The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
Michelle Obama spoke for a large percentage of us when she fessed up to “low-grade depression,” a feeling that has its origins in a dark November night in 2015, when Donald Trump slunk his way past a majority of the electorate and into the presidency.
Trump’s election lit up my endocrine system, the juice maker of depression in the body, as I contemplated the ascension of a reality TV host to the highest office in the land.
I could almost feel my amygdala screaming with anger, my thalamus goading my senses into high alert and my hippocampus writhing in sync with my amygdala as fear penetrated my every cell.
Who knew the coping skills I learned when I witnessed the attempted assassination of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in January 2011 would serve me well as I struggled to deal with Trump’s chaotic leadership style?
I don’t recommend witnessing mass murder, but the wallop it lands on the human body feels eerily similar to the ways in which Trump’s style has infiltrated my body.
The morning the hail of bullets left my friends bloody and dead on the concrete of Safeway, my body responded with cool logic. Spitting adrenaline ran me toward my friends to help. My peripheral vision vanished, and my nose refused to smell the blood-covered concrete. My ears blocked out moans and the sounds of hands pounding against chests to make hearts beat again.
I stared down at Gabby, slumped on the concrete, and heard a voice beside her say, “She’s got a pulse.” I stumbled to a ledge outside Safeway and sat, consumed by shock, my arms wrapped around myself, rocking.
In the wake of the shooting, with the help of several therapists, I grew a profound respect for my body and its heroic autonomous functions.
I studied the language of my hormones and learned to manage my stress with movement and focused breath. I practiced enough yoga to earn my teaching certificate, and added meditation and exercise to help me feel safe again.
Stress lodges deep inside our body and will stay there, causing illness and depression, unless we take it on actively and daily. I learned that, not unlike a toddler sucking her thumb holding a favorite blanket or toy, adults can and must learn healthy ways to self-soothe.
As we near election day, the need to listen to and care for our endocrine system has become more urgent. Trump has spun the pandemic, slumping economy and racism into a poisonous concoction that keeps many of us locked not just inside our homes but also inside bodies wracked by stress.
We need to understand and respond to the science of our bodies. As a yoga teacher, I have spent years studying and helping people consciously move and calm their anatomy and physiology.
Stress, just like the pandemic, will not magically disappear, but sweat and breath can crank up our “good” hormones: serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin and dopamine.
If yoga is not your thing, hug a family member and oxytocin fires; savor a juicy peach and unleash your dopamine; laugh or go for a walk, run or bike ride and endorphins flood your body; or simply close your eyes, breathe belly-deep and listen to music to release serotonin.
Consciously and collectively, we can survive until Election Day if we acknowledge and tend the low-grade, and high-octane, depression that terrorizes our bodies. Your body needs you to help it combat stress with all the breath and sweat you can muster.
