How To Manage Your Emotions On Election Day

According to the American Psychological Association’s latest Stress in America survey69% of adults said that today’s election has been a significant source of stress in their life. And now that the actual day is here, that stress will only increase.

But if you’re like me, you still have to manage your daily responsibilities. Chores need to get done, meetings can’t wait, and the demands of work continue regardless of the news cycle. Balancing these day-to-day tasks with feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and even dread can be overwhelming. What follows are four research-backed emotional intelligence strategies to help you stay focused, calm, and grounded on Election Day.

1. Surround Yourself With Like-Minded People (Just For Today)

While of course you should aim to surround yourself with and learn from a variety of different people and perspectives, today offers a unique exception. Don’t force yourself into emotionally taxing social situations.

As you spend time with people close to you, don’t be afraid to lean on them for social support. Research shows that you can literally outsource your negative emotions to those you’re closest to, minimizing their impact. In a groundbreaking study at the University of Wisconsin, researchers put people in MRI machines and threatened to shock them at random. There were three groups of participants:

• People who were alone.
• People who held the hand of a stranger.
• People who held the hand of a loved one.

The researchers measured fear activity in each person’s brain, and they found something incredible in the third group. Participants’ brains were much less active. They could literally outsource their fear to their loved ones.

2. Practice ‘Psychological Distancing’ To Gain Perspective

In his book Chatter, psychologist Ethan Kross introduces the idea of “psychological distancing.” This is the idea that you can create mental space between yourself and a situation and that doing so will help you gain perspective and regulate your emotions. Kross points out how when other people ask you for advice, it’s much easier to coach that person through their problem than it is to help yourself through your own problems. “The reason for that,” he explains, “is that you have psychological distance from that problem. It’s not happening to you. It’s happening to your friend.”

One of the ways Kross recommends creating psychological distance for yourself is by speaking to yourself in the third person (using your own name). It feels bizarre, but it works. Simply saying, “How are you going to deal with this, Kevin?” activates a unique response in your brain. Specifically, you trigger the mental machinery in your brain that is active when you speak about someone else’s problem. Kross has even shown in his research that this simple strategy reduces emotional reactivity within milliseconds.

3. Get More Exercise Than Usual

Anxiety naturally generates energy. When you let that energy go unchecked, it flutters around, distracts you, and makes you jittery and uncomfortable. But, you can also use it as a generative force. One of the easiest ways to use anxiety productively is to go exercise.

Author Haruki Murakami is renowned for his strict exercise discipline. He has run for an hour a day for thirty years, participating in at least one marathon per year. And the main reason he runs is for the neurological benefits. In his book, Novelist As Vocation, he wrote about recent research on aerobic exercise. The research showed that exercise produces a rapid increase in the number of neurons in the hippocampus. This increase lasts for twenty-eight hours. During that time, those neurons are waiting for intellectual stimulation. If you challenge yourself mentally, those neurons will connect with the existing networks in your brain, broadening and densening it in the process. In turn, this increases your ability to learn and remember things. “The everyday combination of physical exercise and the intellectual process provides an ideal influence on the type of creative work the writer is engaged in,” Murakami explains.

So, if you’re feeling distracted, try channeling your anxiety into exercise. When you come back to your work, you should have an easier time focusing.

4. For Every Source You Read, Make Yourself Journal for Two Minutes

Getting sucked down the whirlpool doom scroll of stressed-out, fear-mongering election-day posts can quickly send you spiraling into a state of panic. So instate this simple rule: For every piece of content you consume about the election today, three minutes to reflect and journal. This simple strategy will help you read less, be more discerning about what articles and posts you choose to consume, and pause to reflect as you go.

As an added bonus, research around journaling has shown that it’s an immensely powerful emotion regulation tool. Psychologist Dr. James Pennebaker has been studying writing and emotions for decades. “[Writing] changes the way your experience is organized in the brain, and it slows down your thinking process,” Pennebaker explains. He pointed out that even when you write for just two minutes at a time, it’s incredibly helpful for processing your emotions. That’s because you will continue to think about and process what you wrote for much longer.

Kevin Kruse is the Founder + CEO of LEADxan emotional intelligence training company. Kevin is also a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is Emotional Intelligence: 52 Strategies to Build Strong Relationships, Increase Resilience, and Achieve Your Goals.