Navigating election anxiety in 2024
The presidential election is on November 5th this year and many of us are feeling the stress leading up to the day. Regardless of your political leanings, this year has been fraught with in-your-face advertisements designed to elicit strong emotional responses. Even if you’ve somehow managed to escape the barrage of mail, texts, calls, and ads, the odds are that you’ve still encountered many political conversations in your day-to-day life. Now that we’re mere days away from the election, you might be feeling even more stress and anxiety about the potential outcomes. Here are some suggestions on ways to manage election anxiety in 2024:
1) Focus on what is in your control
Fortunately or unfortunately, no one single individual can decide the election outcomes. But that doesn’t mean that your role doesn’t matter. Ultimately, we can only control ourselves. By keeping focus on this, there are several ways you can help lessen the stress and anxiety you’re feeling about the election.
Vote!
Engaging in your civic duty and vote! Knowing that you have done your part and voiced your opinion can help a lot to manage some of the anxiety around the election. Many states are allowing for early voting, so you don’t even have to wait until election day to vote. If you haven’t registered to vote or are unsure of where your local polling place is, visit your state’s website to check.
Create a game plan
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes get nervous going to new places. It can help to do a little planning ahead of time to make things feel more concrete and lessen some of the unknown variables. Some questions to ask yourself may be:
Where is my polling place?
Maybe look it up on your GPS and do street view to know what it is you need to be looking for on the day of.
When am I going to go?
Most jobs will give you time off during the day to vote, or maybe you plan on going before/after work. Set a goal of a time you’re aiming to go vote. You don’t have to hold yourself to this time, but it can help to give yourself a guide to structure your day around.
Am I going to go with anyone?
Maybe you feel better going by yourself to lessen the potential political conversations you have to listen to. Or maybe going by yourself is intimidating and it would help to go with a friend or loved one. Think about what would feel best for you and reach out to your supports if needed!
Creating a plan this weekend or even on Monday can help lessen some of the unknown, anxiety-inducing variables going into election day on Tuesday.
2) Set boundaries - with others and yourself!
With others
You are allowed to protect yourself. You do not have to subject yourself to any conversation you don’t want to engage in. It can be really hard to know how to respond when someone, be it a random stranger or a close loved one, has different political views than you and brings it up at every opportunity. You can show respect to others, while also respecting your own mental health.
If it’s a random number that is texting and calling you again, you can block them.
If it’s an acquaintance or a loved one, you may consider saying something like, “I appreciate you wanting to talk to me about this. I already know who I am voting for and continued discussion won’t change my mind on the issue. I’m happy to talk about something else, but I’m not going to keep talking about the election right now.” or “I’m worried too about the results. I’ve done my part and voted already/am planning to vote on Tuesday, but beyond that, I can’t control the outcome, and talking about it more is just going to stress me out. Let’s talk about something else instead.”
It can feel really hard to shut down a conversation, but you are also allowed to take care of yourself. The other important part is that if they don’t respect your boundaries and keep talking about topics you have said you aren’t going to engage in, you have to choose if you are willing to maintain your own boundaries and leave the conversation.
With yourself
Part of setting boundaries is setting them with yourself too.
Have you found yourself mindlessly scrolling social media and seeing ad after ad? Or maybe you’ve been watching the news and commercial after commercial pops up. Some of the ads and commercials this year are extremely graphic - so much that news channels are playing content warnings before them and explaining that they legally have to play the ads even though they are so violent and graphic. Maybe you’re not watching the news but compulsively checking news apps and articles for any updates about who is leading in the polls. You have the choice to set boundaries with yourself.
Give yourself a time limit of how long you will spend scrolling, reading articles, or watching the news - set a timer and once the timer goes off, get up and do something else. Or consider setting limits on your screen time. Enlist a buddy to help hold you accountable if you need to.
It can be hard to choose to disengage but prolonged exposure likely isn’t going to benefit you, rather it will emotionally drain you further and increase any stress and anxiety you’re already feeling.
3) Engage in good self-care
The term “self-care” is thrown around so much nowadays that it can easily lose meaning. It has become a way for the media to push more products that you don’t really need. But going back to the core of the term, it’s all about how you take care of yourself. It is not selfish to take care of yourself. (Say it louder for the people in the back! - It is not selfish to take care of yourself!). And during times of increased stress, like a national presidential election, it is even more important to take care of yourself. It doesn’t have to be complicated either. I like to think about it this way - if I was talking to a little kid version of myself, what would I say or do?
“Let’s make sure we’re getting enough sleep. I know I’m much more emotional when I’m sleepy.”
“Let’s make sure we’re properly hydrating. And no, soda isn’t hydrating.” (Coffee and alcohol aren’t either!)
