Learn how to create boundaries to protect sleep health during presidential elections.

By Sally Ibrahim, MD, FAASM, FAAP, and Michelle Drerup, PsyD, DBSM

Elections can be both exciting and stressful, and the months preceding an election can augment stressors and sleep loss.

We have seen several US presidential election cycles in our sleep practice of nearly two decades. We have linked elections to severe exacerbation of insomnia symptoms in our patients as well as seen them trigger sleep issues in people who did not have chronic insomnia. 

Our clinical observations are supported by research completed during the last US presidential election in 2020, which found reduced sleep quality and sleep efficiency coupled with increased stress, negative mood, and alcohol use near election day.1

We are calling this phenomenon “Electsomnia,” an insomnia linked with election season.

Who Gets Electsomnia

Put anyone in a very stressful situation, and sleep may get disrupted.

In the case of Electsomnia, individuals who are particularly obsessed over the minutia of the campaigns may perseverate over the details at bedtime and in the middle of the night. When going to bed, they continue to “process” things—which are often out of their control—resulting in their feeling powerless and frustrated. These cognitions may show up during normal waking hours but often heighten at night, keeping someone awake longer due to rumination. 

Preventing Electsomnia

While we want to follow politics, to what extent do we allow it to overwhelm us? What can we do to plan for healthy boundaries? 

Here are some tips to guard sleep health during the peak of the political seasons. In general, avoiding Electsomnia involves: 

  1. monitoring your thoughts/cognitions,
  2. monitoring your news consumption, and
  3. making intentional healthy sleep habits.

Monitor Your Thoughts

If you cannot let go of the election news to the point that you think about it in bed, ask yourself: What thoughts do you tend to have at night (or anticipate you will have at night)? What emotions go with those thoughts?

Examples:

Thoughts at Night or While in BedEmotions Linked with These Thoughts
I hate (name your candidate)!Anger, Resentment
Ugh, can you believe they don’t support (name your issue)? We are going to be in so much trouble if they become president!Anger, Worry, Anxiety

The reality is worrying will not change anything. But, worrying will negatively impact your sleep. 

The negative emotions paired with your thoughts will drive up a more “wakeful” response, and sleep loss may follow. A longitudinal study measuring sleep and the stress hormone cortisol found that day-to-day rumination about stressors was associated with less sleep and higher waking cortisol levels. Even on otherwise low-stress days, simply focusing on the stressors was linked with higher cortisol levels.2 

In other words, it’s not that we have an upcoming election that is stressful, but it’s the thinking about the stress and politics and ruminating about details that may cause sleep loss and other physical problems.

However, actively examining your thoughts can help you manage them so they don’t control you and your emotions. Having positive thoughts creates a healthier mental state before sleeping.

Anticipatory anxiety—excessive worry about a future event—is linked with the fight-or-flight stress response. Symptoms include increased heart rate, shallow and rapid breathing, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, trouble managing emotions and mood, restlessness, and sleep loss. In fact, as in a coin-toss experiment of a potential threat, if there is an uncertain “threat” of a perceived bad outcome (such as in an election), more negative emotions and higher levels of anxiety develop.3 

Instead, we can intentionally use coping skills to feel better despite the risks of a future bad election outcome. This is done by redefining the situation as less threatening, which we can accomplish by examining our thought patterns. For example, here are some original negative thoughts and their healthier counterparts. 

 Examples:

Original Negative ThoughtsNegative Emotions Related to Those ThoughtsAlternative Thoughts to ConsiderHow Emotions Change
“I cannot believe that fool is running for president!”Anger, frustration“I will be voting and encourage others to do so as well.”Controlled, less frustration and anger
“I’m so concerned about our future and our country; we are doomed; I cannot believe this is happening.” Intense worry, anxiety, fear, feeling helpless, heightened stress response in anticipation something bad will happen“We have survived many elections, and we will get through this. It’s only four years, and thankfully we have presidential term limitations.”Having perspective removes the feeling of immediate danger (stress response), less worry and anxiety
(While watching the news) “This is ridiculous; these are all lies!”Intense anger or even rage. Allowing ourselves to be triggered by the news is letting go of control over thoughts and emotions.“I can’t do anything about this tonight. I’ve had enough for one day.”Less frustration, less emotional reactivity to the news, controlled, less anger. Walking away provides less opportunity to be triggered.
“Everything hinges on this one presidential election; we will be so doomed if it does not go (whichever way we think it should go).”Anticipatory anxiety, causing distress when thinking about a future event or situation. “Future tripping” can make people feel anxious for weeks.“It’s not just the presidential election. We have other avenues for our voice and other positive things going on such as …”Less anger and frustration, more gratitude (which helps foster positive emotions and sleep), more empowering
“This feels so out of control and so crazy.”Helplessness, anxiety, worry, fear“We are more in control than we think we are.”Empowering, less worry and anxiety

Monitor News Consumption

How much media exposure is too much? Nowadays, phone and media addictions are more common than ever before. Phone addiction is associated with mental distress, which affects sleep.4 A healthy boundary on phone usage before sleep helps place appropriate guardrails on the duration and timing of media usage to minimize the negative effects on sleep.

