Though a time of joy and celebration for some, for many, the holidays can be a painful and difficult time of the year. If you are struggling during this holiday season, you are not alone!
I’ve included some holiday specific coping strategies to manage increased stress during this time of year.
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Setting personal and professional boundaries
Professional Boundaries
During the holiday season, your time might not feel like it belongs to you. You may feel obligated to spend your time off with family, or the end of year metrics might make you feel guilty for taking time off of work.
It is more important now, than ever during the year, to set boundaries with work.
The first step is taking the time off, but just as important is making a plan to utilize your time off and limit communication to and from work during those designated days. You can set an automatic email reply or set an out of office notice to inform your colleagues of your scheduled time off to limit any pushback on that boundary.
Personal Boundaries
For personal boundaries, this involves knowing your limits, needs, and priorities, and communicating them to those in your life.
This could look like saying no to plans; setting boundaries for plans (ex: “yes, I will come over Sunday but I have an obligation in the evening so I can only stay til 3:00”); or making decisions to gather in spaces that feel safe and comfortable to you.
Personal boundaries can also take the form of financial boundaries, in terms of knowing your limits on spending and communicating those limits in a way that feels comfortable for you. (Ex: suggesting the family Secret Santa will have a price limit, or utilizing your crafts and skills to create home made gifts this holiday season).
2. Utilize your Supports
People, places, and activities can all be supportive, especially during difficult times of the year. Identify who, where and what can make you feel good and supported, and be intentional about scheduling time for these supports.
Whether it is speaking to a friend after a long day to laugh, going on a walk outside in the fresh air, or knitting in a quiet space to calm yourself and mentally relax, think about what will help sooth you when you are faced with additional stress during the holiday season.
If you know you have a stressful day or activity planned (ex: work presentation; forced-family-function) make sure to prepare ahead of time and have a soothing space to return to after your experience.
This could be having comfort food and a movie ready to watch and relax to at home, or scheduling a self-care activity following a difficult day to recover and take care of yourself during heightened periods of stress.
3. Use your internal coping skills
As wonderful as our external supports can be, having internal skills to manage difficult experiences and emotions can be a helpful tool in getting through the holiday season.
When experiencing intense or overwhelming emotions, grounding and distraction techniques can be very useful.
Deep Breathing
One effective type of grounding skill proven to help lower stress involves deep and counted breathing. One of the most popular deep breathing exercises is the 4-7-8 breathing technique.
This count involves breathing in for 4 seconds (noticing the belly expanding), holding the breath for 7 seconds, and exhaling for 8 seconds.
Another technique, is called boxed breathing, which represents a box with its 4 equal counts for 4 seconds each: inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, and hold for 4.
Both of these breathing exercises should be repeated until the body is able to lower its emotional and physical stress levels.
Categories
Sometimes finding ways to distract your mind can be an effective way to calm it from it’s racing thoughts or worries. One mental game you can play, solo in your head, or aloud with another person is called categories.
For this game, you will choose any category and name as many items as you can in it. If you are playing alone, challenge yourself to list as many as possible, and if you’re with someone, keep going until someone repeats one or runs out of ideas.
Some examples of categories are: animals, fruits, colors, cities, books, but get creative with it! Though this may seen silly, being able to take your mind off your worries and focus on something else can be a useful coping skill to have.
4. Create New Traditions
If the holidays bring up difficult memories, and hard-to-navigate family interactions, consider starting new traditions to redefine what this holiday means to you.
This could be doing something completely opposite from your earlier years if repeating old patterns bring up painful memories or trauma responses.
(For example, go out to eat instead of cooking and staying at home or agree to skip the tree and gifts all together).
You are not obligated to carry on tradition when it is no longer healthy for you, and you shouldn’t feel guilty about that.
If family time all together is too stressful or unsafe to navigate during this time of year, think about taking a trip to create new memories and avoid being pressured to see anyone you don’t feel is best for your well-being.
Save up your PTO and book your annual vacation, or look into a weekend getaway in a nearby city you’ve been wanting to explore; the holidays can be a beautiful time for travel!
5. Limit Social Media Intake
Yes, you should consider this tip all year long, but especially during the holiday season when everyone is posting their highlight reel and advertisements are depicting only one type of experience and family dynamic.
For those who are triggered by seeing this type of material, try limiting exposure and consider focusing on media which reduces that risk of pain.
This could mean staying off social media all together, or only watching pre-recorded material on tv to avoid commercials right now.
These photos and videos are not an accurate representation of what the holidays look like for most people and can be very upsetting to see when you are having a difficult experience or your family looks a lot different than the ones you are seeing on tv.
These are just five ways to take care of yourself during this season, but I encourage you to call on any techniques that have helped you cope and manage in years past too!
Try not to judge yourself for whatever helps ease these difficult times and use self-compassion if your holidays look different than others.
Even if your social media accounts make you believe everyone else is happy and you are the exception, know you are not alone, and this article is for any and everyone who struggles during this time of year. You will get through it, as you always do.
