched, stomach knotted, and heartbeat accelerated. You may have gone to bed with emotions charged, your mind racing. And now you’ve woken up knowing talk about the election will be largely unavoidable. Breathe. The good news is there are now guided meditations available for the sole purpose of calming your election stress.

By now we’ve established that election-induced stress is a real and common phenomenon inflicting more than half of American adults, and negatively impacting their work, their relationships and their health. People have been tweeting about their stress eating because of it and giving in to other vices like drinking and smoking weed.

So last week the meditation app 10% Happier enlisted several leading instructors to put together “election emergency” meditations to offer tips and breathing exercises to help our stressed-out populace manage their emotions.

The app is an offshoot of the book of the same name by ABC News anchor Dan Harris, who wrote about a panic attack he had on air and how he subsequently turned to meditation for his stress.

The idea to offer meditation specifically for election stress was only broached recently by a colleague, and Harris said he jumped on it because he needed it, too.

“For months, I have found myself compulsively checking the news, and stress eating during the debates. For example, during the last one, I consumed half of a gigantic bag of popcorn. And I know I’m not alone,” Harris said in an e-mail.

Research studies have shown that meditation does reduce stress, and even more so, a Harvard neuroscientist found in 2015 that it can actually change the brain by thickening several areas, including one region that deals with mind wandering and self-relevance.

Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, who has been practicing for 45 years, said her students bring up the election a lot. She said they are anxious, but they also feel angered and ashamed by how much the conversations trigger the emotions. Politics is by nature a passionate subject, but Salzberg said she’s never seen the degree of stress caused by an election as she has this year. Part of it is the toxicity of the environment, she said, and also that the discord makes people feel so disconnected from one another.