The moment you start seeing holiday decorations — and they come out earlier and earlier each year — a growing ball of dread or anxiety starts to build inside you. Not to mention stress levels begin to soar as you look ahead to all that you have to do.
If you’re lacking holiday cheer, you’re not alone — a recent poll found that nearly 9 out of 10 people in the United States report holiday-related stress. More worrisome is that 64% of people with a mental health issue, such as anxiety or depression, say that these conditions worsen over the holidays.
If you’re among the millions who struggle with holiday blues, Dr. Diana Ghelber and the team here at the Institute for Advanced Psychiatry want to share some great coping strategies for the added holiday stress.
Anxiety often boils down to worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future and many people with depression or trauma have loss and grief in their pasts. The best way to combat thoughts that are stuck in either the past or the future — two areas over which you have no control — is to stay in the present.
Called mindfulness, this is the overriding goal of practices like meditation and deep breathing that keep you in the here and now. So, instead of worrying about tension with a certain family member at an upcoming party, bring yourself back to the current moment and remind yourself that worrying about something that may or may not happen in the future is interfering with your mood right now.
A great way to get out of negative thinking patterns is to physically move. There’s a great expression — move a muscle, change a thought — that’s simple and true. When you go out for a walk, you can not only get unstuck from negative thinking, exercise also helps by encouraging production of feel-good hormones, like dopamine, that also suppress stress hormones.
Holidays can be a parade of events and you might feel obligated to attend each and every one. The reality is that you should place your mental health first and only participate in holiday gatherings on your own terms.
For example, you don't need to attend everything and nor do you need to stay until the end. If people are lingering after dinner, but you’d rather be curled up at home, it’s OK to leave early.
Please note that we're not suggesting that you isolate yourself completely because connection is important when you’re struggling with mental health. So, we want you to gather with friends and family if that’s available, but you can come and go according to what’s best for your mental health.
If you have a mental health issue and you want to reduce some of your stress and anxiety with alcohol, think again. Alcohol often only serves to exacerbate your negative emotions and sends you on a roller coaster ride that will leave you worse off in the end.
It’s an excellent practice to get together with us before the holidays to come up with a good plan that will safeguard your mental health. We can make sure that you have the resources you need heading in, and we can also boost some of your treatments, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), so that you’re entering the holiday season on more solid ground.
There are many other great practices to combat the holiday blues and we’re happy to share them all with you. To get your holiday plan in place, you can start by contacting our office in Fort Worth, Texas, to schedule a consultation.
