21 Dec, 2024
4 mins read

Calming Election Anxiety: How to Stay Informed Without Losing Your Peace of Mind

Election season can be a time of heightened anxiety and uncertainty. With continuous news cycles and passionate conversations, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or powerless. Many people find themselves swinging between compulsively checking the news for updates and completely avoiding it to prevent getting triggered. Neither extreme is helpful, and both approaches can increase feelings […]

4 mins read

Riding the ‘Pollercoaster’ in an Election Year

I’ve noticed something about myself this election season.  My mood seems to change depending on the latest poll, the latest candidate sound bite, and the latest commentary from a political analyst I trust. If the news is good, I relax a little. If it’s not, I tighten up. It’s the ‘pollercoaster’, as one podcast calls […]

9 mins read

Ask Yourself These 3 Questions to Manage the Roller Coaster of Election Anxiety

When my now-teenage children were in elementary school, we would ask them 3 questions at dinner: 1) What was the best part of your day?, 2) What was your biggest challenge?, and 3) What did you contribute?   My children sometimes groaned, but the questions provided an entry for them to find language for both […]

5 mins read

Managing Mental Health and Relationships in an Election Year

As therapists, we often find ourselves guiding our patients through a whirlpool of uncertainty about their fears. We ask them to sit with the possibility that their worst fears could come true. We do this with the hope that by facing their fears, we can help them to become more comfortable with uncertainty, manage their […]

6 mins read

Dealing with Election Anxiety? A Psychiatrist Explains how to Channel your Fears and Break out of Tribal Thinking

Instead of excitement about the upcoming election, many of my patients and friends – regardless of political affiliation – report they’re terrified at the thought of the “other side” winning. Democrats tell me they fear Donald Trump will end our democracy; Republicans are afraid Kamala Harris will turn the United States into a socialist society […]