Is Election Stress Keeping You Up at Night?

Written By Luisa Palloni

If you find yourself losing sleep as we approach the presidential election, you are not alone. As it turns out, difficulty with sleep on and around election night is a common phenomenon - so much so that some sleep experts have termed it “electsomnia”. In a 2020 study published in the National Sleep Foundation’s Sleep Health journal, researchers found that “Election Day evoked significantly reduced sleep amount and efficiency, coupled with heightened stress, negative affect, and increased alcohol use.” (Cunningham et al. p. 571-579). This makes sense! Elections are stressful, and when you are stressed out, your sleep suffers.

In order to address this, it’s helpful to understand the biology behind the stress-sleep connection. When we experience stress, our brain is flooded with stress hormones, causing a fight-or-flight response. This heightened nervous system arousal can lead to physiological changes such as a pounding heart, tensed muscles, sweating, and increased alertness. Understandably, this makes sleep very difficult.

Why do our bodies do this? Our ancestors depended on this fight-or-flight response to keep them alive. If a lion entered a cave where a person was sleeping, they needed to be fully alert to quickly respond to the threat. Today, most of us don’t worry about lions, though the stress response still has its benefits. A rise in adrenaline can be helpful when we perceive danger, and an increase in oxygen to the brain can improve alertness for an important work presentation. While the stress response has its place, it’s not so helpful when we are safely lying awake in our beds, unable to sleep with a pounding heart and racing thoughts.

The presidential election can be especially stressful because we are inundated with an overwhelming amount of election-related information (and misinformation) on the days preceding it. We also have little control over the election outcome, which can cause a feeling of helplessness, and further increase worry, stress, and sleeplessness. Results from a 2016 survey conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA) showed that over half of Americans (regardless of political affiliation) viewed the 2016 presidential election as a significant source of stress.

“Election Day evoked significantly reduced sleep amount and efficiency, coupled with heightened stress, negative affect, and increased alcohol use.”
— Cunningham et al. p. 571-579

Without intervention, the stress-sleep connection can become a vicious cycle that is difficult to break. Stress disrupts sleep, poor sleep causes physiological and cognitive changes which further impact sleep, and so on. For someone who didn’t initially have sleep problems but starts sleeping poorly due to election stress, this continuous cycle can actually cause temporary sleeplessness to evolve into full blown insomnia. Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to help resolve these sleep issues and to prevent them from becoming chronic.

Here are five tips to proactively address election-related stress and sleep difficulties:

  1. Engage in activities that bring you joy - To avoid getting overloaded with stress, the APA recommends participating in activities you enjoy, such as spending time with friends or family, exercising, or volunteering for a cause you support.

  2. Limit social media use - Studies have shown that adults who engage with social media are more impacted by election stress than those who don’t use social media. To lessen these impacts, set limits for yourself around how much time you spend watching the news or going on social media apps and websites. It may help to set a 20-minute timer for yourself when you start scrolling on your phone, or you can even set a time limit in your phone settings for certain apps such as Instagram. When the timer is up, that’s your cue to move on to something else.

  3. Create a wind-down routine - It can take some time to wind down once you’ve started ruminating about stressful politics. Therefore, it’s especially important to stay off of social media within 2 hours of going to bed. You should also avoid reading the news in bed to prevent yourself from subconsciously forming an association between election-related worry and bedtime. Instead, create a routine for the hour or two before bed that is relaxing and positive. If you can, engaging in calm activities such as reading, meditating, or taking a bath can help you relax and take your mind off of distressing news.

  4. Sleep hygiene - While good sleep hygiene won’t cure insomnia on its own, it can help prevent it. To maintain good sleep hygiene, limit alcohol intake within 3 hours of bedtime, keep your sleep schedule as consistent as possible (i.e. go to bed and get up at the same time each day), keep your room cool, dark and quiet at night, limit caffeine later in the day, and avoid heavy meals right before bed.

  5. Worry time - Worry time is a cognitive therapy strategy that can help prevent negative, anxious thinking from keeping you up at night. Set aside about 20-30 minutes to do your worrying during the day. This should not occur within 1 hour of getting up in the morning or going to bed at night, and it’s best if it takes place in a space where you don’t spend a lot of your time. Take the time to write down things that are stressing you out, problem-solve, and create plans that may help to ease your worries. The idea is to make time to do your worrying during the day so these worries are less likely to interfere with your sleep at night. If you do start to experience stressful thoughts as you’re trying to sleep, save them until your next scheduled worry time and remind yourself that there is no need to think about them now.

Unless you move to the middle of nowhere with no human contact, phone, or internet, it’s unlikely that you’ll avoid election stress entirely. It’s also reasonable to want to be informed and not stay away from all news. Moderation is key here, along with maintaining a consistent, healthy sleep routine and engaging in positive activities to buffer against stress.

In stressful situations where we don’t have a lot of control, it’s important to focus on what we do have control over: Don’t forget to vote!

Disclaimer: This blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional therapy, diagnosis, or treatment. The content provided is meant to offer general information and should not be used as a replacement for individualized care from a licensed mental health professional. If you are in need of support, please seek assistance from a qualified therapist or healthcare provider.

References:

Luisa Palloni
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