Ep. 95 Election Stress & Anxiety: 3 Coping Skills to Stay Calm In A Divided Nation

Is the election what's scaring you the most during this Halloween Season? Are you feeling stressed about the election? Do you find yourself doomscrolling or anxiously discussing it with friends? If so, you're not alone—73% of Americans feel anxious about elections.
In this episode, you'll discover:

1. What election anxiety is and why it affects so many of us.

2. How to understand and counter the effects of algorithms on your election anxiety.

3. Three simple, actionable strategies to reduce your stress and feel calmer right away.

 Don't let election anxiety take over your life—go to the polls and vote for your candidate and press play to caste a vote for your mental health and start creating your calm today!

 Check out Ep.85  5 Easy & Effective Steps to Stop Overthinking, Now!

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About the Host: 

MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, is a seasoned clinician, educator, and host of the podcast Creating Midlife Calm, recognized by Maria Shriver as a “Listen of the Week.” Over the past 40 years, MJ has led more than 50,000 therapy sessions and developed the Inner Challenge mental wellness program and the Inner Challenge Master Class, practical tools for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and resilience taught for more than 30 years in junior high schools and at the University of Notre Dame for freshman football players. Through her podcast, teaching, and coaching, MJ helps people build calmer lives, stronger relationships, and healthier communities.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support. 

Transcript

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M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW 0:00

