How to Stay Emotionally Regulated as We Approach Election Day
Over the next few weeks, try these tips to stay sane
Election Day is around the corner, and if you are politically engaged, the chance that you will become emotionally unhinged during this period is very high.
As the clock ticks down toward November 5, everyone needs to take extra care of themselves and remain aware they (we) may be in a more reactive state than is typical for us.
There is a lot on the line, so we need to take steps to tamp down our anxiety levels.
There are two key ways to do this:
Minimize the amount of news you consume during this period, and
Use that extra time to do something productive that might actually affect the outcome of the election.
First, let’s talk about your news intake.
I know, I know.
You think you are being informed by mainlining the news, but in reality, you are just dysregulating your nervous system for an extra tidbit of information that doesn’t materially change your understanding of the world. Consuming news through social media makes it even more toxic because it’s even more carefully designed to trigger your outrage and fear.
Humans were not designed to be bombarded with negative and often terrifying information nonstop. Our nervous systems simply can’t metabolize so much activating information in such a short time period. The natural response when your nervous system is overwhelmed is that you become reactive, anxious, and/or scared. This can make life very hard and also cause us to behave in ways that we may come to regret.
We need to stop thinking it’s a moral imperative to consume so much information, because it simply is not.
You don’t need to follow the news minute by minute to be informed. In October, I spent a month in Italy completely disconnected from US news, and I still know that Donald Trump should not be president and that JD Vance is a deeply disturbed person with very frightening ideas about women.