Prioritizing Your Mental Health During the Holidays - Part 1 - Destress Using Coping Skills
by Adam Nash
I know for me, I often look forward to the holidays with some excitement (and a large amount of dread) because time with family and friends can be great or incredibly stressful, or probably both—depending on how well I manage the situation. With this in mind, I wanted to write this small, three part, series on Mental Health Around the Holidays to explore a few ways to get the most enjoyment and the least stress out of your holidays.
Build a De-Stress Plan
I tend to go into the holidays with something of a “hope for the best” attitude wanting to believe that “this year will be different” and “my family has got to be able to act mature this year,” only to be let down year after year. However, one of the best things you can do to help make sure your busy holidays are made a little bit less miserable is to develop a de-stress plan that allows you to take the frustration from your family and turn it down enough in order to avoid telling your family “I’m never speaking to you again”. A good de-stress plan has two major components to it.
Using time between holiday gatherings
Often, people have more than one family gather in a day. They wake up on Christmas day and go to their family in the morning to open presents and eat lunch before heading to their in-laws for dinner and more presents. Having a plan for these gaps in between is a super useful time to lower your stress levels and allow you to have more fun at each gathering.
Using coping skills to keep your stress down in the moment
I have sat at my family dinner table waiting to eat Christmas dinner feeling my frustration and anger grow while feeling like I have no ability to lower my stress and irritation. For me, having a few, go-to, coping skills that I can use in situations that cause frustration around the holidays is super important to allow me to have a more enjoyable time with my family. Below are some coping skills you may want to try if you find yourself in a similar scenario.
Make a list of coping skills
Breathing: How much do you think about your breathing? Probably pretty infrequently. However, studies show that when we get stressed, we start taking shorter, more shallow breaths which keeps us in a state of fight-flight-freeze. To counteract this, my go-to breathing technique is known as the “Physiological Sigh” which involves taking a deep breath in followed by another, shorter inhalation before breathing out slowly and strongly. For a more in-depth explanation, watch this video from Dr Andrew Huberman.
Food and Drink: Often around the holidays (and in daily life, for that matter), I find myself eating way too fast and not even enjoying the food I am eating. Because of this, when I feel my stress getting higher I try my best to slow down and be more mindful of the food I am eating or what I am drinking. In your mind, take note of all of the sensory information you’re experiencing related to your food (what colors are on your plate, what are the different textures in your meal, do different foods cut or scoop differently, do they make any noises like crunching or slicing, how many flavors can you distinguish from one another, how does my body feel as I’m eating?) Take time to enjoy every bite this holiday season. Try focusing on that instead of the family drama being swapped at the dinner table.
Take a Walk: I know it is cold here in Michigan around the holidays, but for me, getting outside for a quick walk when I am stressed out by my family allows me to calm down a little bit before reentering the fray. Science shows that moving your body helps release stress.
Notice the 5 senses information you can take in from your food—sights, textures, smells, tastes, sounds.
There are countless other ways that you can lower your stress levels while around family. These are just a few ideas to get you started!
Know when to use your coping skills
The next step to developing a healthy de-stress plan is to know when you need to take a break to step away to reset. I, now, spend the whole time I am with my family paying attention to my mood and emotions which allows me to know when it is time to take a break and go outside or simply spend time by myself.
Have back-up
The final step is to communicate with the people around you who can support you in following your de-stress plan. Those could be a spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, closest sibling, or a friend who isn’t even at the event that you can call to talk about how things are going for you with following your plan.
Finding times to get away and ways to lower stress in the moment allow you to have a healthier holiday which allows you to enjoy them rather than dreading them. Below, I linked some websites with a bunch of resources. Make a plan for how you are going to manage your stress around the holidays.
Resources
