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By Pius Musau
They call it a dirty game, but politics does more than polluting your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. The usual cast of politicians and their supporting troupes dominated by men lead stressful lives of high stakes, physical turmoil and unexpected turns and twists. The resulting bodily responses take major tolls on their health that manifest in lifestyle diseases, mental anguish and possible physical elimination. Beyond policy matters that can affect health care, politics can influence how well you get even in the absence of diseases.
The disease that is politics
The fast-paced, high-octane politics change into a political disease courtesy of the following:
• Untrustworthy team members whose interests come before anything else. When they say there are no permanent friends but permanent interests, it is their subtle way of reminding us that this back stabbing lifestyle is what they choose to live.
• Unfulfilled expectations and hopes of better prospects all premised on things getting worse for everybody else except you.
• The us-versus-them syndrome that consumes all in the cocoon that believes that the easiest way of advancing our interests is by getting one of us to favour us and lord it over the rest.
• A perpetual state of anxiety, fear of the unknown, and unpredictable tomorrow will likely lead to hypertension, panic disorders, paranoia and strokes.
• The former good man or woman, unrecognisable by the old friends he had before getting political.
• Physical confrontations, verbal altercations, thrown items and injuries.
• The dethroned former politician who misses the limelight and like the alpha male he once was, nurses his wounds hoping for a comeback. This lot will show every bit of a post-traumatic disorder.
The science behind our politics
The survival instincts we developed while hunting and gathering made it a must to relate with people we could readily identify with and trust. These are the vestigial impulses that show in politics as party, tribe, or clan affiliations. It is what makes our politics devoid of agenda, as we hoist our own to safeguard our narrow interests.
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