Your side might lose. But you don’t have to lose your mind.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, and Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, are locked in an extremely close race. With Election Day less than two weeks away, many Americans are feeling anxious and overwhelmed.

At the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on Tuesday, journalist Eugene Scott, currently a Fall 2024 Fellow at the Institute of Politics, asked analysts how people who care about politics and the election outcome can remain engaged without harming their mental health.

John Della Volpe, director of polling at the IOP, which conducts the biannual Harvard Youth Poll, noted stress among 18– to 29-year-olds about the state of the world, along with persistent doubt that current political and economic systems will help them.

“Young people today feel this insecurity and instability about the future,” he said. “They feel like all of the problems that older generations have are trickling down to them.”

Across the political spectrum, voters have expressed frustration and exhaustion, said pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson of Echelon Insights.

“It just feels like the stakes are very high,” she said. “And at the same time, people feel powerless. They feel like those who wish to do them harm have been increasing in their power and ability to harm them, and that’s led some people, particularly those who are consuming the most information about politics, to feel the most anxious” about the consequences the election outcome might mean on their everyday lives.

Whether reality-based or manufactured, fear has long been understood to be an effective turnout tool.

“I think in this election, there’s just a lot of selling fear, and that even people who will say, ‘The other side is out there fearmongering,’ then turn around and do it themselves,” Soltis Anderson said. “They catastrophize what the other side taking power would mean.”

Political anxiety, which psychologists now recognize as a discrete condition, has a significant effect on mental health, which in turn deeply impacts physical health, so, “Yes, this a public health crisis,” said Chris Chanyasulkit, former president of the American Public Health Association.

One simple way to reduce election anxiety is to stop “doomscrolling,” said Chanyasulkit.

“Do not go to bed at night with your phone and reading — it’s terrible. Do not wake up first thing in the morning and reach for your phone to see what’s going on. None of that is good because you’re getting inundated” with outrage tailored to keep users on these platforms. “That’s so not healthy.”

Political engagement doesn’t inevitably lead to anxiety; it can have positive and empowering impacts on people. Research has linked voting to better mental health and better health outcomes overall, said Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation.

And political engagement can include other activities beyond voting, like protesting or running for office, Allen said. Where those pursuits can have detrimental effects on mental health is when people don’t feel tightly connected to others while participating, she said.

“There is this kind of tension between conflict and connection, and that really, I think, is at the core of the question of how we process political anxiety,” Allen said. “Are we processing it in mainly a conflict mode or are we taking the opportunity of engagement to connect with others and do positive work for our communities?”

Generation Z, a key voting cohort in 2024, faces mental health stressors shaped by damaging events during their lifetimes, like the recession of 2008-2009, school shootings, and COVID-driven social isolation, Della Volpe said.

Because they don’t get news from traditional sources, Gen Zers often don’t hear about the good things government has been able to accomplish, which fuels a cycle of negativity, anxiety, and hopelessness.

“That’s why I think it’s so important … for all of us … to remind younger people that things do get better,” he said. “Things have gotten better because of younger people.”