In this season of Ghosts and Goblins, is it the election that's scaring you the most? Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, a podcast dedicated to empowering midlife minds to overcome anxiety, stop feeling like crap and become more present with your family, all while achieving greater success at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensed clinical social worker with over 48, 000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching mental wellness. Welcome to the podcast. Are you feeling stressed about the election? Do you find yourself doom scrolling or talking with friends about how anxious the election is making you? Do you check the polls every few days? If so, you are not alone. Data from the American Psychiatric Association reports that 73 percent of Americans feel anxious about the election. That means that three out of four of us experience heightened stress during this season that used to scare us because of ghosts and goblins, but now we're scared because of voting. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer a haunted house any day. By the end of this episode, you'll understand what election anxiety is, how understanding one underlying cause can help you feel calmer, and three simple but effective coping strategies to use today and throughout this next month. As always, I'll end with an Inner Challenge, something you can start today to help ease your election anxiety. It's worth noting both Republicans and Democrats, and Independents, experience similar mental health effects during elections, demonstrating that election anxiety crosses party lines. You may not agree with your neighbor, coworker, or family member, but your bodies are reacting in similar ways. Doing a few simple things to reduce your anxiety during this next month will not only benefit you, but also those around you. What is election anxiety? Election anxiety is when your worry about the election affects your overall mood. You might feel more irritable, fearful, hopeless, powerless, or restless. You may also experience physical symptoms like trouble sleeping, going back to sleep, headaches, or stomach problems. Or you might find it difficult to concentrate because your mind keeps drifting back to thoughts about the election, making you check your phone or cable news, instead of relaxing, going for a walk, or being present at work or home. Perhaps, you think, I just want this to be over. Well, the good news is, it will be. And I'm here to share some helpful information so you can create a bit of calm for yourself and your loved ones over the next few weeks. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you what causes election anxiety. You're probably well aware of the 24 hour news cycle which raises the stakes and intensifies your feelings. Often, the news speaks in extremes, causing catastrophic thinking, which increases anxiety and depression. All elections are important, but being bombarded by constant, often mean spirited information can feel overwhelming. Take one of my friends, for example. She made her first political contribution of $25 to a local candidate, only to be bombarded with texts and emails day in and day out to give more money. She works an hourly job and had no more money to give, yet felt hounded by the political machine. You might also experience election anxiety if you have friends or family whose political views differ from yours. Many clients have shared how political disagreements have created tension within their families, workplaces, and even churches and synagogues. Polarization worsens during election seasons, and social media amplifies this, leading to heated discussions that would likely never happen face to face. A few weeks ago, a client of mine shared that she reached out to her siblings to see if she needed to buy a plane ticket for their annual Thanksgiving celebration, and one of her siblings texted, Let's not make plans until after the election. This was devastating to her, but as she talked about it, she shared that she never really feels calm and at peace with her family anymore, because they have many different political views. She told me that when her family gets together, she's on high alert, say something that will trigger an argument. Here's something to think about. Is this really who we are as Americans? I think not. A lot of election anxiety and division is fueled by algorithms. Let me explain how algorithms work because understanding this can help decrease your election anxiety and give you more patience for those with opposing views. Algorithms on social media platforms and news websites are designed to keep you engaged by showing you content that you're more likely to interact with based on your past behavior. Imagine the algorithm as a chef curating a menu based on what you've previously ordered. Now, picture yourself as the customer in this kitchen. Every time you walk in, the chef takes note of what you've ordered in the past. Perhaps you've developed a taste for articles about economic policy or social issues. Based on your previous preferences, The chef starts curating a custom menu, selecting ingredients that match your past orders. It serves you news stories that align with what you've clicked on or shared before, seasoning them with headlines that it predicts will catch your attention. But here's the catch. The more you consume the same type of dish, the more the chef refines and narrows the options it presents. The chef begins repeating similar dishes over and over again, thinking that's all you want, until eventually you're served only one flavor of news, the same style, the same topics, the same viewpoints. This can make it feel like you're always getting the same dish, overseasoned with your own preferences. In the context of election news, this means you might find yourself repeatedly fed content that aligns with your established beliefs, reinforcing your perspective, and filtering out other views. Just like a chef in the kitchen, the algorithm is shaping your news consumption by constantly tweaking and tailoring your meal based on what it predicts you want to consume, often without you even noticing. The algorithm is shaping your family, friends, co workers, and fellow citizens in the same way Unless you've learned to not be led by them by consistently seeking out diverse new sources and liking those sources. So, what can you do about it? Here are three simple coping strategies for reducing election anxiety. Coping strategy number one. Understand the role of algorithms and do something about it. Recognizing how algorithms lead to confirmation bias can help you step back from the political divide and realize that many of us are being led by these invisible forces. Learning about algorithms can initially make you feel overwhelmed and a bit duped, but if you sit with it for a while it can actually help you feel more hopeful. I think of it like cigarettes in the 1950s where everyone smoked the risks were being hidden from the public eventually people were informed of the danger of smoking and people made better and more informed choices. Learning to understand and hack your algorithms can actually decrease your anxiety Because the information you receive will not be so limited and narrow. It will help you move from a false stance of certainty to a more open minded realization that most issues in our modern world are complex we need to have a deeper and fuller understanding of them to find better solutions. It is truly amazing what humans are capable of when we look to solve issues using many perspectives and abilities. Yep, we end up on the moon or finding a way to transplant a heart. So, try to diversify your news sources. Watch different networks. Example, Network News One Night, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News to Next, PBS to Next, or CNN to get a range of perspectives. For many people at first, this is difficult, but that is the point. You don't need to agree with every point made, but look for what you do have in common and what points differ from the news that you typically watch. If you get your news on the computer, you can use Google News Full Coverage feature. Full coverage links articles from multiple news outlets to help you find a variety of perspectives on one story. It also provides fact checks and provides explainers. You can also hack the algorithm on your phone or computer by using incognito mode, limiting personalization, and curating your news feed manually, so you can reduce the algorithm's hold on your political perspective. If you've not heard of any of these hacks, such as incognito mode, curating your newsfeed manually, or limiting personalization, then you can be assured that your algorithm is leading you instead of you leading it. Coping Strategy number two. Try for the next month to go retro. In the 1980s, people got their news once, maybe twice a day. They read a newspaper, they watched the evening news. People probably spent 30 to 60 minutes a day catching up on what was going on in the country and the world. For the next month, I recommend that we all do the same. Stop doomscrolling.. It won't change the election outcome, but it will decrease your anxiety. Watch or read the news once or twice a day for no more than an hour.

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Coping strategy number three, do a daily boost. With all that time you've gained from limiting your news, you can now do my favorite coping skill, a daily boost. Just choose something that's very doable that will give you a sense of accomplishment regardless of the election outcome. Whether it's walking 30 minutes a day, or signing up for a weekly painting class, give yourself a productive, life giving challenge. This will give you small doses of dopamine, which can boost your mood and ease anxiety. Anxiety tends to retreat when we get productive in the present instead of worrying about the future or the past. Check out episode 82, where Julie Hamilton, a licensed nutritionist takes a really practical approach about better eating habits. In this episode, I've discussed election anxiety, its causes, and the role algorithms play in intensifying political division. I've also shared three coping strategies, understanding and hacking your algorithms, limiting your news intake, and committing to a a daily boost. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Thursday in a new role as your campaign manager for the next 30 days, offering some ideas and insights on how to create a daily boost. That will decrease your election anxiety and increase your calm. This is your Inner Challenge.