Holidays & Mental Health
The holidays can feel less than joyous for many people who have anxiety. A packed schedule, a to-do list that seems to constantly grow, and the social and societal pressures of the season taxes your nervous system. There’s an ignitable energy around the holidays that can combust if you’re not prioritizing your needs (read my blog, Your Needs First). This year I’m encouraging you to celebrate the holidays your way so that you can enjoy the season while taking care of your mental health.
Even though the holidays have become overridden with consumerism and consumption, there is still so much magic and beauty to witness. However, it’s difficult to enjoy the holidays when you’re feeling anxiety.
On my path to heal anxiety, I noticed that there were certain triggers during the holidays that worsened my mental health. Learning to be aware of them allowed me to celebrate the holidays in a way that was comfortable for me and supportive of my nervous system. Below I’ve outlined five things that can trigger anxiety during the holiday season.
5 Anxiety Triggers During the Holidays
1. Overwhelm
A packed schedule alone is enough to make you feel overwhelmed. Pressure to attend every holiday social gathering, feeling like you need to do extensive baking, having to travel extensively during the holidays, participating in every holiday activity, and the expectations of gift giving can be overwhelming. Add in the other triggers below and feelings of overwhelm become magnified. Feeling overwhelmed is abrasive to your nervous system and adds extra adrenaline to your body. My blog Moving Through Overwhelm: 5 Steps goes into more detail about feeling overwhelmed, how it affects anxiety, and how to move through it.
2. Inauthenticity
People who have anxiety are generally more sensitive to anything that is inauthentic, such as social gatherings where there’s a lot of idle conversations, contact with distant relatives and people you don’t have deep relationships with, and obligatory gift giving. Inauthenticity is exhausting because you feel like you can’t let your guard down.
Your nervous system is working overtime to keep you safe from any perceived threats and anything that’s not authentic feels like a threat, causing you to feel ill at ease in these situations.
3. Exhaustion
Even though exhaustion and overwhelm can feel similar they are different. Exhaustion is extreme fatigue whereas overwhelm is feeling completely engulfed by an emotion or thought. Prolonged feelings of overwhelm can lead to exhaustion and vice versa, exhaustion makes you more prone to feeling overwhelmed. Exhaustion is usually a trigger for people who are prone to anxiety, and it’s a sign that your adrenal glands are depleted. Feeling overwhelmed and being around inauthentic people or situations is draining. Busy schedules also create exhaustion since there’s little downtime for rest and recuperation. Exhaustion also makes you more susceptible to other people’s energy and narratives instead of your own. When I’m exhausted, I tend to go down the worry rabbit hole which usually leads to anxiety.
4. Harsh Energy
Despite the peace, love, and joy messages of the holiday season, there is a lot of harsh energy going around, too. During the holidays, some people run on autopilot, ready to lash out at anyone who happens to stumble in their path. Even if you don’t interact with people who are in a holiday frenzied mode, just being near them or witnessing their behavior can trigger anxiety. Additionally, all the holiday marketing campaigns ceaselessly promoting their agendas is another form of harsh energy that can feel overwhelming and draining during the holiday season too. Harsh energy is also created by other people’s holiday expectations in addition to your own. In the past, I’ve put an insane amount of pressure on myself for a “perfect” holiday. Harsh energy feels like sandpaper in your body and it grits away at your nervous system.
5. Drama
Drama piggybacks on the harsh energy trigger above. Sadly, the holidays can bring out the worst in some people. I’ve noticed that certain family members become especially toxic during the holidays and they thrive on drama. Being around these people is a sure trigger for anxiety, causing my body to go into fight or flight mode. Drama during the holidays (or anytime) is another form of harsh energy that feels overwhelming and takes a toll on your nervous system, completely exhausting you.
Knowing what can trigger anxiety for you during the holidays can help you make adjustments to protect your mental health. Taking care of your needs during the holidays allows you to comfortably celebrate the holiday season on your terms. You deserve to enjoy the holidays too. Below are five ways to counteract the five triggers listed above.
5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health During the Holidays
1. Paring Down and Simplifying Your To-Do List
To move out of overwhelm during the holidays, trim your to-do list. Do you have to go to every holiday gathering or event? Can you eliminate anything that feels like obligatory? Keep the events and activities that not only make you feel safe and comfortable but also bring you joy. Cross off anything that you know will make you feel on edge or anything that feels compulsory and instead choose to be around people and events that nurture you. Also, give yourself permission to not be perfect or do things perfectly. Ask yourself how you can simplify things. Can you buy the cookies instead of making them yourself? Instead of searching for the perfect gift, can you buy a gift card? Make choices that take the pressure off you.
2. Continual Self-Care
For many people self-care drops off during the holidays due to the busyness of the season. However, self-care is needed most during the holidays, to ensure that you feel your best and keep you out of exhaustion. Self-care also protects your adrenal glands from getting burnt out. Continual self-care includes getting plenty of sleep, exercising, eating well (not perfectly) while enjoying the occasional treat, limiting alcohol and caffeine (both produce adrenaline), hydrating, meditating, and limiting screen time. If it’s not too cold, getting out in nature can be therapeutic too.
3. Downtime
Downtime is especially helpful during the holiday season. It allows you to pause and soak in the holiday season and truly appreciate the magic that’s unfolding. It gives your body and mind a reprieve so that you can recharge your batteries before moving onto the next holiday event. Downtime also allows you to carve out time for your hobbies, to catch up with your loved ones, to read a book, or just curl up on the couch and watch your favorite holiday movies. Think of downtime as “you time” when you’re not socially on or running around. You get to spend time being you.
4. Boundaries
What boundaries can you instill that protect your health, mental wellbeing, time, finances, and energy during the holidays? What boundaries do you need to ensure you’re also enjoying the holidays? After my husband and I got married, we decided that we would spend Christmas at our place every year. Not traveling for the holidays is a boundary we enforce, as we’ve recently extended this boundary to also include Thanksgiving. Another boundary for us is no longer allowing toxic family members over to our house for the holidays. That may sound harsh, but it’s necessary for my mental health as well as my family’s. Some other boundaries can include how many holiday events or family gatherings you will go to and who you’ll buy gifts for. Consider your time, energy, and budget when creating your boundaries. My blog, Open Hearts, Open Minds, talks more in depth about boundaries.
5. Permission to Feel
If you are feeling overwhelmed or experience feelings other than happiness and joy during the holiday season, know that this is normal. Even though the holidays can be joyous, they can also trigger not only anxiety but other emotions too. Give yourself permission to feel whatever it is you’re feeling. The expectation to feel only cheerful during the holidays puts a lot of pressure on you and is unrealistic.
This holiday season, I’m encouraging you to set yourself free. Free from the expectations of others. Free from the societal norms of the season. Free yourself so that you can experience joy during the holidays.
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My book Bold Trust – 6 Steps to Unravel the Long-Term Effects of Gaslighting, Unapologetically Trust Yourself, and Heal Anxiety is now for purchase here.