This Election Day, you may have heard, is more stressful than usual. Perhaps you’ve seen various notions floating around online about self-care measures to take while waiting for results to come in — things like cooking a stew or taking a bath or whatever.
All of that is fine, but there is really one simple action to take today that will improve your quality of life significantly and immediately without denying the reality of how fucked up this whole thing is (and how it probably won’t end tonight, maybe not even this week):
We suggest that you log off at exactly 4:30 p.m. and stay logged off until exactly 6:55 p.m.
Why?
- It is a tall order to ask yourself to log off entirely or for long periods of time, given that the outcome of many of today’s electoral races are, let’s just say, significant. For some of us, being online with our fellow travelers of the World Wide Web is even soothing because we speak the same horrible, grating language — like Minions.
- But you also need to take a break for the health of your own eyes, which straining from their sockets, and to animate your brittle bones and to remember that there is a world outside.
- Logging off at 4:30 leaves you at least half an hour of daylight should you choose to leave your home or, at the very least, gaze wistfully out the window at the dying embers of the day.
- Nothing will really happen for the next two-and-a-half hours as polling places are still open around the country. Pundits will still, however, be talking as if they know what is happening, and this is the ideal time to tune them out.
- Take this period to do whatever you can to avoid giving yourself eye strain from staring at the blue screen of your television, phone, or computer. Gather provisions for the evening. Take a shower if you haven’t already. Spend some time staring into the middle distance, jaw slack, brain briefly and blissfully empty. Breathe some fresh air — if it is available where you are.
- You’ll feel refreshed and rejuvenated when glue your eyeballs back onto your devices at 7:00, when polls close in Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, and parts of Florida, and things might actually start happening.
Thank you for your time.
