7 Secrets To Calm 2024 Election Jitters

In August of this year I wrote a piece for Forbes.com that half of employees dread coming into the office amid the contentious 2024 political environment. As election day looms, a Kickresume survey reports that office political discussions are heating up, and nearly 50% of workers say they notice an increase in politics-based conversations. Plus, a national study by AMFM Healthcare finds that political anxiety is a significant concern, with 22% of Americans saying it’s affecting their mental health.

What’s Driving The Election Anxiety

According to the kickresume survey, 50% of employees say political discussions have increased over five years. Most employees are uncomfortable talking about politics but find themselves drawn into political discussions. Here’s a quick snapshot at what’s driving election anxiety:

• Misinformation and negative messaging. 57% cite misinformation, while 56% point to “doom and gloom” messaging as top stressors.
• Post-election anxiety. 55% worry about what happens next, impacting focus and productivity at work.
• Information overload. 38% feel overwhelmed by non-stop election coverage, with stress spilling into their work life.
• Avoidance in the workplace. Nearly 53% avoid election talk at work, while 37% steer clear of political discussions with colleagues holding different views, creating communication and collaboration challenges.

Tips For Short-And Long-Term Relief

I spoke by email with Christina Kayanan, executive director at AMFM Healthcare, about how to manage anxiety in the moment and over the long-haul. Here are her tips for short-term relief.

• Use progressive muscle relaxation (PMR). “This method is practical for the workplace, as it equips employees with a quick and effective tool for stress relief. By focusing on tensing and relaxing different muscle groups—like your legs from tapping your feet or your wrists and hands when typing—can help employees become aware of where they hold tension during a busy day. Practicing PMR, even just for a few minutes, can promote body-mind relaxation, reducing anxiety and improving focus.”
• Practice grounding techniques. “Anxiety often pulls us into a state of overthinking or worrying about the future. When employees feel overwhelmed by deadlines, projects or challenging meetings, grounding techniques, such as the 5-4-3-2-1 method, offers a quick, discreet way to redirect attention from anxious thoughts to the present moment. In this exercise, identify five things you see, four you touch, three you hear, two you smell and one you taste.”
• Challenge unhelpful thoughts. “Cognitive distortions such as catastrophizing can intensify anxiety or feelings of imposter syndrome. A useful strategy is to help employees identify these patterns and challenge them with evidence-based thinking. Ask questions like, ‘What evidence do I have for this thought?’ ‘Is there another way to view this situation?’"

Kayanan also provides long-term tips for building resilience:

• Build a routine around self-care. “Encouraging regular self-care practices fosters a culture of well-being. Give employees the autonomy to structure their day with small, consistent habits—going for a walk, journaling or taking a minute to reflect before and after each meeting. When employees have the freedom to integrate these habits in a way that best suits their needs and schedule, they can effectively manage anxiety over time.”
• Develop healthy boundaries. “Setting clear boundaries helps maintain a healthy work-life balance. HR leaders should empower teams to say no, delegate tasks and schedule breaks. This can significantly reduce anxiety and prevent burnout, enhancing overall morale and productivity.”

My Personal Tips For Self-Care

I added my tips for self-care to Kayanan’s sage advice. It’s important to stay abreast of the news and to know what’s happening in the world. But you don’t have to let the news suck you into a negative echo chamber of distress. Instead, try these tried-and-true tips for self-care.

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1. Compartmentalize. Limit exposure to the news. Set boundaries on the amount of time you listen to or watch disturbing political debates or displays of political violence played over and over in the media or continued analysis by broadcasters. Media saturation of sound bites and the repetitive barrage of images can further exacerbate and deepen election jitters.
2. Set rules about exposure. When social media constantly bombards us with the same distressing information over and over again, it can create mental chatter—nonstop collective rumination. Overly consuming news worsens anxiety. Set rules for yourself such as reading or watching the news for 10 minutes in the morning or evening, but don’t go down the clicking rabbit hole of checking the poll predictions every hour of the day.
3. Engage in calming activities. Just getting outside in nature is itself a form of stress reduction and relaxation. Balance your time between staying active and restorative rest. A walk or jog around the block combined with five minutes of meditation—both give you a biochemical boost. Activity raises endorphins. Quieting your mind stimulates the part of your brain that dampens the surges of adrenaline and cortisol accompanying stress.
4. Zoom out. Your brain is hard-wired to zoom in on violence, mayhem and conflict for fight-or-flight purposes because those acts are threats to survival. It isn’t always easy, and it can feel like swimming upstream, but it’s important to zoom out of your mind’s myopic view and look at the bigger picture.
5. Take action. Studies show when potential victims are able to take some kind of action to have a direct influence on their experience of the anxiety, their symptoms are either reduced or nullified. Show your support through donating financial support for your candidate, participating in a discussion group, joining peaceful demonstrations and making sure to cast your vote.
6. Practice self-care basics. Make sure you get ample sleep, nutrition and exercise. Unplug and take breaks that fit your interests and lifestyle. Your body and brain will appreciate the reset, and your well-being and serenity will return the favor. Getting through a worrisome event rarely moves as fast as most of us want. Try not to push or fight the process as it can backfire and stall getting to a more stable place.
7. Meditate. Mindfulness meditation teaches your mind to do what it doesn’t do instinctively: to come back to the present, enjoy the moment and appreciate your life instead of focusing on worries of the future. Science attests to the link between mindfulness and stress reduction, well-being and healing after trauma. In my interview with meditation expert Tara Brach, author of Trusting the Gold, she explained our relationship to worry and fear and how we can make a U-turn to deal with it: “It’s important that we have a way of being with fear that allows us to open our hearts. Meditation lets us pause enough so we can enlarge our perspective and come back home to a calm refuge inside of us where we can respond to what’s going on with a lot more intelligence and heart.”

Molly Ball, writing in The Wall Street Journal, aptly calls the 2024 election jitters as “America is having a panic attack over the election.” But we’re all in this together, and history has taught us that if each of us does our individual part and supports one another, then together we can overcome any challenge—no matter how dire the circumstances.