Mental health and political changes

How do you handle it when you have a sense of doom or a feeling of dread that food prices are going up, other costs are going up, you may have lost your job?

José Luis Madera, Senior Manager for Integrated Behavioral Health Services at Valleywise Health, joined “Arizona Horizon” to talk about mental health. Madera discussed the latest changes going on in the country with regards to tariffs, firings of workers and social security privatization and how it could affect people’s mental health.

Madera said some of the factors of the anxiety people feel from the recent changes are fear, uncertainty and confusion. He tells his clients to do something they enjoy if news and “doom-scrolling” is overtaking them.

“It’s really your thought process too. If you’re doom and gloom all the time, you’re just always going to be focused on looking for things that are going to attract that,” Madera said.

He encourages people to focus on what they have control over, for example, who they vote for, but not on the actions of politicians. Madera also encourages people to distract themselves from the negative issues.

“I think there are situations where if you hang out with friends who are feeling like they are living in a dumpster fire all the time, you might not want to be around them either; you have to pick and choose who you are surrounding yourself with,” Madera said.

His advice to people feeling down is “do something different; don’t keep doing the same thing. If you keep doing the same thing, you want the same result. It’s going to be the same thing.”