--- title: Stress and Anxiety: An Election Day Sanity Prescription description: Try some stress relief on Election Day, when the presidential fight between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will stoke stress and anxiety canonical: https://time.com/4556503/election-day-anxiety-stress-relief/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-08T09:00:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-07T06:53:27.842Z article:section: Health og:title: Your All-Day Election Day Sanity Prescription og:description: Try some stress relief on Election Day, when the presidential fight between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will stoke stress and anxiety og:url: https://time.com/4556503/election-day-anxiety-stress-relief/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt180d09b6072c5b54/6988acd2cd1bbaada9702f74/voting-booth-election-day.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5150 og:image:height: 2897 og:image:alt: Voting booths in polling place og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Your All-Day Election Day Sanity Prescription twitter:description: Try some stress relief on Election Day, when the presidential fight between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will stoke stress and anxiety twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt180d09b6072c5b54/6988acd2cd1bbaada9702f74/voting-booth-election-day.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Your All-Day, Election-Day Sanity Prescription > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=7cbbd0fd-122a-4596-8477-cc934a18ae5b&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How 2016 Turned Into a Battle of the Sexes [Watch (HLS stream): How 2016 Turned Into a Battle of the Sexes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/IQPiMq6t.m3u8) (2:56)  _Published 2016-11-03. The 2016 election is a referendum on what women can be--and what men can get away with_  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 8, 2016 9:00 AM UTC  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 8, 2016 9:00 AM UTC Election Day is finally here, and it’s sure to be one of the most [anxiety-stoking](http://time.com/4539024/election-stress-mental-health-anxiety/?iid=sr-link2) days of the year. We asked stress expert Jeff Temple, associate professor and psychologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch, to share some activities we should do to make election day as manageable as possible. Some of his advice, and some of ours, below: **8 a.m.: Vote.** It’s the biggest thing you can do to relieve Election Day anxiety, because it gives you a sense of agency. “Going out and voting is stress relief,” Temple says. “To manage any type of stress, do something about it.” It’s the same idea behind exposure therapy: if you’re stressed out about flying, get on an airplane. If you’re stressed about who your next president will be, get out and vote. **12 p.m.: Resist the social media trap**. It’s not your imagination: social media really is stressing you out. A recent [poll](http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/10/presidential-election-stress.aspx) from the American Psychological Association found that people who used social media were more likely to call the election a “very or somewhat significant source of stress” than people who didn’t use it. “This is really our first election where social media is rampant, where we’re trafficking in dogmatic points of view,” Temple says. In past elections, you could control your contact with those friends or family members that love debating the politics du jour by screening your calls. Not so anymore, when people’s thoughts and opinions are ever-present on our phones. Limiting your use of social media, then, can help you avoid a screen-induced stress response. For a minority of people, gobbling up reams of information is actually stress relieving—but that’s probably not most of us. Interact with the Internet in a way that’s right for you. **3 p.m.:** **Put on your headphones**. By now, you likely know where your colleagues fall on the political spectrum. If your views differ, stay out of the conversational fray. “No matter how wrong they are in your mind, they are still your colleagues,” Temple says, “and you’re going to have to work with them tomorrow and the next day.” **6 p.m.:** **Do your all-time favorite activity**. What do you love more than anything else? Do it after work—maybe even more of it than you usually would. “If it’s playing video games, play more video games,” Temple says. “If it’s going out to eat, go out to eat.” Ditto for any activity that helps you blow off steam, like [yoga](http://time.com/4185626/yoga-exercise-workout/?iid=sr-link2), [meditation](http://time.com/4263383/mindfulness-meditation-pain/?iid=sr-link2) or having beers with a friend. “When we do things we’re interested in, it makes us feel better,” Temple says. And if you’ve made it this far in election season, you’ve earned it. **7 p.m.:** **Watch the returns with likeminded people**. With tensions so high, it’s best to limit yourself to a supportive environment. “I think that watching it with divergent folks, especially with this election where the viewpoints are so divergent, is really a recipe for conflict,” Temple says. Flock with birds of your feather, in other words—at least tonight. **9 p.m.: Take a TV break.** It’s news to no one that [binge watching TV is bad for your health](http://time.com/3767458/tv-binge-watching-health/), and that’s doubly true if you’re sitting there seriously stressed out. Every hour or two, take a walk around the block, steep yourself some tea or pour a drink, do a quick household chore. The goal is to take your mind off the incremental election results and focus it, however briefly, on something else. **11 p.m.: Go to bed.** Regardless of who the next president is, getting a [night of good sleep](http://time.com/4358710/sleep-loss-heart-health/?iid=sr-link6) will at least make you feel better—physically if not psychologically—the next day. If you can’t bear to wake up without knowing the result, keep your phone by your bed—[usually a healthy sleep no-no](http://time.com/4360234/insomnia-sleep-problems/)—so that you hear the news alert when the networks call it. You don’t need to be awake all night in front of the TV to get the news when it breaks. ## Transcript If 2016 was going to be a battle of the sexes, everyone thought Hillary Clinton would be the main combatant. But this year, Trump, not Clinton, has made this cycle the most gendered election in political history. These are just the greatest hits. After Megyn Kelly asked him this question at a primary debate, You call women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, And disgusting animals. You know you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever. He's called Hillary Clinton disgusting for taking a bathroom break. Sorry. [ LAUGH ] Donald Trump said the following about you. Quote look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? He slammed GOP primary opponent Carly Fiorina for her appearance. And he's accused Clinton of playing the woman card. She's constantly playing the woman card. It's the only way she may get elected. On the other hand Clinton is emphasizing the historic nature of her gender more than she did in 2008. She gave her first speech as a presumptive nominee to Planned Parenthood, where she said the word abortion, Legal abortions. 16 times. By contrast, Barack Obama almost never says that word. Women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their own health. She frequently refers to herself as a grandmother and in her first appearance at the DNC, she had this message for the next generation of female leaders. If there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch Let me just say. I may become the first woman president but one of you is next. Still, Hillary Clinton is a presidential candidate who just happens to be a woman. Donald Trump is a man for whom the presidency is the ultimate validation of his masculinity. [ UNKNOWN ] And he referred to my hands. If they're small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee you. And his followers have taken their cues from the top. [ BLEEP ] Hillary. I still can't hear with this [ BLEEP ] in my ear. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. For other Trump supporters, this election is about jobs, trade, and the economy. I will be the greatest jobs president that god ever created. But those issues are linked to a massive social shift away from an economy Economy based on male breadwinners. I'll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico- When Trump talks about jobs, he's talking about a specific kind of job. The manufacturing and industrial jobs that once allowed men to support family on a single income. In other words, the jobs that made men feel like men. As those industries have declined in Last three decades, others have grown. And the fastest growing industries education and health care are dominated by women. So the November election has turned into a referendum on gender, but it was Trump who justified on the battlefield. Which means that this November, American voters will be sending a message about how men are allowed to behave and what women are allowed to achieve. 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