Embracing the Emotional Weight of Election Season

With less than a week before Election Day in the United States, the emotional rollercoaster of today’s political climate seems to be reaching a fever pitch.

Spaces devoid of election updates, polling results, or conversation about the outcome seem to be few and far between. Additional writing on how to best navigate this election season risks feeling redundant and superfluous: a quick internet search yields near-identical posts that have proliferated in the past few weeks.

Time Magazine asks, “Stressed About the Election?” and offers tips on using crisis services. CNN wonders “if you’re biting your nails over the election” and cites neuroscientists’ advice in reducing stress. NPR highlights the irony of the country’s agreement that “the election is stressing everyone out.”

One solution? “Putting down our phones and talking to each other”. The Washington Post’s opinion article finds an author “drenched in anxiety and layered with dread” alleviated only slightly by simply stopping reading and logging off. There are many, many more.

In broad strokes, the practical advice contains several of the following strategies: use mindfulness or grounding techniques to calm your nervous system; disconnect from “doom-scrolling” or the internet; take mental breaks away from the news; go for walks or be in nature; and locate your locus of control so you can engage in voting, volunteering, or activism.

These are all useful, evidence-based strategies. Finding ways to calm your nervous system, disconnect from the internet, and find agency in overwhelming situations are all strategies that, under normal circumstances, are practical and effective.

Tolerating the uncertainty of election results can be challenging in the best of circumstances. Given that 72% of respondents to the APA’s 2024 iteration of the “Stress in America” poll expressed worry that this election could lead to violence and 56% believed it could be the end of democracy in the U.S., it is clear that we are not navigating ideal or even normal circumstances.

In addition to feeling uncertain about the outcome of the election, many people are experiencing relational distress and family conflict, a fear of threats to their safety and wellbeing (or that of friends or family).

So, how do we maintain a sense of stability when the high level of uncertainty makes it feel particularly out of reach?

Maybe, instead of doing so much, we can be with more. We can sit with the magnitude of this moment and not move away from the large emotional experience it is eliciting for so many.

The feelings, both in their ubiquity and their depth, are communicating something to us. When we employ strategies to get rid of or avoid them, what gets lost?

Siegel suggests that, through self-regulation, humans have strategies for staying within a window of optimal arousal but can be tipped into states of hyper-arousal (fearful, flooded) or hypo-arousal (depressed, dissociated, numbed out).

Either state creates great difficulties in living. Because of the magnitude and consequences of this moment, people can easily become activated beyond what is optimal — so relying on strategies to support our capacity for self-regulation is important.

The depth of your anxiety might call for something different than strategies you’ve relied upon before. What would it mean to experience some of the fear, grief, anger, confusion, and disillusionment with presence and care? What gets lost when you focus on navigating, managing, overcoming, or distracting?