Election season is underway, and the divisive nature of 2024 is leading to countless Americans feeling heightened anxiety and stress levels. No matter which side of the political aisle you lean toward, this election stress can have a devastating effect on your physical and mental health.
Left unchecked, election stress or election anxiety can quickly develop into a full-blown mental health condition, physical illness, or any number of daily challenges. If you’re starting to feel the pangs of election year mental health setbacks, taking a few simple actions can help restore your sense of well-being and escape the divisive nature of the 2024 election cycle.
Need extra support? Find an Elite DNA location near you and get in touch with our team of mental health experts.
The Impact of Election Stress
In 2024, the political climate has caused Americans to experience undue stress and anxiety related to the upcoming election. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center investigating mental health during elections asked 8,480 participants how they feel when thinking about politics, and it found that:
- 65% report always or often feeling exhausted
- 25% report sometimes feeling exhausted
- 55% report always or often feeling angry
- 34% report sometimes feeling angry
Popular media has sometimes labeled this election-related stress as “election stress disorder”, though a more accurate description might be chronic stress. While stress is a normal part of life, developing chronic stress can lead to a host of negative physical and mental health symptoms, and it may even lead to the development of a mental health disorder if left unaddressed.
Chronic Stress
Chronic stress is when your mind and body are overwhelmed by the anxiety, worry, and stress from the challenges you face in daily life. It can lead to several uncomfortable symptoms, including:
- Anger and irritability
- Chronic fatigue
- Aches and pains
- Sleep difficulties
- Social and emotional withdrawal
- Difficulty focusing or concentrating
If you don’t learn the essentials of election stress management, your risk for medical and mental health conditions increase dramatically. According to Yale Medicine, chronic stress is associated with the development of conditions such as:
- Mood or anxiety disorders
- Hypertension
- Heart disease
- Type II diabetes
- Metabolic syndrome
The severity of stress’ impact cannot be understated. In a meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Cardiology, chronic stress was found to increase the risk of coronary heart disease by 27%, a figure that has often been equated with the risk of smoking five cigarettes a day.
The good news is that there are several actionable tools for coping with election anxiety that can get you back to feeling your best. Managing election anxiety can help you keep your stress levels under control, help you go about your daily life without interruption, and prevent you from feeling election despair.
Learning to Manage Election Anxiety and Reducing Election Stress
Managing stress and anxiety has been studied for decades by psychologists and public health professionals. But learning to incorporate these election stress tips into your life takes time, a commitment to change, and diligent effort. Some of the best things you can start doing today to reduce political climate stress include:
Limit Your News Consumption
The 24-hour news cycle can quickly overwhelm you with constant pressure to stay up to date about the upcoming election. This perpetual cycle of consuming political news can often drive your stress and anxiety even higher, leading to overwhelming feelings of despair or anger.
If you find yourself in a cycle of frequent news consumption, consider limiting the time you spend watching political news. This could be cutting down to an hour a day, 30 minutes at night, or even taking a break from political news altogether.
Take a Social Media Break
Similarly, social media can rapidly lead to excessive engagement with political issues that only make you feel more stressed out. Countless studies have demonstrated the negative impact of social media on mental and emotional health and have shown clear stress reductions when people take a social media break.
If you’ve found that Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok are a significant source of your anxious feelings, try logging out of your accounts for a week and see if you experience political stress relief.
Limit Your Political Discussions
A healthy dialogue with your friends, family members, colleagues, and neighbors is an important part of the political process. But when you feel like you just can’t find common ground, and that your political conversations frequently take a turn for the worse, it might be time to set boundaries around discussing politics with others.
Setting boundaries like this doesn’t always come easy. If somebody approaches you and wants to discuss politics, simply tell them that you’d rather talk about something else. Politics can be divisive, and communicating to your friends and loved ones that you aren’t interested in a political discussion can do wonders for your mental health.
Practice Mindfulness Techniques
Mindfulness is a practice that helps people connect to the present moment, manage their emotions, and find stress relief. If the presidential election season has you feeling stressed, try one of the following mindfulness techniques to get you back to thinking about the present:
- Box breathing: Take a breath in through your nose for four seconds. Hold the inhale for four seconds. Exhale through your mouth for four seconds. Hold the exhale for four seconds. Repeat this practice as necessary until your stress begins to subside.
- Body scan: Slowly bring your attention across each part of your body. Start from your toes working upward, consciously relaxing each muscle and joint as you move upward.
- 5-4-3-2-1 technique: Notice five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. This grounding technique helps you connect to your physical senses and can stop an anxious mind from spinning out of control.
Mindfulness strategies are excellent ways of dealing with stress in the moment when prevention techniques haven’t been able to help you avoid election stress already.
Take Time for Self-Care
Self-care practices are anything you can incorporate into your life to support your physical, mental, and emotional health. Making time for self-care is putting yourself first, recognizing that you need time to unwind from the stresses and challenges of the day, and focusing on your needs rather than the needs of others.
Some common examples of self-care activities include:
- An exercise routine
- Journaling
- Creative expression
- Rest and relaxation
- Prioritizing your sleep
- Maintaining important relationships
- Prayer or meditation
- Pursuing your hobbies and interests
When you’re experiencing election stress, it can be difficult to feel like there’s enough time in the day to focus on yourself. But by making the time for self-care, you can unburden yourself from the stress and anxiety that the election cycle brings.
Treat Others How You’d Like to Be Treated
In 2024, politics seems like it has become more divisive than ever. People are encouraged to view those with opposing political views as enemies, rather than as people, friends, neighbors, or members of your community. This can often lead to heated arguments, resentment, or outright hostility if left unchecked.
The simplest solution to this animosity is to follow the Golden Rule and treat others as you’d like to be treated. No matter what happens in the election cycle, having positive friendships, healthy relationships, and connections with the people you care about most is the best antidote to feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
If Election-Related Anxiety is Too Much, Consider Professional Help
If the stress of the election year has simply become too much to handle on your own, consider reaching out to the team of mental health professionals at Elite DNA to get evidence-based support for overcoming your mental health symptoms. Our team has several options to help support you on your path to well-being, from in-person and virtual therapy to medication management with a trained psychiatrist, to couples options to help you reconnect with the people that matter the most.
Coping with political anxiety isn’t always easy. But with the help of the multidisciplinary mental health team at Elite DNA, you can find the resources you need to make a lasting recovery.
Need help getting through election stress? Find an Elite DNA location near you and talk with an expert today.
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