Helpful Tips for Holiday Stressors
The holiday season can bring lots of joy, connection and excitement, however it can also mean high expectations and disappointment. Spending more time than usual with family members can be challenging and lead to volatile emotions.
Some simple tools or skills from the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) frameworks can be helpful to try.
STOP: Stop, Take a step back, Observe the situation, Proceed mindfully
Take a pause before reacting – perhaps count to 10, breathe 5 times in and 5 times out, focus on feeling your feet on the ground
Consider the whole situation – what else is going on? what is the bigger picture? what is the background situation?
Reflect on how to respond effectively – what is your important goal here, what do you want to achieve?
TIPP: Temperature, Intense exercise, Paced breathing, Progressive muscle relaxation – if feeling quite distressed
Use a temperature change to regulate your emotions – splash cold water on your face, drink iced water, hold ice cubes for a moment, even have a shower if you can.
Use a short burst of intense exercise to release stress hormones – do some star jumps, walk briskly around the block, skip rope.
Do some calm breathing to soothe your nervous system – use an app like Calm or Breathe, or just focus on lengthening your out-breath and perhaps pairing this with a mantra like “relax” or “calm” or something similar.
Scan your whole body, starting with your toes – focus on tensing (on an in-breath) and then relaxing (on an out-breath) each set of muscles from your toes and feet, legs, stomach and torso, shoulders, arms and hands, until you end with scrunching up your face. Then tense your whole body and relax it completely.
Self-compassion (rather than self-criticism):
Notice that this moment is challenging and allow that difficult feeling to exist without magnifying or minimising it.
Know that others also experience challenging and difficult moments, to reduce feelings of isolation and increase feelings of connection and support.
Be kind to yourself. Consider what would be helpful right now (or later, if you can’t do it now) – use your five (external) senses as a prompt (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting).
Wishing you a safe and enjoyable holiday period from all of us at Dr Amanda Hale Clinical Psychology. We look forward to supporting you with improved mental health next year.
