The holiday season can bring plenty of challenges to our mental health and emotional well-being. These range from tensions caused by family get-togethers to financial constraints and increased demands on an individual to create the ‘perfect’ holiday. These feelings are compounded for quite a number of us during the holidays, which can add to our levels of loneliness, anxiety, or sadness. However, taking these measures in advance can hopefully help secure your mental health, bracing you for the holiday adventures that are soon to come.
Here’s how to protect yourself from holiday stress while having fun.
1. Manage your Expectations
A great deal of stress can be experienced during holidays, especially when trying to manage the requisite levels of expectation that seem impossibly high. Social media platforms like Instagram make celebrating holidays seem glamorous as families post holiday pictures of expensive gifts and happy faces. However, such perfect pictures are rare in real life, and the holidays aren’t about glitzy events or lavish gifts; they are about spending time with family and friends, the ones you love most.
What you can do:
•Pay attention to what is important to you, and do not worry about everyone else’s concerns. Aka, don’t doomscroll your way through the holidays.
•Do not expect everything to go perfectly because that won’t happen. The holiday season is not defined by the last dish prepared or what was changed at the last minute; it’s about the quality of time you spend with those who matter most.
• discuss with family and friends what you will do in terms of effort and time and what you will participate in. Set boundaries, but stay open and very open if you can to be helpful.
Reducing expectations helps avoid disappointment in the first place and makes living in the moment easier.
2. Surround Yourself With Things That Make You Happy
Holidays are always the busiest period of the year, filled with parties, shopping, and other activities one must prepare for. During these stressful times, it is easy to forget oneself. However, taking time for self-care and replenishing yourself is very important.
Ways of self-integrity:
•All daily routines, including sleep, exercising, and eating, should be done without fail.
•Engage in affordable festive activities that do not require too much time and space during which hobbies can be pursued.
•To avoid feeling overwhelmed by all the busyness and chaos, practice mindfulness or meditation.
Simple acts, like walking outside daily or taking just five minutes to sit with a warm cup of tea, can help people regenerate their emotional batteries.
3. Generate and Maintain Boundaries in Your Relationships
The festive season is a time of joy and for people to come together and combine people with different ideals, expectations, and personalities. Without boundaries, this could quickly escalate into misunderstandings and fights.
How to generate boundaries:
•Say ‘No’ in a polite manner to those events and obligations that are distressing.
•Reduce the hours spent in places that do not boost emotional health, as these are very draining.
•If it becomes necessary to create contact of any kind no longer, then make a conditions essay in advance explaining why.
One should feel comfortable saying ‘no’ and understanding that it is natural. One should not prioritize public perception over one’s mental stability.
4. Economy and Budget
Many people enjoy the holidays because they are a time to relax and enjoy themselves. Still, holiday expenditures can also cause financial stress due to the advancement in the price of items, especially gift buying, parties, and travelling events, which cost a considerable amount of money to finance.
Recommendations on how to manage financial difficulties on these holidays:
•Try to set a budget on what you are willing to spend on gifts and avoid going overboard. These gifts do not have to come at a hefty price for them to be appreciated – memories, experiences, strength, creativity, or simply the effort put into something can mean a lot.
•With the calendar saying it is the holidays, have an autonomous budget planned for the holidays that reflects your financial well-being.
• Remember the essence of Christmas: be relatively frugal when applicable. This time of year is far from about spending money on heterogeneous items.
Controlling the amount of money, you can spend, or the financial goals you can achieve will remove some of the worries everyone with a particular focus on this life should have. It will allow you to rest easy and be ready to get on with the more essential things that you love or need to do.
5. Remain Linked
Some people structure holidays in a way that is comfortable for them, but the stress comes from being alone, usually when you lose a friend or a relative. These emotional issues can affect you mentally, so it’s wise to maintain connections with other people.
Methods in which this can be done include:
•Establish contact with friends, relatives, or social organizations. One phone or even a video call can bring a smile and contentment.
•Alternatively, engaging in volunteerism can allow you to help those around you. Any form of kindness can permeate what some call the purpose to be and, ultimately, make the world a better place.
•Different internet platforms can be beneficial when trying to meet people. These can include social networks where one actively makes posts, mainly focusing on the holidays or when visiting new places, attempting to make further relationships in person or virtually.
If feelings of isolation remain, consider contacting a therapist or counsellor for help.
6. Family Issues Management
Family get-togethers can sometimes revive past family issues. Shielding these concerns from overexposure can help avoid family feuds and keep your peace of mind intact.
How to strategize and manage family issues:
•Do not bring up trivial issues such as politics or past disagreements during family bonding times unless you want to open a can of worms.
