What to Do with Yourself and Your Anxiety On Election Day

WHAT’S YOUR ELECTION day plan? Vote, if you haven’t already and then…stress all night as you channel surf various stations, hoping for something hopeful? Probably not your best strategy.

It’s going to be a long day, and if you have the day off work, you’re not going to be in your usual routine. “Put some tools in the toolbox before the day happens, says Chris Mosunic, PhD, RD, chief clinical officer at Calm. “It’s never gong to surprise you to hear from a psychologist to be proactive around your plan for the day. But because the sense of urgency is going to be palpable, that’s going to make us short-term creatures. So if you don’t have a plan, you’re planning to fail.”

Tools are essential, “because when we get stressed, our IQ drops—and IQ is our ability to think long term in the here and now,” he adds. Stress ends up forcing you into less healthy long-term decisions, like what you should eat or do—or even say on social media. “We don’t have access to the parts of our brains that allow us to think the best way we could,” he says.

So to manage some of that stress, start by thinking of the day in three parts, he says, and plan for each.

First Thing: Figure out where you’re going to get your news.

“Instead of waking up and putting on the news and having the fire hose come at you, think about where you’re going to get it,” says Mosunic, better known as Dr. Chris.

Then, give yourself a time limit. Staying informed feels like the right thing to do. But keep in mind he says, “that the news folks will be there all day, and their job is to keep your attention.” Aim to be as intentional about limiting your exposure to the news as you are about where you’re going to get it.

Mid-Day: Have some tools to keep scrolling from taking over.

In the middle of the day, it’s going to be tempting to sit there and keep scrolling to find out what’s happening and who’s saying what about it. As you well know, scrolling makes you feel worse (what you read) and better (dopamine hits) at the same time, so it’s hard to shut off. Don’t just aim to move away from the news, move toward something else.

“Allow yourself to do something other than sitting there and stewing,” he says. Ideally, do something that helps you have a sense of agency, ownership and completion. Make lunch with someone. Walk together on a break. Bonus: “Connecting with others allows us to get out of our own head,” he says, and away from some of the fear and anxiety that might be in there. (If you’re struggling with feelings including helplessness and overwhelm, Calm has some election season survival tools for that here.)

Evening: Figure out your exit strategy.

At some point, you’re probably going to need to “get out of the land of diminishing returns,” Dr. Chris says. When all the news is about how there’s no answer yet and there’s only pundits speculating on the implications of that and who thinks what’s going to happen, but no real news…you’re not getting more informed. You’re just getting more exhausted. Slow drips of information from media sources designed to keep you engaged just keeps you on what he calls the anxiety train. And of course it’s not energizing. “If you’re just hanging on with very low energy or no energy, it’s time to pull the plug,” he says.

Not convinced it’s time? Check your physiology. “It starts giving you telltale signs that you’re stressed before your thoughts do,” Dr. Chris says. “Check in with your body and see where you’re holding tension.” Or go high-tech: If your watch gives you an HRV reading, see if more news is driving it down and a break helps it go up. “Anxiety is designed to make you myopic,” he says. You might not know you’re experiencing it, but someone else can see it in you (especially if you snap at them; a key sign of Election Stress Disorder.)

Double down on your sleep prep and do everything you know how to get yourself to a place where you can drift off. You know the drill: Put your phone in another room. Turn off the TV. Close the curtains. Read something that’s not riveting. Listen to a bedtime story (Matthew McConaughey’s reading of Wonder on the Calm app is the most popular sleep story of all time there) or dream up your own.

“We’re in an overstimulated society to begin with, and there’s going to be an extra dose of stimulation on election night,” Dr. Chris says. Prepare accordingly (and limit caffeine early; not only will it help you sleep better, he says, but it will keep you from getting less riled up by the news you do see).

Uncertainty will only ratchet up anxiety that keeps you from sleeping. To make peace with the uncertainty monster, it might help to think back to your Covid playbook. What was it then that allowed you to rest when you didn’t know what was happening and didn’t know what was going to happen next? “It goes back to the age-old psychology tool that everyone has heard so many times it sounds trite: Reminding yourself that you have no control over the situation,’” Dr. Chris says. But you do have control over moving your own well-being ahead.

Check out more of Dr. Chris’ strategies for managing election stress in a panel discussion he did with Men’s Health.