Election stress and anxiety affects most Americans.

WAXHAW, NC — Pro-Trump signs outnumber those for Harris outside the Wesley Chapel Volunteer Fire Department, an early voting site in Union County, North Carolina.

The imbalanced ratio is the same throughout the county, a mostly rural community south of Charlotte near the South Carolina border.

It’s also a sign of the darker side of the election season: fear and anxiety, at least for liberals in this historically conservative area.

“A lot of people don’t want to put anything out in support of Harris because they’re afraid of retribution,” said Lisa, a Union County resident who was campaigning for Democratic candidates this week. Even though she wore a T-shirt with a comma and the syllable “la,” referring to the correct pronunciation of the first name of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, she declined to give her last name because she said she was afraid of being targeted.

“My neighbor put up some signs” for the Harris-Walz ticket, Lisa said. “The next morning, they were crushed, crumpled.”

Another early voter who did not want to be identified was so anxious to publicly express his choice for Harris that he simply whispered it before heading to the polling place.

Bryan Robinson, another Union County resident, echoed his concerns about the potential for violence and retaliation.

“I’m more concerned about how messy and bad things could get” if Democrats remain in the White House, he said.

The mental fatigue is especially true for people living in swing states that could ultimately be responsible for the outcome of the election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

One nation, totally stressed

Election panic is being felt on both sides of the aisle as well as among independent voters.

“We’re seeing the highest levels of election stress” compared to the last three elections, said Vaile Wright, senior director of the office of health innovation at the American Psychological Association.

APA’s latest The Stress in America Survey found that a majority of adults, 77 percent, said the nation’s future was a “significant source of stress in their lives.”

The concern affects almost equally all parties: 80% of Republicans, 79% of Democrats and 73% of independents.

Sixty-nine percent of all 3,305 US adults surveyed in August specifically cited the presidential election as a stressor.

There’s a scientific reason for Americans’ increased stress levels, said Bryan Sexton, a psychologist and director of the Duke Center for Advancing the Science of Well-Being in Durham, North Carolina.

“Our brains are basically threat detectors,” Sexton said. “If you feel stressed, it simply means that you are paying attention.”

That is, the brain is so focused on identifying threats, such as divisive candidate rhetoric and highly charged political ads, that it misses everything else.

“If you spend all your attention on noticing the threats, you don’t notice the good things that recharge you,” Sexton said. “That’s why it’s so tiring right now.”

The media in the battleground states is saturated with emotional, visceral political ads that can hit any leftist or rightist voter in the gut.

A pro-abortion ad describes in painful detail the story of a 12-year-old woman who became pregnant when her stepfather sexually assaulted her. Ads for conservative candidates work to demonize transgender Americans.

Such commercials run during nearly every commercial break, during national sporting events, on morning television, and everywhere in between.

“It’s an absolute deluge,” the ad-tracking company Medium Buying wrote on X. This week, the firm counted 37 political ads that aired during a local morning newscast in Georgia.

People living in swing states “are very stressed right now,” Sexton said. “They’re exhausted because those threat awareness systems have been running for months.”

Lost sleep, poor appetite

The mental anguish Leigh Benish felt over the upcoming presidential election overwhelmed her at times to the point of physical illness.

“I’ve been losing sleep over it,” Benish, 38, said. “There have been times when I haven’t eaten because the stress is so heavy.”

Benish lives in Butler, Pennsylvania, a town that was at the center of chaos after the first assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July. Additionally, Pennsylvania is one of seven swing states where residents are bombarded day and night with phone calls, text messages and political ads that often prey on voters’ fears.

“I don’t like conflict, so it just makes me tense up,” she said.

The onslaught is so overwhelming that Benish, a Butler church pastor, has begun focusing on election stress in sessions with her counselor.

Even as she tries to soothe her own anxiety, her feelings are compounded if she helps other people going through the same problems.

“It’s so personal for a lot of people, especially the people who were at the Trump rally,” Benish said. “They witnessed it and the trauma comes out.”

Reducing electoral stress

There is a lot of advice online about dealing with anxiety.

• Exercise.
• Explore nature.
• Feel the sun on your skin.
• Meditate.
• Have lunch with a friend.
• Rest well.

Those are solid suggestions. But here we are in 2024, and those tried-and-true ideas aren’t cutting it for the millions of Americans trying to get over the hump of election anxiety.

Most people “don’t have time to go to a yoga retreat. They don’t have time to lose 20 kilos. They don’t have time to try meditation for the first time,” Sexton said. “They need something simple.”

Focus on one of your 5 senses

Does the smell of homemade rolls take you back to a more innocent time? Turn on the oven and grab some flour to put that sense of smell to good use.

That one act can reorient an overwhelmed brain, Wright suggested.

“It can serve as a grounding technique because it’s engaging,” Wright said.

The other key, Sexton said, is to connect with friends or other loved ones. “Hearing their voice can lower your heart rate and make you feel better immediately,” he said.

Lisa Quebedeaux, 40, also a Butler resident, said she was able to release stress about the polls for Democratic candidates and LGBTQ rights.

“I was always afraid of the idea of ​​talking to other people about politics or issues, and I was very much a person who wanted to be left alone,” Quebedeaux said. But going door to door and talking to other community members was a comfort before Election Day.

“I was really scared to do it, but once I did, I felt like I was much more in control of my destiny, that I wasn’t just letting things happen,” she said.