Written by the Nuvirox Research Team
Key points
- Elections measurably cost people sleep: app data from more than 69,000 users showed U.S. sleep fell by about 13 minutes on the night after the 2016 election, and diary and actigraphy studies of 2020 and 2024 found similar dips.
- For most people the hit is short — sleep tends to rebound within days — but a nationally representative survey found roughly 1 in 6 adults said the 2024 campaign hurt their sleep.
- What helps is mostly behavioral: rationing late-night news, protecting a consistent wake time, and giving your mind a wind-down buffer before bed.
Short answer: yes, election stress really can keep you up — but for most people it's a short, sharp dip rather than lasting insomnia. Population data from sleep-tracking apps, daily sleep diaries, and wrist actigraphy all show the same pattern around major elections: people sleep less and less efficiently in the run-up and especially on election night, then largely recover within a few days. The fair reading is that political anxiety is a real, measurable sleep disruptor, that it hits some groups harder than others, and that the usual stress-and-sleep tools apply — with extra attention to how you consume news after dark.
Why does election season make it hard to sleep?
Because it combines three things that reliably delay sleep: uncertainty, emotional stakes, and a 24-hour stream of new information. Sleep onset requires your brain to downshift from vigilance to safety. When an outcome you care about is unresolved — and updates are arriving on your phone every few minutes — the brain's threat-monitoring systems stay switched on. That's the same machinery behind racing thoughts at night, just aimed at a ballot count instead of a work deadline.
Election nights add a practical problem too: results often arrive late in the evening, pulling people into bright screens, alcohol, and emotionally charged conversation right when they would normally be winding down. Researchers studying the 2020 election found exactly that cluster — more stress, more negative mood, and more drinking travelled alongside the worse sleep.
What human studies actually show
The 2016 election, measured by 69,000 phones. Researchers analyzed 10.5 million geo-located nights from users of a sleep-tracking app across Europe and North America. On the night after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, mean U.S. sleep fell by 12 minutes 49 seconds; the U.K. lost about 16 minutes after the Brexit vote. The share of very short sleepers rose too. Importantly, U.S. sleep bounced back by roughly 5 minutes the following night — a partial rebound that shows the effect was acute rather than chronic [1].
The 2020 election, tracked daily. A study that followed 437 U.S. adults (plus 106 people outside the U.S.) with daily online check-ins compared early October 2020 with the days around the election. Election night brought significantly less sleep and lower sleep efficiency, along with more stress, negative mood, and alcohol use. Disrupted election-night sleep was linked to worse emotional well-being and more drinking the next day. Even non-U.S. participants showed effects. The sample was a convenience sample, not nationally representative [2].
The 2024 election, with wrist sensors. In an 11-day diary-plus-actigraphy study of 186 first-time young adult voters, objectively measured sleep efficiency and positive mood fell in the lead-up to the 2024 election while distress and rumination rose, with the day after the election the low point. Most sleep measures returned toward baseline within days, though mood lagged [3].
The honest counterweight: most people aren't losing sleep. A nationally representative National Sleep Foundation survey of 1,421 U.S. adults found that 17% said the 2024 campaign negatively affected their sleep — meaningful, but far lower than some commercial polls suggest. In other words, about 83% reported no impact [4]. A follow-up survey after the election again found about 17% reporting a negative sleep effect, with the distribution shifting by political affiliation depending on who won [5].
Study snapshot: Anýž et al., 2019 (Social Science & Medicine)
| Data | 10.5 million sleep records from 69,000+ app users |
| Events | Brexit referendum and 2016 U.S. presidential election |
| Main finding | U.S. sleep fell 12 min 49 s the night after the election |
| Rebound | +5 min 9 s the next night — the effect was largely acute |
Who is most likely to lose sleep over politics?
The research points to people who are highly engaged and emotionally invested. A national survey study of political engagement found that younger, more politically engaged, and left-leaning respondents reported the largest political toll during the 2017–2020 period, including lost sleep [6]. After 2024, sleep complaints shifted toward the losing side's supporters [5]. The pattern is intuitive: the effect tracks how much you care and how threatened you feel by the outcome — not which party you support in the abstract.
People who already live with anxiety or insomnia are also more exposed, because election stress lands on a system that is already primed. If you notice the same loop showing up around other stressors, our guide to why anxiety keeps you awake covers the shared mechanism.
How to protect your sleep during election season
Set a news curfew. The clearest modifiable factor is late-evening consumption. Pick a cutoff an hour or more before bed, turn off push alerts for news apps overnight, and check results in the morning. Doomscrolling is especially costly because it pairs emotional arousal with bright, stimulating screens.
