Back to Reality
There’s a special sort of calm onstage in the dark. There’s nothing he can do but wait — for the lights to come up, to hear his cues, to perform. In the interim, he stands perfectly still. Not breathing. Not moving.
The lights come up — the warm beams hit his face; his eyes have to adjust to the now blinding lights. The audience isn’t even visible. The adrenaline hits.
“His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.
There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti
He’s nervous but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps forgetting
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth but the words won’t come out”
Well shit.
Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” profiles physiological stress: the lyrics are a narrative of the endocrine system and reflect the impact of poverty on stress levels.
When we find ourselves in stressful situations, whether that be onstage in front of an expectant audience, riding a roller coaster, or about to jump off a cliff into a pool of water, our bodies respond accordingly. First, the initial stress causes the classic fight or flight response — the body recognizes that it could potentially be in danger and signals the adrenal glands, which sit on top of the kidneys to, according to the article “Understanding the stress response” from Harvard Health Publishing, dump a bunch of adrenaline into our bloodstream. This starts a body-wide chain reaction: our pupils dilate, our heart starts racing, our blood rushes to our limbs and our “knees [get] weak, arms are heavy.”
The evolutionary thought process behind the fight-or-flight is that if the body is prepared to fight or run away, that person’s chances of survival are greatly increased. And this seems logical when we’re faced with bodily harm, whether that be due to an impending bear attack or because of a large drop off of a cliff, and as soon as the situation is mitigated and the body is physically safe, the stress response turns off (“Understanding the Stress Response”). But why do we still have a stress response to situations where there isn’t a chance of bodily harm? Why does the thought of performing cause Eminem to forget his own lyrics and puke up “mom’s spaghetti”?
Turns out that there are two kinds of stress responses: in addition to the flight-or-fight response, known as an acute stress response, there is also a long term stress response which can develop quickly into chronic stress (“Understanding and Managing Stress at Cornell”). In addition to the release of adrenaline in response to a stressor, a hormone called cortisol is also excreted and when we feel constantly under attack — by unhealthy situations, expectations, or impending doom — that stress response stays on (“Chronic Stress Puts your Health at Risk”). When the brain keeps telling the adrenal glands to continue releasing cortisol into the body there can be unintended consequences.
Human beings operate at peak performance when we have acute to moderate stress levels — we’re faster, more agile, and just on our game (“Understanding and Managing Stress at Cornell”). But as this stress response continues, our ability to perform degrades and we can open our mouths “but the words won’t come out.” The continual release of cortisol leads to a decrease in our immune system, panic, and forgetfulness as chronic stress develops (“Chronic Stress Puts Your Health at Risk”). But what kind of external stressors can lead to the shaky performance in the first verse?
Of course there’s the stress of an unhealthy home environment or the stress of a debilitating disease, but an even bigger stressor is poverty. Poverty limits access to food, necessities, and opportunities, which often leads to the sensation of constantly being under attack:
“All the pain inside amplified by the fact
That I can’t get by with my nine to five
And I can’t provide the right type of life for my family
’Cause man, these Goddamn food stamps don’t buy diapers
And these times are so hard and it’s getting harder”
According to census data from 2017, there were about 45 million people in the US living in poverty — that means there are almost 45 million people suffering chronic stress due to their socioeconomic status (Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2017). The social stigma that goes along with poverty — “poor people are lazy” — creates additional barriers of access for the poor: people living in poverty are much less likely to earn a higher education, work at a job that offers benefits, and have health insurance, says Melissa De Witte in her piece “Reduce Poverty? Social Barriers Need to be Removed.” When workers are working minimum wage jobs from nine to five, or worse hours, and still have to be on food stamps that “don’t buy diapers,” stress levels rise and people start looking for any chance to break down the systematic barriers built to perpetuate poverty in an effort to relieve themselves of these high stress levels.
Some people rely on their rap careers to get them out of poverty:
“I’ve got to formulate a plot before I end up in jail or shot
Success is my only ** option, failure‘s not
Mom, I love you, but this trailer has got to go, I cannot grow old in Salem’s lot
So here I go, it’s my shot
Feet fail me not ’cause this may be the only opportunity that I got”
And relying on this single opportunity to get out of poverty only increases stress levels — pushing Eminem’s stress from poverty into the chronic zone where forgetfulness, panic, and anxiety reign free.
At least for Eminem we know there’s a happy ending to this particular story: he did indeed succeed and break out of the cyclic trap of poverty, reducing his chronic stress level and eventually leading him to perform for crowds as large at 70,000 people, as mentioned by Neil McCormick in his review of one of Eminem’s performances.
