Finding Your Calm: How to Manage Election Stress This Political Season

This November, many Americans will face a familiar stressor that comes around every four years. As we approach the 2024 United States presidential election, it’s natural to feel uncertain about the future of the country. Election stress can impact our physical, mental and emotional well-being. The constant flow of political news and debates can leave us feeling overwhelmed. If you’re looking for ways to cope with election anxiety, there are several strategies you can use to better manage your stress before Tuesday, November 5th arrives. 

How to Deal with Election Anxiety

In the lead-up to the upcoming election, it’s easy to become consumed by election anxiety, especially when you find yourself overwhelmed by obsessive thoughts about the outcome. Here are a few ways to manage these feelings and find your calm.
Take a Break From Social Media and Beware of Shoulds

While many people like staying informed with the latest updates in the election cycle, it can be beneficial for one’s mental health to take a break from time to time. According to REBT therapy, people often make themselves uncomfortable with negative emotions, like anxiety or anger, when they believe things should be different from how they are. For instance, are we ‘demanding’ that the party we support must win? Demands like this can lead to negative emotions, such as rage or panic. It would be natural to feel annoyed, upset or concerned about an outcome, but if you demand that the result must be to your liking, you will inevitably feel more intense negative emotions.

That being said, you can think more flexibly about it. By shifting your mindset, you can reduce political anxiety and come out with a more balanced perspective. You might instead think: “I’d prefer my candidate to win, but there’s no rule saying he absolutely must.” In this framework, you may feel less intense emotion and subsequently have more space to think clearly about the consequences of the election. It may still be bothersome, but at least you will be able to mitigate your political stress by following a less potent emotional response.

To better manage election stress, it’s important to be mindful of your media consumption and how it’s impacting your mental and physical well-being. Removing potential triggers of election stress, which you might see on social media, can be a useful mode of self-care as well, especially if you are prone to anger or depression when viewing content you find upsetting or don’t necessarily agree with. This might include blocking or muting certain accounts, avoiding news sources that trigger you, or giving yourself specific times each day to scroll social media.

Recognize the Difference between “Thoughts” and “Feelings”

It’s easy to use “thoughts” and “feelings” interchangeably, but they are quite different. Feelings are the emotions we experience, such as fear or sadness, while thoughts are the fragments of dialogue that run through our minds. You might feel anxiety about the election in anticipation of the 2025 presidential inauguration, whereas you might think, “This is going to be a disaster.” Recognizing the difference between thoughts and feelings helps us reframe them more specifically and productively. Using the right terms helps us explain our thoughts and feelings better because our language influences our actions.

Here is how this might play out. If you were to say, “I feel like my life will be so much worse if X candidate wins the election,” you would be mischaracterizing a thought as a feeling. If you were to recognize that this catastrophizing fragment was simply a thought, you could more accurately reframe or even accept this thought. Alternatively, if you were to say, “I think I am going to be a very anxious person this year,” the thought may seem accurate. However, you may be better served by noting you feel anxious in the present moment. Using the proper language can help us accept our feelings as temporary and ephemeral.

It’s important to recognize that feeling anxiety over the election doesn’t mean you’re an anxious person; it just means you’re simply human. When we make sweeping statements about ourselves, we often end up putting ourselves down and overlooking the fact that we all experience a wide range of emotions. While it’s natural to worry about the outcome of the election, labeling yourself as an anxious person because of this anxiety can be counterproductive and lead to more stress.

Although events like elections can be stressful, the language we use in our thoughts can shape how we respond. Everyone has thoughts and feelings, but how we talk to ourselves about those feelings can vary, and it’s up to us to choose a more positive perspective.

Take Stock of and Moderate Your Feelings

Oftentimes, when we don’t want to feel an “uncomfortable emotion,” we may have the urge to try and ignore it. Anxiety during the election period can often make us want to avoid confronting our feelings, but this can be a misdirected approach as that uncomfortable emotion will usually still find a way to resurface, especially around a ubiquitous event like a forthcoming presidential election. When this happens, reflect on what you feel and how you think. Maybe you are afraid of one candidate winning? Perhaps you’re uncertain about how this would impact your life. Do you fear changes in the future? Allow yourself to feel these feelings and accept them as consequences of your thinking without trying to intellectualize them. This can provide clarity and help you move through your feelings. The feelings may not go away fully, but by not ignoring and shining a light on them, you have removed the mystery, giving them less power over you.

Additionally, you can ask yourself if this emotion is useful to you. Consider whether a more “helpful emotion” would be less disturbing and more adaptable. Feeling rage upon seeing a candidate’s recent remarks is less adaptable than feeling annoyed or frustrated about it. When we feel rage, we are disturbing ourselves on top of a more useful feeling, like appropriate anger or annoyance. It would make sense to feel annoyed, even angry, by one candidate’s actions you disagree with, whereas feeling rage would be more intense and may ultimately prevent you from acting according to your values. I will explain this further in the next section.

Ask Yourself “Is Worrying Helpful?”

