Tips for Beating Holiday Stress. Therapy in San francisco, California.

The holidays are upon us! Here in North America, between November to January, the holiday season starts with Thanksgiving and continues to Christmas, Hanukkah, and celebrating the New Year. It’s a very different time of the year for us, marked with parties, family gatherings, gift giving, traveling, and eating and drinking in merriment. With all this cheeriness, everyone must be happy and enjoying this time of the year, right? Not always.

The holidays aren’t all about happiness and cheer for everyone.

The holidays can be a stressful time of year for many people, and for some, is a time marked with sadness and hardship. This is not unusual for many reasons.

The holidays can bring up stress, pressure, and overwhelm.

The holidays can be stressful with many of us feeling high levels of pressure to create the perfect holiday experience from buying perfect gifts for loved ones to throwing festive parties and gatherings for friends and family. Parents often feel stressed trying to create happy holiday memories for their children. These pressures and expectations can result in people overscheduling themselves with tasks and activities such as decorating the house, shopping for gifts, writing holiday cards, and preparing holiday meals for lots of people. Suddenly, during the holiday season, there is so much more to do than usual! In addition, individuals and families spend more money during this time of the year which can be stressful for many who might be financially strapped or on a budget, which is most of us!

People with certain challenges struggle even more during the holidays. Holiday parties and gatherings often include alcohol and the pressure or enticement to drink can be especially difficult for alcoholics to resist and cope socially. Introverts and people who get socially anxious have a difficult time coping with all the social expectations at parties and gatherings. On the other hand, there are many people who don’t have family or friends, or who are estranged from their loved ones and spend the holidays alone. For those who have lost loved ones, the holidays are a painful reminder of the loss they feel, and feelings of grief can become even stronger. As a result, many people go through the holidays with feelings of loss, loneliness, and grief.

The holidays coinciding with the end of the year can also remind us of all the things that “didn’t go well” during the year and habits we want to change. This causes many people to focus on the new year as a time to set new goals and make positive changes to get our lives in order, but it can also feel quite stressful and pressuring to feel the need to make these changes.

Do some of these stressful experiences sound familiar during the holidays?

There are some ways to better manage holiday stress.

1.   Practice self-care. Practicing self-care just means taking care of yourself. This starts with taking time for yourself amidst all the demands and expectations upon you. Use this time for yourself to do things that help you feel good and relaxed. This may include going for a walk, meditating, dancing, swimming, taking a nice bath, reading a favorite book, or watching a movie. It’s a time for you that helps recharge your energy. Sometimes there may be so much going on, taking time to reflect on how things are affecting you can help you process your thoughts and emotions and better understand what you truly need. Taking care of yourself also means being realistic about what you can and cannot do so you do not overload yourself and become burned out.

2.   Set healthy boundaries. Setting healthy boundaries helps us to safeguard our time, energy, and resources. Some examples include spending money within your budget when buying gifts, so you do not cause yourself financial strain. It can also include politely declining invitations to gatherings if you’re feeling overwhelmed by everything else, or if there will be people there you may want to avoid.

3.   Plan ahead. With so much going on, it helps to do your best to plan ahead what tasks are on your to-do list, and by when they need to get done. Then you can plan your schedule of how you will accomplish this in a realistic way, and not leave too many things to be done at once which can be overwhelming and stressful. Again, this means being realistic with what you can plan and recognizing where you do and do not have control of what happens.

4.   Prioritize your health. Let’s face it, when we feel healthy, everything else becomes much easier. Make sure to prioritize all the regular important things. Get enough quality sleep each night, get outside, when possible, for fresh air and sunlight, and exercise so your body gets healthy movement. Stick to a healthy diet between celebrations with regular nutritious meals.

5.   Get support. Remembering that we don’t have to do it all alone can really help. Being willing to delegate tasks to others lessens our load and makes it easier to get things done.  

While the holidays can be stressful for many of us, people struggling with mental health challenges often find the holidays can make them feel worse. Many people with depression and anxiety have worsening symptoms during the holiday season and this can be due to the extra stress of the holidays making it harder to cope during this time of year.

FREE therapy consultation in San Francisco, California

If you or someone you know is dealing with worsening depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems, it’s important to recognize when it’s becoming too much and seek professional help by getting therapy. When the holidays are triggering symptoms and depression and anxiety are getting worse, I know the importance of having a safe place to process all that’s going on and I provide skills and tools to help people cope and feel better. I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation. We can talk about what you need and how depression and anxiety therapy in San Francisco, California, can help you.