7 Ways to Deal With Stress This Election Season

Updated: November 2022

Did you know that “election stress disorder” is a real thing? After all, elections are super important, highly anticipated events with long-lasting impacts -- so yeah, makes sense that folks are feeling stressed, anxious, or tense leading up to them.

If you’ve found yourself thrown off balance by the non-stop news articles and ever-present social media posts about the election, then it may be time to step back and try something different. Here are seven things you can do if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the upcoming election.

1) Make a clear plan to vote.

With all the hubbub happening around the election, sometimes it’s best to cut out the noise and focus on the ultimate goal: voting.Make your plan for votingas soon as possible so that you can alleviate some stress ahead of Election Day and feel confident and prepared to make your voice heard.

A voting plan may sound kind of intimidating, but really it boils down to how you’re casting your ballot and who you’re voting for.

2) Limit your news consumption.

Listen, being aware of what’s happening in the world (politically, socially, culturally, etc) is super important. What’s not so great is burdening yourself with every single new development that hits your inbox, crosses your timeline, or pops up in your notifications. You don’t have to be hyper-vigilant to be informed!

Set some boundaries for your news consumption. Try setting a dedicated amount of time to catch up on news (like 20 minutes in the morning) and keeping away from it for the rest of the day. Set an alarm if you have to! Go ahead and turn off those push notifications while you’re at it. Trust us, if something truly earth-shattering happens, someone will let you know.

3) Be mindful of your social media use.

Social media can be pretty great (see for example, this guy who enthusiastically guesses what color mixed paints will turn into). But just as often as you can find fun, inspiring, and uplifting content, you can also be met with a flood of bad-faith political arguments, misinformation, and just downright infuriating posts. It’s neither productive nor healthy to fall into an hour-long doom scroll or hate follow...so avoid it!

The mute and block functions on social media are your best friends -- feel free to use them liberally! Take a break from certain people or topics online that are detrimental to your mental health by muting and blocking accounts or keywords. Here’s how to do it on a few different platforms:

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Snapchat

(PS: This may seem obvious, but the easiest way to get some distance from social media is to just turn it off altogether. Delete your apps off your phone for a day or two and see how you feel after!)

4) Understand how to have productive conversations (and when to step away).

With Election Day so close, it can sometimes feel like everybody wants to talk about the election -- friends, family, neighbors, the random people in line with you at the grocery store, etc. To be clear, sometimes these conversations can actually be really productive (like when they convince someone that their vote matters and that they should show up to cast their ballot on Election Day). Other times...not so much.

Alleviate your fear of political conversations with our guide on navigating them with your family (it’s framed around the holidays but still applies year-round). Perhaps more importantly, know when it’s best for everyone involved to just disengage. For the most part, in-person conversations with people you know will be more fruitful than online conversations with strangers. And of course, if people aren’t entering these conversations with the intent to understand and listen, or if they don’t give you the respect you deserve, then there’s nothing stopping you from stepping away.

5) Take action in ways unrelated to the election.

Part of what can be so stressful about elections is that so much of it feels out of your control beyond your own ballot. The good news is that voting is just one tool in the wider world of collective action and civic engagement. There are tons more ways that you can take action and make a difference in addition to voting, and they can help you with feeling more agency over the world around you.

• Safely attend an in-person or online rally for a cause you care about.
• Donate to organizations doing crucial work on the ground.
• Volunteer locally to help your community. (Or even volunteer online!)
• Lend your voice via petitions and online movements.

6) Practice self-care.

Self-care can mean different things to different people, but really it’s just the actions you take to protect your mental, physical, and emotional health. Things like making your bed, eating a good meal, calling a friend, or watching your favorite episode of The Office can go a long way in improving your mood and wellbeing. For election-related stress it may be especially important to find a healthy outlet for any negative emotions that this season brings up -- like exercise or art or writing.

Whatever form it takes, we hope you continue to use your own methods of self-care leading up to the election and beyond. Here are some extra resources on supporting your peers on their mental health journey, self-care tips for students by students, and making a post-election self-care plan.

7) Find sources of inspiration and celebration.

We all know that past few years have been an absolute mess in a lot of ways, and it’s brought us plenty of sources of stress (the election being one of them for many folks). Yet through it all, we’ve still found a lot of victories and small triumphs to be proud of. For example, the US is currently on pace to have the highest voter turnout in over a century, and that’s amid a global pandemic.

The next time you’re feeling down about this wild election season, take a beat to reflect on the progress we’ve been making and the movements we’ve been building for years and years -- from racial justice to climate action. (Maybe also celebrate some plain old good vibes amid the chaos).

And just being real with you here: we recognize that it’s not always the time to “look at the glass half-full” or whatever. This isn’t about ignoring the bad in favor of the good, but rather finding meaning and motivation in the shades of gray.