More than 60 percent of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats report being stressed about the current political climate in the United States, according to the Stress in America 2020 report from the American Psychological Association (APA). And that’s not all, a Gartner study published in February 2020 found that nearly half of Americans reported being sidetracked at work by the upcoming U.S. presidential election. It’s a trend that appears to be growing. In 2019, according to that year’s APA report, 56 percent of American adults were stressed over the upcoming presidential election, a 4 percent jump since 2016, when the APA first added political questions to its annual stress assessment. At that time, just over 50 percent of Americans reported being stressed about the upcoming 2016 presidential election. “It’s a surprisingly high stressor,” says Vaile Wright, PhD, senior director of healthcare innovation in the practice directorate at the APA. “Typically, the biggest stressors have been work, money, family, or the economy. When we started asking about political stress, it kind of blew those out of the water.” RELATED: 7 Supplements That May Help Reduce Stress Compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, mass shootings, reports of police violence, and healthcare worries, the current political climate and upcoming election fuel this collective national stress. It’s human nature, says Tracy Foose, MD, an anxiety specialist in Marin County, California, and associate professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. “With elections, like so many other external factors that cause people to experience anxiety, it’s about the absence of control, predictability, and certainty, and it’s something that is important to people,” says Dr. Foose. “It introduces this limbo state where people feel they have to sit and wait for the outcome, feeling like they have very little control over what happens.” Foose likens this period to waiting for the results of a medical test, in which there is a specific outcome that you are hoping for and the results will greatly impact your life. To start coping with heightened stress associated with the upcoming election, and everything that goes with it, the first step is to acknowledge that it’s normal to feel stress, says Foose. “There is so much uncertainty right now and so much real threat. Usually acute stressors happen, but not all at once and not to everyone at the same time. It’s healthy to observe and accept that there really are actually threatening things that are beyond any of our control right now, and this is a pretty unprecedented time,” says Foose. “We are going to feel scared, because that’s what we’re supposed to do as animals.” RELATED: Boxed In Episode 5: ‘Why Pandemics Make Us So Anxious’
How to Cope With Stress Caused by the Election
Simply put: “This is really happening, and it is really hard,” says Foose, who says that emotional acceptance is the foundation that new habits can be built upon. “Acknowledge that, ‘I feel mad, sad, and scared.’ People tend to invalidate those feelings and say, ‘If I was strong and brave, I wouldn’t feel sad or mad or scared so I should be ashamed.’ Stop trying to stop feeling bad things. Accept negative emotions about scary, upsetting things, and then choose actions that do make us feel like we can solve a problem.” Once you’ve given yourself permission to acknowledge that your feelings are normal, try implementing coping strategies and de-stressing habits into your everyday life. RELATED: The News Dilemma: How to Avoid TMI During a Global Pandemic