According to REBT, if you are able to bring an unhelpful negative emotion like panic down to a more manageable emotion like concern, you will have more space to think clearly and tailor your behavior to align with what’s important to you. For instance, if you spend your time and energy fretting about the election results, you may spend hours ruminating about this at work and, therefore, hurt your job performance. However, if you were simply appropriately concerned about the election, you might spend less time worrying at work while still having time to complete your tasks. In addition, managing your election stress allows you to clear mental space to decide if you want to take proactive action, rather than getting stuck in a cycle of worry. In other words, by being concerned about the election instead of being overtly anxious, you can think more rationally about what’s important to you and whether you want to act differently instead of spending time in your head ruminating.

Be Careful about Creating Meaning Beyond the Facts

It’s important to ask yourself what the facts of the situation are and consider if you are creating meaning beyond it. The facts might be the election is two months away or that there is a presidential debate this week. Pay attention to your thoughts beyond the facts here. Ask yourself, are you catastrophizing the current situation? Is this really the worst it could be? Are you struggling to tolerate the frustration of the situation? If you are thinking November 5th is going to be a disaster or that this candidate will ruin my life and you can’t deal with it, you may be catastrophizing.

There are other questions you can ask to see if you are creating a narrative out of the situation. Are you judging yourself harshly? Are you thinking that you are a bad person because you’re experiencing more election stress than a friend or family member about the election? Do your political views say something about who you are? The best response is to answer ‘no’ to these questions. But, I will illustrate further with a brief case example.

If you have the thought, “I am voting for a different candidate than my parents and I feel bad (ie., guilt, shame, anxiety) about it,” you may be adding additional value to this thought by implying this makes you a bad son or daughter. In this case, you can reframe the thought by acknowledging the facts: You are voting differently than your parents, but the meaning you are adding (I am a bad son or daughter), is a narrative you created. You could also think, “We may have different political views, but that doesn’t affect whether I am a good or bad child.” It’s okay to have different opinions; we are all imperfect people. Put differently, how we contemplate a given event is malleable and the importance we put on it can evolve.

Focus On What’s In Your Control

As emotions become heightened with November approaching, it’s important to remember what is in your control in this process. You may be hopeful for what one candidate represents and the change they may bring, or fearful of what may happen if the candidate you oppose is victorious. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with feeling passionate about the candidate or political party you are supporting. Nor is it wrong to feel concerned about what may happen if things don’t go your way. However, when you feel yourself becoming upset by forces you cannot control, it’s important to recognize if, what and how you have autonomy in the process. Continually telling yourself that things should be different creates demands on factors beyond your control. Who says they must be different? This is the way things are currently. You might prefer American politics to be different than it is, but there’s nothing saying it absolutely must. It’s simply your preference for these things.

Thinking about what’s actually in your control can be helpful here. While you may not be able to control who wins, you can take action on a smaller scale, including deciding to vote, volunteer or canvas, sharing your opinions with other people or through journaling, or donating to a party you support, among other actions to take.

Whether it’s talking to friends and family, joining a support group, or speaking with a licensed therapist, there are avenues to connect with others and share your thoughts and feelings instead of coping with distress alone. Developing a more flexible and less rigid perspective, as well as learning to tolerate discomfort here, can allow more space to focus on what we truly can do. I will elaborate more on tolerating discomfort in the following section.

Learn to Tolerate Discomfort

When we are worried about an upcoming event like the November election, it’s important to ask ourselves, can we really not stand the discomfort? Yes, you may feel uncomfortable thinking about how stressful it’ll be to watch news anchors report on a swing state’s electoral college votes or seeing states turn blue or red in real time on the reporter’s enormous touch screen. But is that discomfort truly intolerable? Yes. Though it may not be enjoyable. But is the discomfort so bad that you will fall through a trap door into another dimension? Will you burst into flames? Will you turn into an elephant? Hyperbole aside, to borrow age-old parlance from REBT theory, can you instead tell yourself, “I don’t like it, but I can stand it”? This can be a useful mantra to remember during these stressful periods.

Another useful way to conceptualize tolerating discomfort is to consider whether you are implicitly demanding that you need to be comfortable. When humans demand that they must be comfortable (a very common and understandable demand regardless of the stressor), they are bound to upset themselves when they inevitably face discomfort. Recognizing that this demand for comfort is irrational and that there is nothing saying you must be comfortable, is one step closer toward acceptance and developing the ability to handle uncomfortable situations.

Remember You Are Not Alone and Maintain Perspective

While feeling anxious about an election can be alienating, it’s critical to remember that many people feel anxious during periods of uncertainty like these. Though it’s important not to minimize the high stakes of the November election, it’s helpful to work toward reframing anxiety around what we think may happen, not simply the result itself. In other words, when using these tools, we are not arguing about the importance of the election, but rather challenging our thinking in advance of the event.

Takeaways

A significant reason elections stress many individuals is the uncertainty they create. We all enjoy the comfort of certainty, but it isn’t guaranteed in life. At the moment, we do not know who will be leading the United States for the next four years. Ultimately, you are not the only one who may feel anxious or unsure in advance of the result, and there are tools you can use.

Find a Therapist with Citron Hennessey Therapy

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, anger or depression in advance of the election this November, it helps to talk to someone. The therapists at Citron Hennessy have decades of experience assisting people to overcome feelings of uncertainty and other mental health challenges.

We can help you find a path to overcome these issues and learn how to combat feelings of anxiety, anger and depression. Call our team today at (917) 997-4849 to connect with the best therapists for anxiety and start laying a foundation for a stronger and healthier life.