Anxious About the Election? So Are 70% of Americans — Here's How to Protect Your Mental Health

An expert shares his tips for keeping election stress and anxiety to a minimum

• Up to 70% of Amerians say they’re experiencing anxiety and frustration as the U.S. presidential election draws near

• There are ways to manage election stress, Dr. Christopher Fisher, director of adult outpatient psychiatry at Northwell Zucker Hillside Hospital, tells PEOPLE

• He suggests better management of phone use as well as a return to hobbies to “disconnect from the stressors that we have”

Election Day is almost here in an increasingly divided nation, leaving many Americans anxious about what will happen on Nov. 5.

As presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump trade barbs in the media, up to 70% of Americans say they’re feeling frustrated or anxious, the Associated Press reports. Dr. Christopher Fisher, director of adult outpatient psychiatry at Northwell Zucker Hillside Hospital, tells PEOPLE he’s seeing patients with ”increasing anxiety, a lot of worry, a lot of fear,” and, he adds, “some hopelessness in what is being heard.”

“Coping with this election stress and anxiety, it is challenging, especially because people's words and the rhetoric that's used really carries a lot of heavy meaning —  it threatens at times our most foundational kind of ideologies and principles,” he explains. 

But there are ways to manage election stress as election day draws near, Fisher tells PEOPLE.

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Set Boundaries for Yourself

“If turning off the television is not an option, we can set boundaries,” Fisher says. “We are the gatekeepers of the information that we receive. Creating specific times where we check for updates and sticking to those times can help us avoid the constant flow of stress with all the overwhelming information — especially as we get closer to it,” he advises.

And if someone tries to pull you into what Fisher calls "controversial conversation," he says, "if you feel emotionally heightened and not ready to have a constructive conversation, [let] someone know in the workplace, [let] someone know in your family: 'This isn't the best time for me. Let me get back to you on that.' "

"We struggle in general, across the board, to set boundaries," he tells PEOPLE. "But that's something that we can enforce and we only get better at the more we practice. By setting that boundary and taking time, we can reduce our emotional responses and then be more equipped to have constructive conversations around these things."

Don't Sleep with Your Phone

Part of this, he says, is to make sure you don’t sleep with your phone nearby.

“Especially during this heightened political climate, we want to make sure that we're recharging. And we recharge by disconnecting. We don't charge our electric cars while they're driving. We have to kind of put them aside, let them recharge, and then get back to using them again. We have to do the same thing with our minds, with our hearts, with our emotions. We have to set them aside, let them recharge,” Fisher says.

He advises putting your phone in “an area where your phone is not in arm's reach,” suggesting that charging it overnight in a different room is one way to “build in a barrier [and] make it harder for yourself to go consume that information.”

As Fisher points out, “There was a time when we lived without this stuff and we were still updated and informed. Just now it's moving faster.”

Pursue Creative Hobbies

Fisher also suggests returning to creative outlets — the things he says “are the first things we remove from our calendar” when we’re “overwhelmed.”

“Those are things that need to stay in our calendar, stay fixed, and we build our stressful responsibilities around them. That way we're better suited to maintain a healthy balance because stress is a given of life.”

Some ideas, he says, can be “yard work, going for a walk, taking your dogs or your animals out,” as well as “scheduling time to meet up with friends, reading books — [but] obviously not politically related — start a new Netflix or television series … just to have something to disconnect from the stressors that we have.”

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Surround Yourself with People You Trust

And on Election Day — and the days after — Fisher said those feeling anxious should try “to be around those that are kind of anchors for you — that you trust, that you feel comfortable with.”

“If we're alone and we're diving into our phones, that creates more of a vulnerability. We're more susceptible to the stress when we're alone.”

And if you’ve already voted, or “If you know who you're voting for, it's time to take a break,” he says. "It's a way of taking control of things we can — and relinquishing the control of things we cannot.”

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