•Try being more optimistic and picture the positives about your family members instead of focusing on the bad.
•If you feel that things are not okay, have a plan “B,” like going to a corner or stepping out to the open air or the parking lot to cool off and gather your thoughts, even if love must do much agreement and understanding with family members.
7. Practicing Thankfulness
What better time to reflect on and appreciate the things in life than during the holiday festivities? A consistent correlation exists between gratitude and better mental health, including greater emotional well-being and decreased stress levels.
How to go about it:
•Keep a gratitude diary where you mention three daily things you are grateful for.
•Use thank you notes that they mean what they say, or speak the kind words to those around you.
•Also beautify the little things of the season, such as the beautiful decorations, fantastic food, or even laughing moments.
Gratitude is like a switch that can help activate a positive outlook and make the present moment more enjoyable.
8. Restrict Yourself From Excessive Behaviour
Food, Drinks, and Spending Money During the Holidays. Many find it challenging to restrict their behaviour during the holidays, which can affect them physically and mentally in the long run.
Suggested ways to wing off overindulging:
•You should keep your drinking in check since it usually does not help with depression and anxiety.
•Making unhealthy food an occasional treat, not a regular pattern that requires eating right afterward.
•Posting on social media can induce ‘FOMO,’ which can lead to post-holiday financial difficulties, so make sure you write everything down.
You can avoid overextending yourself and enjoy the sights and sounds of the season.
9. Be Willing To Adapt
Last-minute things like flight cancellations or changes or searching for a specific book could take time and ruin the holiday season, so having a flexible attitude here can help reduce stress.
How to maintain your inner peace:
•Learn and practice not to micromanage and try and control everything rather than figure out what is in or out of the scope.
•Carry duplicate things like phones or chargers, at least while travelling.
•Linked with the last point, try to forget about set plans and see how natural events unfold.
Self-control allows you to be in the moment, and even though things go in an unexpected direction, you will still enjoy them.
10. Seek Professional Help if Needed
Persisting with feelings of sadness or stress over time can help you seek professional help. Therapy or counselling can provide powerful tools and support to navigate the stress of the holiday season.
When to seek help:
•When you feel overwhelmed or unable to handle your routine or day-to-day activity.
•When you feel that some changes have occurred in sleep, appetite or mood over the past weeks.
•When you are expressing thoughts of self-harm or feeling hopeless.
Always remember that calling for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
11. Create Your Traditions
Traditions seem to unbalance holiday stresses rather than comforts, so create festive traditions emphasizing your core values and principles.
Examples of the new tradition:
•Organize a “Friendsgiving” or meet close friends for an informal dinner.
•Write down a certain period and spend it doing something you love, such as your hobby.
•Use the whole day to help, volunteer, or do something for your society.
This creates new traditions, but celebrating holidays with new traditions makes everything more meaningful.
12. Living in the Here and Now
With everything else going on during the holidays, it can be easy to get worked up about what will happen in the future or even slate ourselves about things that failed to get done previously. There is no right or wrong for thinking about earlier or future events, but practicing mindfulness can strengthen oneself and genuinely experience the now.
Some practices of mindfulness include:
• Calming the mind by doing breathing during stressful situations.
• Understanding the sights, sounds, and scents characteristic of the season.
• Ensuring participation in conversations and activities without multitasking, for instance, leaving your phone off.
Seasonal FOMO will not be an issue thanks to the myriad of pleasures it will bring, plus stress levels will be lower, thanks to self-control.
13. Allow Yourself Some Space, and There is a need to be Kind to Oneself
Last but not least, one needs to practice kindness toward oneself. The holidays can be exhausting, and it is perfectly normal to experience a rollercoaster of sentiments.
Some ways of self-compassion include:
– Comparing one’s experience of the holidays with others.
– Settle any guilt regarding so-called failures or misdeeds on their part, or otherwise clear one’s head of the episode altogether.
– Letting go of prejudices and treating oneself like a friend introduces room for healing and acceptance.
Allowing yourself to be good to yourself is essential as it paves the way for self-compassion and peace.
Protecting your mental health during the holiday season is praiseworthy. Most people don’t think of breaking traditions, so boundaries, self-care, and essentialism can make the holiday season much more pleasant. Most importantly, the best present for yourself and others is a saner, more balanced mind.
This holiday season, prioritize your well-being and create moments of peace and connection that will last far beyond the festivities.
markmunroe
Founder, CEO at ADDICTED Media Inc
Mark Munroe is the Creator and EIC of ADDICTED. He's ADDICTED to great travel, amazing food, better grooming & probably a whole lot more!
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