Trump's shock and awe tests Americans' response to chaos

• That could be difficult, with rollbacks of DEI practices, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, trade wars, orders targeting transgender rights and Department of Government Efficiency takeovers of public data potentially touching every segment of society.

State of play: Political anxiety has been building for years as a 24-hour news cycle, social media and algorithms create seemingly endless outlets for strife.

• But President Trump's pugnacious style and the breakneck series of changes he and Elon Musk unleashed has ratcheted everything up, delighting his supporters and leaving his critics panicked and without a single rallying point.
• Mental health professionals say even people who don't see themselves as directly affected by administration actions are feeling frazzled by the dizzying pace and Trump's enduring ability to command attention.
• They may feel it through the venting of a spouse, the distress of a neighbor with a trans child or an anxious friend who works for a government contractor.

"There is an element of chaos right now," said Andrea Bonior, a Georgetown University psychology professor who sees patients in the D.C. area. "A sense of not knowing what's coming and not being able to control what's coming is really hard on the stress response."

• "As humans, we don't love uncertainty. It's something that we don't tend to tolerate well. And then when we're anxious, it's excruciating."

Between the lines: People generally hate surprises. The more unexpected the news, the likelier it is they'll start tuning out details.

• "I think we can take so much of something before the human brain just like peters out and says, 'I can't keep up,'" said New York-based neuropsychologist Sanam Hafeez told Axios.
• Bonior said she's seen an uptick in patients, particularly Democrats, expressing a sense of burnout, guilt and despair at losing an old way of life.
• "There's a fine line between burying your head in the sand and trying to protect yourself. I've been working with a lot of folks to try to find that line," she said.

To be sure, there's reassurance for those on the political right.

• "If you think that the person causing the uncertainty is on your side, you could still be off balance, but you can kind of have general certainty that the changes are in your best interest," said Kurt Gray, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina who's studied how moral judgments stem from feeling threatened or vulnerable.
• There's a school of thought that chaos can breed creativity, and that tearing down old institutions can unleash entrepreneurial spirit.
• But most people aren't good at dealing with uncertainty. And in these unprecedented times, Gray said they'd be better off sharing their personal stories than framing the moment in politics and policy.

Threat level: The epicenter of anxiety is focused for now in places like the federal workforce and the immigrant and LGBTQ communities.

• Bonior pointed to federal workers who aren't sure if they'll be let go as well as others concerned about their immigration status or worried about loved ones whose refugee flights were canceled.
• For them, Bonior said: "There is no setting a boundary to get some distance from this stuff."
• "It feels, no matter which way you go, you're like, 'Oh, my God, I'm being ruled by a very different system that I thought I was living in,'" Hafeez said.

And it's not just Trump, say mental health professionals. The world is a brittle place, with disease outbreaks, wars in Gaza and Ukraine and climate change adding to the anxiety.

• "We are in an unprecedented time that we have so many collective stressors going on, and the rapid fire of media coverage of these policy changes, it's just adding to that broader collective stress," said Daniel Relihan, a researcher at the Silver Stress and Coping Lab at University of California, Irvine.
• Research has shown the amount of stress connected to politics that people experience has been steadily rising since 2008.
• And there can be physical consequences: A study conducted by the UC Irvine lab found greater worry about the 2020 election predicted a 10% increase in physical health ailments like cancer, stroke and heart attacks up to three years later, Relihan said.

What to do: Tuning out isn't all bad, if it's possible, experts say.

• "This disengaging is a protective way to reduce stress for mental health, and ultimately to help reduce any impacts of that stress on your physical health," Relihan said.
• It can help people focus on living according to their personal values and what they can control.
• "That involves setting some boundaries so that they can stay informed, but also not despair," Bonior said.