Duration of Media Usage

  • Avoid too much exposure to TV/media and campaign-related advertising. More TV/media exposure to campaign advertising is associated with higher odds of being told by a doctor that you have anxiety, regardless of political party, election type, or topic.5
  • Watch media content in smaller doses and during the day. Avoid overwhelming yourself with too much news each day.

Timing of Media Usage 

  • Avoid any TV/media/politics near bedtime. Media use, particularly in the one hour before sleep, is associated with poorer sleep.6 This may relate to the brain needing some adjustment from daytime thinking to a more relaxed position before bed and sleep.
  • Turn off devices one hour before bedtime. (If you have to get up at 6 am, you should not be watching the 11 pm news!) Everyone in your home can settle together and detox distractions before bedtime. If you need to watch every detail of the election, record it and watch it later.

Healthy Sleep Habits

  1. Turn off mental and physical distractions before bedtime as part of a wind-down routine.
  2. Avoid watching election news in bed, particularly if you find strong emotions creeping up. You form “sleep associations” with the thoughts and feelings you experience in bed, so emotions like anger may carry through to the nights that follow.
  3. Create a haven of rest in your bedroom without negative-thought triggers. Remove clutter. Have a clean, cool, dark place to sleep.
  4. Relax the mind and body to prepare for sleep. Watch your breathing. Consider deep breathing by taking slow, deep breaths, ideally in and out through the nose. Slower deep breathing helps reduce cortisol. Another practice is progressive muscle relaxation, which you can learn the details of via numerous apps.
  5. Keep your bed and wake times similar. Your weekend out-of-bed time should be no more than one hour later than on weekdays/workdays to keep circadian alignment.
  6. Avoid stimulants, especially in the latter part of the day. Caffeine and nicotine are two common stimulants that impact sleep.
  7. Avoid alcohol prior to sleep. Drinking alcohol at bedtime can cause rebound insomnia and poor-quality sleep. Monitor alcohol intake to ensure you are not coping with election stress by increasing your intake.
  8. Don’t go to bed angry (or with any other negative emotion). We call this “stimulus control.” When you make your bed a worry/angry/thinking space, your body starts to associate the bed with those wakefulness thoughts/emotions. We want the bed to be associated with relaxing and “sleepy” things. 
  9. Stay out of bed when feeling strong emotions (such as excitement, anger, etc). Maintain your bed and bedroom as a place of comfort relaxation rest and sleep—free from election-related emotional associations.
  10. Only go to bed once you are very sleepy. If you are not relaxed, too tense, and worried, don’t go to bed. You may wonder if this conflicts with keeping a regular bedtime—it does not. You should still have a regular bedtime, but avoid activities like working, watching political news, or cleaning in the bedroom. Instead, do relaxation exercises in a chair or somewhere else cozy in the bedroom, and move into the bed once you’re sleepy.

Let’s get through this election season together in the healthiest way possible and protect sleep against Electsomnia!

Sleep physician Sally Ibrahim, MD, FAASM, FAAP, practices at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, where she is the director for the pediatric sleep medicine program. She also has a clinical practice for adults and children with sleep disorders. Her academic appointment is associate professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where she is associate program director for the sleep medicine program.
Licensed clinical health psychologist Michelle Drerup, PsyD, DBSM, FSBSM, is associate professor of medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. She serves as director of the behavioral sleep medicine program and fellowship program at the Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center. 

References

1. Cunningham TJ, Fields EC, Denis D, et al. How the 2020 US Presidential election impacted sleep and its relationship to public mood and alcohol consumption. Sleep Health. 2022 Dec;8(6):571-9.

2.  Sladek MR, Doane LD, Breitenstein RS. Daily rumination about stress, sleep, and diurnal cortisol activity. Cogn Emot. 2020 Mar;34(2):188-200.

3. Oglesby ME, Schmidt NB. The role of threat level and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) in anxiety: An experimental test of IU theory. Behav Ther. 2017 Jul;48(4):427-34.

4. Yang LL, Guo C, Li GY, et al. Mobile phone addiction and mental health: the roles of sleep quality and perceived social support. Front Psychol. 2023 Sep 22;14:1265400.

5. Niederdeppe J, Avery RJ, Liu J, et al. Exposure to televised political campaign advertisements aired in the United States 2015-2016 election cycle and psychological distress. Soc Sci Med. 2021 May;277:113898.

6.  Perrault AA, Bayer L, Peuvrier M, et al. Reducing the use of screen electronic devices in the evening is associated with improved sleep and daytime vigilance in adolescents. Sleep. 2019 Sep 6;42(9):zsz125.

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