How to Prepare for the Holidays

With the holidays coming up, many of us are excited to visit with family and celebrate. However, experiencing higher levels of stress during the holiday season is also very common. Between the pressure to be “perfect,” keeping up with holiday demands, and spending time with difficult family members, it’s no wonder that stress, anxiety, and depression creeps up on us. If you are dreading this holiday season, you are not alone. Today, I will share some tips that may help you get through this time.

• Acknowledge Your Feelings

  A great first step to take is to be real with yourself about how you feel about the holidays. It’s okay and normal to have mixed feelings. You can be excited for hot chocolate and days off from work but feel anxious about seeing your parents. You can be happy to spend time with your kids but feel stressed about the demands of the holidays. This time of year can trigger lots of different emotions for each person, so take some time to ask yourself honestly how you are feeling.

• Set up a Foundation for Feeling Good

  If you know the holidays is a stressful or depressing time for you, you can set yourself up with a solid foundation to feel better. This can mean staying on track with healthy habits like getting enough sleep, drinking water, eating your fruits and veggies, and being mindful of your alcohol intake. Plan time for yourself to do the stuff that makes you feel good (from volunteering for indigenous rights, going for a walk, playing video games, or taking a hot bath). Setting yourself up with this foundation will make it easier to cope when negative feelings or experiences come up.

• Be Realistic

  Set realistic expectations for the holidays. If you dream of a picture-perfect family get together, ask yourself if you are setting your expectations too high for yourself and your family members. Accept that things and people may be imperfect during these times. Imperfection is human, healthy, and normal. So if things don’t go exactly as you planned (the turkey burned, you argue about politics, or your family trauma gets triggered), take a breather and remind yourself that it’s okay.

• Put Yourself First

  Seems counterintuitive when the holidays are about giving thanks, celebrating family, or doing good for others. But, if you put everyone else first, you will end up feeling resentful and overwhelmed throughout the holiday season. Practice setting boundaries as you need them, saying no to commitments that you can’t reasonably fit in, and making sure your needs are honored just as much as everyone else’s.

• Take Breaks

  Taking breaks is essential; Whether you are stressed out during a get-together and need a 15-minute break to breathe, or are feeling totally booked up every day with activities and need a day or two to just veg out and spend time alone. It can be helpful to schedule blocks of time in the next coming months for breaks and also plan out how you will take breaks during events if you need to. It’s not selfish to take a bit of time for yourself to restore your calm before getting back to the festivities.

• Reach Out for Support

  Despite our best efforts, we still may feel sad, anxious, irritable, tired, and hopeless during the holiday season. This makes it difficult to keep up with our daily living and especially holiday events. If you need extra support, reach out to friends or family who you can trust to help out. Maybe cooking the entire thanksgiving meal is too much and you can outsource all the side dishes, or maybe you just need someone to vent to. If you are working with a therapist and need extra support, don’t feel afraid to ask for it.

The holidays are a time for gratitude and being jolly. Unfortunately, many of us don’t feel particularly jolly during this time of year. Hopefully this post provided some helpful tips to help you keep away the holiday blues. I’ll be taking my own advice and taking a break for thanksgiving, so this will be my last post for November. I wish you all the best during this holiday season (however you choose to celebrate) and I’ll be back in December!