These are trying times no matter how you choose to look at it. The election may be causing you to stress out leaving you distracted at work and/or disengaged at home. A conversation about your political views can easily shift your job concentration for hours. Luckily, there are steps you can take to avoid stress-inducing conversations at work while we wait to hear who will be the next President of the United States of America.
The 5 Steps:
Keep busy
Staying busy is the best and most productive way to avoid anxiety-inducing conversations. Many of us are working from home so it should be easier to leave political conversations. Kindly excuse yourself from conversations discussing the election by stating you have a lot of work to do. Keeping your mind occupied is a way to stay engaged and focused on your work-related tasks.
Avoidance
Some coworkers just can't take a hint. If you work with a person like this, then use the avoidance technique. Let them know, politely; you don't like to talk politics at work. Or, similar to the example above you can defer to being too busy to discuss politics. You can say, "Hey, I really need to finish this report, Can we talk later?" They won't disagree because they know work comes firsts.
Concurrence
Another quick way to diffuse, what could be a possible disagreement, is by agreeing with the coworker. Even if you are adamant about your point of view, agree with them anyway. They will most likely have nothing more to add to the conversation as long as you don't add anything further.
Limit media exposure
Staying tuned in to the media might seem like a good idea, but it's not. I understand you don't want to miss anything, and staying tuned in seems like the only option. However, whether you tune in or not, you will end up knowing what happened eventually. If you still feel you are going to miss out on something, set a time restriction. Most phones allow you to limit the time you spend on social networking applications as well as the internet.
Take the day off
I don't recommend taking a day off to see who will win this election because we may not know for days, weeks even. But if worst comes to worst, take a mental health day and distract yourself from the chaos we are all experiencing. It's better than going to work and not being able to perform your daily job functions.
Your election anxieties will soon pass. All you have to do is endure until it's over, and soon everything will be back to normal—or as normal as it can be.
If you need help getting through these stressful moments, I suggest talking through it with friends and family.
Until next time, stay Savage.
Eric Malo
Resident Blogger
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