MADISON, Wis. — Many voters considered this past midterm election crucial, especially in the battleground state of Wisconsin. But with a contentious election comes anxiety when voting, watching results, and thinking of the future those results may bring, something psychologists say shouldn’t be neglected.
“It was definitely stressful, it was a really close race for everyone,” Morgan, a student in her fourth year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. “My roommate and I, my sister and I, had the results pulled up on our phone pretty consistently throughout the entire night refreshing it every 20 minutes.”
Meanwhile, Shiva Bucklin was monitoring elections here and in his home state of California.
“I felt myself refreshing Google a lot, checking the results.”,” he said.
Now that the dust is beginning to clear from the battleground that was the midterm election, SSM Health psychologist Dr. Matt Doll said it’s time to start dialing back.
“When we’re always checking our phone, when we’re always looking at our feeds, whatever we’re doing — that’s a very engaging part of our brain,” Dr. Doll said. “And we really need to balance it, we have to give ourselves a bit of time to relax and disconnect.”
Part of that involves disconnecting from the negative political attack ads on TV and online.
RELATED: Why are TV stations forced to run political ads?
“You see the intensity that they’re meant to evoke. And we have physiological responses to that,” Dr. Doll said, “… and unfortunately, many people are not really able to even listen to the other side of an argument or a discussion.”
But it’s also good to reconnect to our friends and nature.
“It does help that it’s been really nice the past two days which has been wonderful — Especially like in November in Wisconsin, that’s pretty rare — so it’s been nice to walk around and be able to see friends and process with them — with a lot of queer friends and what that means for like people born female and stuff like that,” Morgan said.
Physical activity can be another mindful practice.
“(I) work out, do a lot of stretching, a little bit of yoga, weightlifting,” Bucklin said. “(It) just helps clear my mind and help me think about one thing at a time without the chaos in the world around us.”
It’s also good to try breathing exercises and meditation, Dr. Doll said.
“Anxiety is usually fear of the future, right? This kind of technique really anchors us in the present. We’re actually able to re-engage our brains in a way that’s much more healthy.”
Other young voters, like UW-Madison freshman Chloe Lichucki, needed more visual reality checks. She was hoping the state would flip blue.
“I took a whiteboard that’s on the back of my dorm room and I tried to write out the things I saw positive from the election,” Lichucki said, “just so the people walking by my dorm room could view it and also as a reminder to myself when I was leaving my dorm room.”
Dr. Doll says moments like a peaceful concession, like from Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels, should also be recognized.
“Adults aren’t terribly well-behaved at the present moment, and so we really run a role model for ourselves and our children,” he said. “Civility. By demonstrating civility, by demonstrating kindness, thoughtfulness, just common courtesy, even, things get a lot better.”
In general, look at the positive in all voters, he said.
“When we vilify a group, when we are able to think of them as something other than us, an object, it really is the root of pretty much all our evil,” he said. “It really is a lot easier to be rude, disrespectful, hurtful, because they’re not quite like us.”
“So, while there are contentious beliefs on both sides, it’s not necessarily true that we have to not like our neighbor,” Dr. Doll said.
COPYRIGHT 2022 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
