Presidential Election Anxiety: 5 Management Strategies
In anticipation of another big and very important election, the world is experiencing an increase in anxiety. This increase of anxiety around a presidential election may be influenced by a few factors:
All the uncertainty related to the election (Mukhopadhyay, 2022)
An adverse outcome (Mukhopadhyay, 2022)
Anticipation of the outcome
When going through an event that impacts individuals worldwide, it’s important to create and provide space to not only understand why you’re experiencing what you are but also how it’s impacting you and what you can do to reduce or manage the impact. Before gaining skills needed to help manage, it’s important to understand how the anxiety is showing up for you and influencing your functioning.
Presidential Election Anxiety: Manifestations
As explored in previous blogs, anxiety and other mental health battles (such as depression) manifests differently for each person. Differences in manifestation can be influenced by what’s triggering the anxiety, such as a presidential election. So let’s look at ways anxiety might be manifesting in anticipation of election results:
Rumination: a common trait of anxiety is replaying certain thoughts or worries on repeat; this is particularly true in situations with numerous unknown factors. Rumination might look like replaying conversations with others around the election or consistently thinking about “what if” questions in regards to the outcome of the election.
Catastrophizing: or in other words creating worst case scenarios in your head. This might look like thinking about the worst case scenario about what it means for yours, your family’s, and the country’s future if your preferred presidential candidate doesn’t win.
Irritability: you may find your temperament changes a bit when anxious; in particular, you may be less tolerant and quicker to anger. Or you may find you have an overall lingering sense of irritability; spreading into all areas of your life.
Sense of helplessness: all the above factors can leave you feeling helpless and as if nothing is within your control.
In attempts to help you reduce a sense of helplessness and increase confidence in your ability to regain control, I’ve provided you with the top 5 strategies to assist with challenging and reducing anxiety.
Presidential Election Anxiety: Coping Strategies
There are many different ways to help find peace in a time that feels escalated and heated however, the 5 below are ones that have been most beneficial to clients I’ve worked with in similar situations:
Validate your experience and emotions: regardless of what you’re going through, it’s so important you allow space to validate your own experiences and emotions. It can be easy to quickly to dismiss how you’re being impacted by something which in turn only increases the intensity of the emotion(s). Validating your experience or emotions might sound like “Of course, I’m feeling anxious. This is a pivotal time for our country and it carries a lot of importance. It is okay to have strong feelings about the outcome.”
Monitor social media use and results coverage: frequently checking in on election results stats or watching live election updates can be a way people attempt to regain control of a situation that feels 100% out of our control. And for some, it is helpful. For others, frequently monitoring what’s happening (whether its via social media or live coverage) can actually increase anxiety and sense of helplessness. If you find anxiety increases for you in this instance, I encourage you to monitor and possibly reduce the frequency in which you are seeking out information on the election. ***Disclaimer!!! By no means am I encouraging you to be disconnected rather I am encouraging you to stay connected enough to be informed but not too much so that it causes high anxiety and no longer serves you.
Set boundaries: a way to regain a sense of control is through setting boundaries. This can be particularly helpful with the point we just covered; social media usage. A way to reduce the frequency is through setting short term boundaries around your usage. You may also choose (and need to) set boundaries around individuals you are unable to engage in effective conversation with; in general but specifically around the election. This may help with reducing any irritability you may be experiencing.
Community outreach: this is going to be a HUGE strategy for helping with reducing that sense of helplessness. More often than not, helplessness stems from feeling as though nothing is within our control. And with an election, the pieces within our control feel even slimmer. Engaging in healthy and effective community outreach can encourage regaining a sense of control and possibly increasing a sense of hopefulness.
Shift focus: once you’ve tried all the above strategies, it is okay to shift your focus to something else; something that brings you comfort, peace, and joy. Often times people worry that is a form of avoidance (in some cases, sure, distraction(s) can transform into avoidance) however, when you’ve already engaged in various coping strategies, sometimes you just need to focus on something else for a little while. This strategy can also help with interrupting anxiety manifestations of rumination and catastrophizing.
As you go throughout the rest of your day and the next few days as our country waits for election results, I hope you are able to find some or all of the above strategies useful. Be patient with yourself and others as we are all trying to do our best in getting through this stressful and important time. If you’d like assistance in managing anxiety, I encourage you to click below to schedule your FREE 15 minute phone consultation.
Here’s to living a better life as your best self.
Brittany Squillace, MA, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
Grief Counselor