Anchor your wake time. If election night runs late, resist the urge to sleep in dramatically. A consistent wake time protects your body clock and helps the rebound researchers observed happen faster.
Go easy on the nightcap. The 2020 data tied election-night alcohol to next-day mood and sleep problems. Alcohol may make you drowsy but fragments the second half of the night.
Park the worry before bed. Writing down what you're worried about — and what, if anything, you can do about it — gives your brain permission to stop rehearsing. It is a simple version of the structured "worry time" techniques used in insomnia therapy.
Plan for the morning after. Studies consistently find the day after the election is the worst day for mood and sleep. Lighten your schedule if you can and avoid high-stakes decisions on little sleep.
What election-season sleep strategies won't do
No routine will make you indifferent to an outcome you care about, and it shouldn't have to. The goal is to keep a few rough nights from turning into a rough month. If sleep problems persist for weeks after the news cycle has moved on — trouble falling or staying asleep at least three nights a week, with daytime impairment — that's worth raising with a doctor, since short-term stress insomnia can become self-sustaining. Seek help sooner if anxiety is affecting your work, relationships, or safety, or if you're relying on alcohol or sedatives to get to sleep.
Frequently asked questions
Is it normal to lose sleep over an election?
Yes. Studies from 2016, 2020, and 2024 all documented measurable drops in sleep around election night. What's typical is a short-lived dip that recovers within days; what's worth watching is sleep trouble that lingers for weeks.
How much sleep do people actually lose on election night?
In the largest dataset, U.S. users of a sleep app slept about 13 minutes less on the night after the 2016 election. Averages hide a wide range: some people lose hours, while most lose little or nothing.
Should I stay up to watch the results?
If you do, plan for it: keep alcohol modest, dim the screens where you can, and still get up close to your usual time. Checking results in the morning is the more sleep-friendly choice, and the outcome won't change based on whether you watched.
Why do I feel more anxious the day after a bad night?
Sleep loss itself raises next-day anxiety, which can compound election stress. We cover that feedback loop in why you feel more anxious after a bad night's sleep.
From Nuvirox
Why we formulated Sleep+ Restore
Election season is a good example of how stress, screens, and late nights stack up. We built Sleep+ Restore as a nightly wind-down formula designed to support relaxation and restful sleep — meant to sit alongside the habits above, not replace them.
Because it's a multi-ingredient formula, talk with your doctor before using it if you're pregnant, nursing, or trying to conceive, or if you take prescription medication — particularly antidepressants, sedatives, blood thinners, or hormonal birth control.
It comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee — long enough to judge it across real weeks of sleep, not a single night.
Learn more about Sleep+ Restore →The bottom line
Elections are one of the few stressors that researchers can watch hit an entire population's sleep on the same night, and the data are consistent: less sleep, lower efficiency, and worse mood around election day, followed by a recovery for most people within days. Protect your sleep with a news curfew, a steady wake time, and a lighter touch with alcohol — and if the sleeplessness outlasts the news cycle, treat it as a sleep problem in its own right.
References
- Anýž J, Bakštein E, Dudysová D, et al. No wink of sleep: Population sleep characteristics in response to the Brexit poll and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Soc Sci Med. 2019;222:112-121. PMID: 30623796. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.12.024.
- Cunningham TJ, Fields EC, Denis D, et al. How the 2020 US Presidential election impacted sleep and its relationship to public mood and alcohol consumption. Sleep Health. 2022;8(6):571-579. PMID: 36280586. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2022.08.009.
- Yip T, Dimagiba E, Zhao Z, et al. The impact of the 2024 election on sleep, psychological well-being, and political cognitive-emotional burden among first-time young adult voters. Biopsychosoc Sci Med. 2026;88(7):582-591. PMID: 42299885. DOI: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000001496.
- Dzierzewski JM, Miller AN, Nielson SA, et al. The impact of the 2024 US presidential election campaign on population sleep: A representative survey from National Sleep Foundation. Sleep Health. 2025;11(4):543-546. PMID: 40425369. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2025.04.004.
- Dzierzewski JM, Erickson AJ, Nielson SA, et al. Sleep health across a major sociopolitical event: National Sleep Foundation surveys before and after the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Sleep Health. 2026;12(2):349-354. PMID: 41654442. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2026.01.001.
- Smith KB. Politics is making us sick: The negative impact of political engagement on public health during the Trump administration. PLoS One. 2022;17(1):e0262022. PMID: 35030195. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262022.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice.