Election Got You Stressed?

We have a tendency to isolate in overwhelming situations, but engaging with others and maintaining connections is key to maintaining our mental health. Reach out to your student clubs, organizations, teams and social circles to help build community and create healthy mental spaces for yourself.

While being an informed voter is important, you can establish times when you consume news media so you don’t feel overwhelmed by content. This could look like only checking news apps for a few hours each day or selecting a few trusted news sources to engage with a set number of times before moving on to other activities. 

If you are noticing that your entire feed on all of your social media is political content, perhaps it is getting a little too much. It is perfectly okay to search for something else and change it up. 

Recognize that we are going to disagree with each other and have different political views and that is actually okay. We work through our differences and even be friends with people who hold different views. These discussions can be really fruitful if we have them in an open and understanding way. 

At the same time, when caught in stressful situations, such as hostile political discourse, you don’t have to engage - but can instead respect others’ opinions and walk away with mutuality. If you feel a discussion or disagreement is escalating to a point of distress, try distancing or removing yourself from a potentially harmful social environment. 

If you have exhausted your resources or see that mental health concerns are impacting your day-to-day life, that should be an indicator that you need to seek professional care.  Take time to reach out to the Counseling Center to speak with one of our therapists.  Remember - you never have to go through this alone.

Recognize that in times of heightened stress and uncertainty, we need to give ourselves a little more grace and self care. Perhaps you need to prioritize a little more time for sleep and basic needs; maybe you need to give yourself more time to process things; or maybe it is harder to concentrate right now and you need to be just a little more understanding about that.