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Tuesday's Health Report: How to fight "Electsomnia"
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BATON ROUGE — Regardless of political preference, the anticipation of the presidential election is causing many to feel heightened emotions that can severely impact sleep.
This phenomenon even has its own name, but there are ways to help manage the symptoms.
Michelle Drerup, a sleep specialist with the Cleveland Clinic, calls it “electsomnia,” insomnia linked with the election season.
Drerup says in her clinical practice, she's seeing more people being triggered with election-related sleep issues.
“The person has difficulty falling asleep and they may be kind of thinking about the election or potentially what the future might look like waking up in the middle of the night and struggling to fall back asleep or even just poor sleep quality,” said Drerup.
It's important to prioritize sleep before you even go to bed by limiting your exposure to social media and election news, which can worsen stress and add to sleep difficulties.
Another priority is being aware of your negative thoughts and challenging them.
“Just try to stay in the moment of where things are at right now,” Drerup said.
Experts say not to focus on the election "what ifs,” but instead zone in on things you can manage.
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