With the holiday season approaching, mental health can sometimes be placed on the back burner with life-stressors becoming amplified. While the holidays can be a time of celebration, joy and spending it with loved ones, it can also be a time of stress, sadness, and loneliness for others.
Here are some ways to take care of yourself during the holiday season!
Acknowledge your Feelings
To prioritize mental health during the holidays, the first step is to acknowledge your feelings. It is okay to not feel festive or cheerful all the time! There is this huge pressure to be happy during this season and we might push our feelings aside to try to feel the holiday spirit. But, it is okay to not be cheerful, we’re only human! It is important to acknowledge and accept your feelings to take care of yourself during this busy time.
Practice self-care
Take care of yourself during this busy season! Be intentional with scheduling time for activities that make you feel good. Activities can include reading a book, going to the movies, listening to music or going on walks with your pet! It is okay to prioritize alone time during this time where we spend a lot of time with others, sometimes we need to recharge our social batteries.
Practice Gratitude
Research shows that taking time to be grateful can improve your overall well-being, increase
your resilience, improve sleep hygiene, reduce stress, help strengthen your relationships, and increase your overall happiness. Practice gratitude by writing in your journal or notes app on your phone about things/people/places/experiences that you are thankful for. You can also express those feelings of gratitude to others at family gatherings. Another way to show gratitude is through this fun technique called the “gratitude jar”. This is where you show gratitude by writing down things you are grateful for and you put the pieces of paper into a jar. When needing a sprinkle of positivity, you can take from the jar to remind yourself of joys you’ve experienced so far in your life.
Connect with your community
During the holiday season, sometimes you can feel isolated and lonely if you live far away from
family/friends or if there is tension between you and your familial relationships. Find a supportive community by exploring clubs, support groups, local meetups and volunteering to help reduce those feelings of isolation and loneliness. With technology being such a prominent part of our lives, it can help bridge the geographical barriers between you and your loved ones by scheduling a time during the holidays with your family members and/or friends to call or video chat.
Give yourself grace
During the holiday season, it can sometimes be hard to keep up with the expectations from others and ourselves to give the perfect gift or feel like we have to make everyone happy! Practice with being okay that we are not going to make everyone happy and not everything will go according to plan. Give yourself grace and practice recognizing that you can only do what is in your control and we cannot control what others think or feel. Practice self-compassion, know your emotional, financial, and energy capacity, and bring yourself back to the present moment when you feel like you’re not doing enough or feel like you’re not good enough.
Embrace the unpredictability!
Life is unpredictable, and the holidays are no exception. Embrace flexibility and be willing to adapt to changing circumstances. If plans don’t go as expected, try to find the positive aspects of the situation and focus on what you can control.
Remember, prioritizing your mental health is important during this festive but also challenging time of the year. By acknowledging your feelings, practicing self-care and gratitude, connecting with your community, giving yourself grace, and embracing the unpredictability, you can approach the holiday season with more ease!
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