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Boston's Morning Newsletter
3 tips for coping with election stress, according to a sleep and cognition doctor
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
A season of bright mornings are ahead now that the clocks have changed. But if those early sunsets start to get you down, this cute story about bright tropical birds is sure to serve as a positive pick-me-up.
Speaking of staying positive…
Decompress from election stress: It’s hard to believe Election Day is tomorrow. These next few days may feel long — it could be a little while before the presidential race is called — so it’s normal to feel stressed out, according to Tony Cunningham, director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. While conducting a study on mood and stress around the COVID pandemic in 2020, Cunningham and a team of researchers decided to collect data on stress around the election, too. They found (maybe not surprisingly) that some participants lost sleep and consumed more alcohol around election night. This, of course, affects overall health and stress levels. Cunningham shared with WBUR’s Amy Sokolow a few tips to take care of yourself ahead of tomorrow:
- Plan ahead. “Try to set a routine,” Cunningham said. “[It] might be able to help you feel like you’re a little bit more in control, rather than just feeling like things are spiraling.”
- Prioritize your sleep. In the election study, participants reported more naps the day after the election. “It’s very obvious to us that people’s sleep is being affected by the election,” Cunningham said. “The more sleep we are able to get, the better equipped we will be to deal with stressors during this time. If you can put your phone down 20 minutes earlier, that’s definitely for the best.”
- Avoid overconsumption of news: This one’s easier said than done, but Cunningham suggests you don’t spend the next few nights doomscrolling. “There’s research out there that [shows] overconsumption of news actually leads to greater psychological distress,” he said. “I would never tell someone to not be informed or to disengage entirely, but avoid the doomscrolling at 4 a.m. [It] isn’t going to be helping anybody, especially yourself.”
- Counterprogramming: WBUR’s Maddie Browning has compiled a list of events you can attend on election week, if you need a distraction.
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On the ground: As polling centers across the nation prepare to welcome voters, the Department of Justice is dispatching poll monitors to 86 communities across 27 states, including some in Massachusetts.
- Which municipalities will receive monitors? Generally, the DOJ monitors polling centers in communities required to have translators, and multilingual ballots, signage and voting instructions. For Massachusetts, that’s Everett, Fitchburg Leominster, Lowell, Quincy, Malden, Methuen and Salem.
Mass. immigrants’ impact: Some of Massachusetts’ most significant economic sectors are flourishing thanks to immigrants, according to a new study from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. The study comes out as immigration remains a contentious topic in the U.S. Mark Williams, a finance expert and the lead on the study, shared more on his findings with WBUR’s Dan Guzman.
- According to Williams, immigrants supplement an aging workforce in Massachusetts — and help make up for the loss of people who move out of state. (For the 40,000 people who have migrated out of Massachusetts, approximately 51,000 immigrants have moved in.) The study also found immigrants are twice as likely to start new companies.
Don’t light that fire: The crisp nights ahead may seem like the perfect time to cuddle up around a warm fire and roast some marshmallows, but the National Weather Service is asking residents of southern New England to avoid setting flame to anything outside. The region is still at an elevated risk for brush fires, thanks to this continuing autumn dry spell.
- By the numbers: As of Saturday night, there have been a total of 106 reported brush and wildland fires, which have burned approximately 600 acres of land in Massachusetts, according to the National Weather Service. While it’s not unusual for New England to receive fire warnings around this time of year, the duration has been longer than expected. “That is unusual,” NWS meteorologist Frank Nocera told WBUR.
P.S. — MassDOT’s third annual “Name a Snowplow” contest is officially underway! Massachusetts kids in kindergarten through eighth grade are invited to send in their most creative snowplow names for a chance to actually dub one of 12 state-owned plows. (Past winners include “Sleetwood Mac,” “The Mayplower” and “Edward Blizzardhands.”) Submissions close Dec. 6.