“You seem a little grouchy. Let’s have a snack. Have you eaten any actual meals yet today?”
“I see you sitting there on the couch scrolling online, have you moved at all today? Let’s go take a walk, ideally outside in some sunlight if we can, but something is better than nothing.”
Kids need guidance and don’t always do what is best for them - adults are the same way. We might know what we need to do for self-care and say “but I don’t wanna!”
What helps me is setting a timer or doing a mental countdown.
I usually go with the mental countdown - “I’m going to give myself 10 seconds to keep sitting in the not-wanting-to feeling and then I need to get up and do the thing I need to do.”
When that doesn’t work, I call one of my supports and usually say, “Help! I’m glued to the sofa and can’t get up.” And their playful chastising paired with the accountability of someone knowing I’m not doing what I need to motivates me to get up and do the thing.
At our core, we really just need a few basic things - food, water, sleep, and movement. Reflect a bit on how you can make sure you’re getting those things during these stressful times. See if you can include the added bonus of socializing - we tend to be more present and less stressed when we’re with others.
4) Try to stay in the present
This is so much easier said than done, but try to keep your thoughts grounded in the present. We don’t know what the election results are going to be or the potential impact on the country. We can speculate as much as we want, but that’s exactly what it is - speculation. Keeping our thoughts in the present can help prevent some of those thought spirals about “what if” this or that happens.
I love using “grounding” as a way to stay in the present. Grounding is a mindfulness skill that essentially revolves around you intentionally shifting your focus back to your current environment. There are a lot of different ways to practice grounding - some people focus on the feeling of pushing their feet into the floor, some people run their hands under warm (not scalding hot) water and focus on the sensation of the water, or some people hold an ice cube in their hands and focus on the temperature. (These are all forms of physical grounding.) My 2 favorite versions are:
5 senses grounding or the 5-4-3-2-1 technique
There’s no right or wrong way to do 5 senses grounding. The idea is that you’re going to use your 5 senses to engage with your environment.
Typically, I encourage people to look for 5 things they can see, 4 they can touch, 3 they can hear, 2 they can smell, and 1 they can taste. (You can do any order you want, but usually, it’s easier to find 1 thing you can taste rather than 5.)
When looking for these things, really engage with them and take your time. I can touch my teacup and say that’s a thing I can touch, or I can hold it in my hands, noticing how warm it is compared to my skin, noticing the glossiness of the mug compared to the texture of my palms. Run through the 5 senses as many times as you need to.
I really like using lifesaver mints as a bit of a hack for this technique too - you can see the clear plastic and the white mint, you can touch them both, you can smell the mintiness of it, you can hear the crackling of the plastic or your own crunching if you’re brave enough to do so, and you can taste the sweet mint flavor. It’s easy to carry the mint in your pocket to do a mini grounding session whenever you need to.
Color grounding
Sometimes we don’t always want people to know we’re doing a skill or maybe our hands are occupied so we aren’t able to use all our senses. That’s where I think color grounding can be really helpful.
The idea with color grounding is you pick a color and you look for everything around you that is that color. Once you’ve identified everything, you see if you’re feeling better, and if you’re not you can just keep going through colors until you feel a bit more grounding in the present.
Whenever I’m noticing my thoughts drifting too much to worries about the future, I always pick green because I have many, many green things in my office to focus on until I’m feeling grounded again. (My 20 green plants all with different shades of green, green on my calendar, green on the tissue box, green in my floral wall hanging, green push pins, green on my coasters, green Lego succulents, green fidget toy, and probably more!)
It’s important to note that the goal of grounding is not to simply distract ourselves from our anxious thoughts. Avoidance is a great way to increase anxiety (and is likely an entirely separate blog post to come.) When we’re grounding we’re trying to get ourselves to focus on the present, rather than the future “what ifs.” This also brings us full circle to the beginning of the article, where we’re trying to focus on what is within our control, which is ultimately only our own actions.
5) Get professional help
Would I even be a therapist if I didn’t mention therapy at some point in this article? If you’re feeling really stressed or anxious about the election, consider getting some professional help if needed. Friends and family can be great supports, but sometimes you need someone who isn’t in your life to talk to about the people in your life. A therapist can be really great for that and more. There are a lot of great websites where you can find a therapist or even Google is helpful for that. If you’d like to work with me specifically, feel free to request a consultation and we can chat about your needs.
I hope this post gave you some ideas of ways you can take care of yourself and find some comfort during this election season.
Disclaimer:
The content on this blog is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or medical advice. For personalized care, please consult a licensed therapist or healthcare provider. For more details, please read our full Blog Disclaimer.
