How to Deal With Election Anxiety

In “Suffering from Election Anxiety?” I explored the stress many experience leading up to an event like the 2020 elections—living with constant anxiety about an uncertain event, helpless to hasten it, and unable to control the outcome. Situations like these are tremendous stressors that eat away at our psychological resources over time, affecting many people, and especially those suffering from an anxiety disorder like OCD. In living with anxious anticipation, more often than not there aren’t many practical, implementable ways to address the source of the anxiety—and the strategies that seem logical may prove to be counterproductive.

One behavior frequently associated with long-term anxiety is “reassurance seeking.” When we’re anxious about something, it’s natural to look for answers—ideally, searching for conclusive evidence that the situation is under control, and that we don’t need to worry. Unfortunately, the information obtained through reassurance-seeking is rarely satisfying in the long run, and looking for more data only feeds into the cycle of anxiety. For OCD suffers, reassurance-seeking easily becomes a compulsive ritual behavior. In Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Jonathan Grayson categorizes such symptoms as a form of checking: “rituals that are direct attempts to affect the environment or to perceive the environment correctly.” For example, if you’re obsessed with the possibility that a distant family member is in danger, you might start calling them a few times a week, then once a day, and then every few hours.

In addition, excessive worry is an instinctive response to danger, especially when threats are distant or abstract. “Both worry and rumination are associated with concerns about control and uncertainty (Freeston et al., 1994; Ward et al., 2003). We suggest that when people are worrying, they are uncertain about their ability to control important outcomes, but they have some belief that they could control those outcomes if they just try (or worry) hard enough (Alloy et al., 1990; Barlow, 1988)” (Nolen-Hoeksema et al, Rethinking Rumination).

It’s easy to see how a high-stakes event like the upcoming election encourages both worry and pathological reassurance-seeking. With an internet connection (and fewer outside distractions, due to the pandemic), it has never been easier to get sucked into a 24-7 news cycle. There’s nothing to stop you from browsing a polling website for hours, hitting refresh repeatedly to see the latest numbers. If you desperately need someone to reassure you that the forecast is favorable, you have instant access to your favored news outlet, to partisan commentators, and to the social media echo chamber. Of course, while looking for this kind of reassurance, you’re never more than a click away from negative or pessimistic information, or even a heated argument with someone on the other side.

Ordinarily, the go-to treatment for OCD is Exposure-Response Prevention therapy (ERP). With ERP, the OCD sufferer directly confronts the cause of their symptoms without falling back on pathological rituals—such as reassurance-seeking—to gradually reduce their anxiety and escape the obsessive cycle. To return to the previous example, if you’re obsessed with a threat to your family, your ERP might require you to go longer and longer periods without contacting them, or even to actively imagine them being hurt or killed.

But once again, our attempts to control anxiety related to a high-stakes event is complicated by mass media. If the core of your anxiety is that “I’m worried the election will play out unfavorably,” the obvious ERP treatment should be to confront your worst-case scenario directly, looking for scary or depressing news without seeking positive evidence to reassure yourself. But the internet makes the kind of cautious, deliberate information-exposure necessary for ERP much trickier. In 10 minutes online, you’ll encounter countless sources of both positive and negative information—and sorting these out for an ERP exercise can spiral out of control back into that same type of obsessive, anxiety-driven information-seeking. “One of the reasons for this is that you feel as though your feared consequence has come to pass; that is, you fear the thoughts will never leave and as a result your life will be ruined, and, indeed, your life is misery whenever the thoughts are present” (Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder).

The matter is further complicated by issues of civic responsibility and involvement. For many, it’s natural to care about politics, and shutting off the news may feel like abdicating your responsibility to remain an informed citizen. This is an admirable goal, but it determines some scrutiny: who actually benefits if you stay up into two in the morning watching cable news? How does this benefit your candidate, or improve the health of our democracy? That goes double for the hours spent conversing on social media, whether arguing against the opposition or patting yourself and like-minded friends on the back.

Ways to Deal With Election Anxiety

If you’re undergoing treatment for anxiety or OCD, the first step should be to discuss these anxieties with your therapist. But if you’re looking for some guidance, or are just wrestling with general election anxiety and news addiction, there are a few actions to consider:

One most obvious strategy is to change or reduce your media consumption. These days, a total media blackout isn’t really possible, but if you think carefully you can probably identify a few specific websites, TV shows or channels, or social media platforms that you check compulsively while looking for positive news. Identifying these places, and limiting your access, is probably a good place to start.

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In these complicated times, I think it’s helpful to examine any potential political activity along two axes. Before you turn on the TV or submit that comment on Facebook, there are two questions to ask. Politically, am I actually accomplishing something meaningful that will promote my cause—are my actions productive or unproductive? And what is the personal cost of this activity? Is it healthy or stressful?

Viewed through this lens, I suspect much of our political engagement in the coming months may be revealed as both stressful and unproductive—arguing in person or with strangers online, or fixating on the news for hours when nothing of consequence has happened. If you can identify and reduce these stressful, unproductive activities, you’ll have more time and energy for genuinely productive activities: donating to a cause, making phone calls for a campaign, or contacting friends and loved ones with support and encouragement. Even Unproductive activities are still preferable as long they’re healthy; since it won’t change the outcome of the election either way, getting a good night’s sleep is obviously a better choice than staying up late with eyes glued to the television.

2020 is proving to be uniquely, unprecedentedly stressful; we simply cannot afford to waste our precious mental resources on activities that make us miserable without generating any personal or common good. Stay informed, but not obsessively vigilant; engage with causes you care about and people you love, but avoid pointless arguments with anonymous strangers. Emotional investment in current events ultimately comes from concern for the welfare of yourself and others, and this is admirable; but please, remain mindful of your own health as well.

For more on ERP, see Full Disclosure: The Sickening Treatment for OCD.

Copyright, Fletcher Wortmann, 2020.