Tuesday Reset
15 weeks out from the midterms. Threat or news headline? Your body can’t tell the difference.
My heart was racing… but I hadn’t moved. I was sitting on the couch. The news about our service members killed overseas this week, half a world away… names I’ll never know and couldn’t have done a thing to protect, and my whole nervous system had suited up for a fight that isn’t mine and isn’t in the room.
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We’re about 15 weeks out from the midterms, and the feeds know it. Whatever your politics, and I’m not gonna touch that with a ten foot pole here, the machine underneath the news has one job. Keep you activated. Anger holds your attention longer than calm does… “if it bleeds it leads”… so the algorithm serves you the thing most likely to spike you, and your body can’t tell the difference between a real threat and a really activating headline. Cortisol is cortisol. The jaw tightens either way.
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Here’s the part I keep having to relearn. The stimulus is coming no matter what. I don’t get a vote on what lands in the feed. I do get a vote on the half-second after, and that half-second is the whole ballgame.
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So the reset for today is a body check before a news check. When you feel the surge coming off a headline or a notification, pause and scan yourself first. Where’s the tension living. Jaw, shoulders, chest, gut. Name it, take one long slow exhale, and let your nervous system catch up to the fact that you’re safe on your couch and no one is coming through the door. Then decide if the thing even deserves your energy. Most of it doesn’t. (Our service members passing does!)
Respond instead of react. I’m not great at this. I still get pulled into comment sections I have no business being in, and I climb out feeling worse and dumber than when I went in. But on the nights I run the body check first, I sleep better and I’m a steadier dad the next morning, and that beats winning an argument with a stranger every time.
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So what headline hijacked your body this week, and what would change if you scanned yourself before you scrolled?
Yesterday was clearing the attention residue between tasks. Tomorrow, the boring reps that hold everything up.