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We interrupt your latest binge of breaking political news, fear-provoking campaign commercials and angry posts from your favorite pundit to report that politics can be stressful.

That stress can be bad for your health. But some good news here you can take steps to manage it.

If the election has your heart racing and stomach churning, you have company. According to the American Psychological Associations Stress in America survey for July, 77% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans said the political climate was a significant source of stress.

A study published last September in the journal PLoS ONE hinted at the toll such stress can take: Roughly a fifth or more of 800 respondents reported losing sleep, being fatigued or suffering depression because of politics. More than 11% said politics had hurt their physical health at least a little.

Thats a lot of stress-sick people, said the studys lead author, Kevin B. Smith, the Leland J. and Dorothy H. Olson Chair of Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Youre talking about tens of millions of people who say, Im losing sleep because of politics. Ive lost a friend because of politics, Smith said.

Melissa DeJonckheere, an assistant professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, had similar findings in a smaller survey that questioned 14- to 24-year-olds about the 2016 presidential election. Before the election, 86% reported issues such as anxiety, fear or the feeling that things were out of their control. About a fifth reported physical problems not being able to sleep, and even nausea.

It was a nonpartisan problem, she said. Even people who said that they dont follow politics, or theyre explicitly not interested in any of the candidates, were still having negative emotional responses to the election.

That research, published in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health in 2018, noted that stress in youth has been linked to cardiovascular disease, depression, substance abuse, behavioral problems and more in adolescents, plus problems in adulthood.

Smith, who has done extensive work on the biology of political behavior, said the question of whether political stress affects us differently than other types of stress hasnt been answered. But he suspects a few modern factors might be making things worse.

We have an incredibly polarized political environment right now, he said. And thanks to smartphones and computers, were constantly soaking in it. Its just omnipresent in our lives, he said. He contrasted it to the stress that comes from, say, being a football fan. He is one, and every year, I produce a lot of stomach acid over the Dallas Cowboys playoff chances. But the football season ends, and that stress goes away.

The political season never ends.

The anxiety is not always accidental. Campaigns can feed off of fear, said Dr. Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. After all, theyre trying to make voters choose sides.

Couple that with the divisions that have been fanned about how to respond to the coronavirus, he said, and our bodies are much more in chronic fight-or-flight mode than they probably were before the pandemic.

To cope, Waldinger who is also a Zen priest recommends regulating your exposure to the constant stream of scary political news.

One of my meditation teachers has a quote that I really like. She said, Your mind is like tofu; it tastes like whatever you marinate it in, he said. He stays informed by reading the newspaper in the morning, later listens to a little radio, but avoids TV entirely. And I try my best to stay away from the news feed on my phone.

However you choose to get news, be careful and be deliberate, Waldinger said. And dont do it late in the day as youre wanting to settle down and sleep.

DeJonckheere said unpublished findings suggest that her young participants found relief by becoming more civically engaged.

The youth in our study talked about taking on activist roles, volunteering, taking more classes to learn about how politics affects them, she said. She thought that could be particularly important for people who are too young to vote, because it could give them a sense of control and purpose, which can help reduce stress and improve mental health.

Finding common ground with neighbors is a good idea, Waldinger said. Im not going to change the minds of my neighbors who are on the other side of the divide. But theyre still my neighbors. Connecting around a cause such as a walk to end hunger could benefit everybody.

And dont let political dramas divide you from family, he said. I would say, see the culture wars as the enemy, the thing to be fended off.

Because, he said, This moment is going to pass. We dont know what its going to morph into, but its not going to stay the same.

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Surviving the election: How to protect yourself from the stress of politics - Steuben Courier