MINNEAPOLIS — While many woke up to election results feeling the doom and gloom, others saw sunny days ahead.
Dr. David Nathan, a psychologist with Allina Health, says he has had a busy morning.
"I'm sure its been a busy morning for lots of people who work in the mental health field," he said.
Nathan said that whether you have strong feelings of happiness or sadness, it's important to not allow that to cloud your relationships with loved ones.
"What I would recommend doing is that people do things to relax," he said. "Do things to help help them feel a little bit less stressed out."
Nathan said that if you feel like conversations may lead to a fight, now may not be the time to talk politics with loved ones.
"If you're talking to somebody and there's going to be disagreement and there's going to be unpleasantness, this is not the time to do that," he said. "Because if someone's already feeling bad, this is going to make it much, much worse."
Howard Lavine is a political science professor at the University of Minnesota. He says even though this election may be as divisive as ever, we should remind ourselves we have more in common than we think.
"We tend to see our political others, political opponents, as holding more extreme policy preferences than they actually do," he pointed out.
Braver Angels is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to bridging the divide. Its cofounder, Bill Doherty, has been giving talks the past week titled 'Managing the Aftermath of the Election.'
"It's, how do we show up in victory, gracious victory." he said. "And then how do we show up in defeat?"
Doherty is also a professor emeritus with the University of Minnesota in the department of Family Social Science.
He said those who consider themselves winners this election cycle, and those who consider themselves loser both have lessons to learn.
"How you treat those you've defeated is going to have some role in how they treat you when they defeat you later," he said. "Have some perspective on the fact that we have to, in some way, move forward together as a people when we're so divided. Don't do anything to increase the division."
He said on the other side, it's important for folks to accept results they don't like.
"Try to instead find other areas of common ground to work on," he said.