However, this isn’t the case for many people living in poverty in America — between 2016 and 2017 there was no reduction in the amount of people living below the poverty line in the US in any age group according to the data in the Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2017. That means that about 40 million people are still living below the poverty line with limited access to resources causing them extraordinary levels of physiological stress that reduces their mental and physical health and keeps these humans in a vicious cycle of poverty.
How can we reduce chronic stress? The American Psychological Association makes a number of suggestions on how to lower one’s stress levels, including getting more quality sleep, tapping into support systems, and seeking help from trained professionals (“Stress Won’t Go Away?”). And these are great suggestions, if the stress in question is caused by a certain lifestyle choice or if there’s a chemical imbalance in the brain leading to increased stress, but how can we reduce the chronic stresses of poverty? Well, we need to fix the current system that doesn’t give people a way to get back on their feet after a setback like the loss of a job. And there are supposedly institutions in place to help people get back into the workforce, these being programs like Welfare.
But let’s talk about welfare for a second. Where does welfare money really go? Does it go to programs like cash assistance for needy families? Krissy Clark — in her article “Oh my god — we’re on welfare?!” — answers these questions: welfare, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds are allocated to states in a federal block grant and then the state government uses its discretion to allocate funds. And sure, some of the money goes to cash assistance for qualifying families, but a lot of welfare money goes to other sorts of programs — like college scholarships to Michigan students whose families make $250,000 a year, or to fund couples classes that are designed to reduce divorce rates by encouraging marriage and the formation of two-parent homes (Clark). Or, better yet, some welfare dollars go to funding Crisis Pregnancy Centers, which are religious based institutions notorious for providing scared and vulnerable pregnant women with false information about their options, including abortions, as a way of reducing abortion rates in America (Chen, Clark). Just a fraction of the Welfare allocations given to states actually go to job-readiness training and cash assistance for needy families: in Oklahoma, only 9% of the TANF budget goes to cash to cash assistance while the other 81% goes to elective programs put on by the state, including programs that aim to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancy (Clark). Finally, as of 2016, the amount of money federally allocated for welfare (16.9 million) hasn’t changed since 1996 despite increases in inflation (Clark).
Of course there hasn’t been a reduction in poverty because we’re not giving people a way out — the discretionary allocation of welfare funds don’t go to the people who really need them and there hasn’t been any extra money added to the federal welfare budget to reflect the rising cost of living. And as a result, people living below the poverty line aren’t able to catch a break: they have to work multiple jobs and rely on cash assistance from the government to just put food on the table for their families. And if that’s not stressful enough, the stigma attached to using welfare funds and working low-paying service jobs makes the day to lives of these people even more stressful, rising their cortisol levels, leaving their bodies with a compromised immune system, increased anxiety, and a decreased ability to function.
Think about that next time you eat mom’s spaghetti.
Bibliography:
Chen, Alice. “Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Impeding the Right to Informed Decision Making.” Cardozo Journal of Law and Gender 19.3 (2013):933–960. Web. Accessed 20 September 2018.
“Chronic Stress Puts Your Health at Risk.” Mayo Clinic. www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-2004603. Accessed 16 September 2018.
Clark, Krissy. “‘Oh My God — We’re on Welfare?!’ The Strange Story of What “Welfare” has Become Since the 1996 Reforms.” Slate.com 2 June 2016. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/moneybox/2016/06/_welfare_money_often_isn_t_spent_on_welfare.html. Accessed 20 September 2018.
De Witte, Melissa. “Reduce Poverty? Social Barriers Need to be Removed.” 10 October 2014. psychology.ucsc.edu/news-events/profiles/heather-bullock.html. Accessed 16 September 2018.
Eminem. “Lose Yourself.” Curtain Call. Produced by Luis Resto, Jeff Bass, and Eminem, 2005.
McCormick, Neil. “Eminem, Wembley Stadium, Review.” Telegraph.co.uk. 12 July 2014.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/live-music-reviews/10963558/Eminem-Wembley-Stadium-review-fans-should-demand-their-money-back.html. Accessed 19 September 2018.
“Stress Won’t Go Away?” American Psychological Association. N.d.http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/chronic-stress.aspx. Accessed 20 September 2018.
“The Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2017.” Census.gov. September 2018.www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-265.pdf.Accessed 16 September 2018.
“Understanding and Managing Stress at Cornell.” Health Cornell.health.cornell.edu/sites/health/files/pdf-library/understanding-managing-stress.pdf. Accessed 16 September 2018.
“Understanding the Stress Response.” Harvard Health Publishing. March 2011.www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response. Accessed 16 September 2018.
