The holiday season and new year can be particularly stressful and overwhelming for many people. If this rings true for you – you’re not alone. Overwhelming feelings of worry, anxiety and stress can spiral at this time of year and overshadow the potential for happy times.
There are things we can do, and we spoke to one of our therapists who gave us their top tips drawn from their experience of helping clients over the years.
Most importantly, don’t hesitate to reach out for support. Total Wellbeing Luton is here to offer you support – at the end of the phone on 0300 555 4152.
Top Tips for Emotional Wellbeing in December
1. Try to focus on what you can control
Excessive worrying is common at this time of year – and when it gets out of control it can cast a very long shadow over your days and your mood. Whether it’s worrying about jobs getting done – the decorations, the presents, the food, the drinks…. or whether it’s about financial, relationship or family pressures, it’s all too common.
Try to focus on what you CAN control and let the other things go. You can control who you invite over for Christmas, but not how they will behave. You can control how you manage the shopping, but not how people will receive their gifts or what food they may or may not like. Breaking the things you can control into manageable steps will also help.
2. Be realistic with your expectations
It’s common for people to set unrealistic expectations at this time of year. The desire to have a ‘perfect’ time can take over and become an emotional burden. We often hear clients say they ‘should’, ‘must’ and ‘ought to’. The pressure that they ‘should’ bake everything from scratch, buy the children everything on their list, invite everyone in the family over often comes from a desire for perfection that no-one else is expecting. It’s a pressure we put on ourselves.
So, try your best to set realistic expectations and boundaries – ones that will make you happy and that will be acceptable to those you are closest to. They may be a lot less demanding than the pressure you put on yourself.
3. Embrace the power of planning
A feeling of being overwhelmed can result from putting too much pressure on yourself. This can lead to a vicious circle of procrastination and increased pressure. Sometimes this can even lead to panic attacks.
To keep feelings of being overwhelmed under control, try to plan your jobs. Allow realistic time for tasks like shopping and wrapping presents. Break things into chunks – do a little bit each day and try to make it relaxing and fun – have the tv, radio or music on in the background for example.
4. Don’t forget yourself
It’s important at potentially stressful times that we allow time for ourselves – time to just relax or do things that we find restorative. Whatever it is that you like to do to de-stress, make sure you build time into your days for this. This will really help keep feelings of anxiety and stress under control.
5. Finance first
It’s important to be realistic about finances as well as emotions. Don’t add to your pressures by feeling you have to do things or buy things that you can’t afford. Set a budget and a goal to do what’s possible within this – rather than aiming for what you think you ‘ought’ to be doing or buying.
Realistic financial boundaries will stop things spiralling out of control – both your bank balance and your anxieties and stresses.
6. Embrace uncertainty
We’ve all had to face uncertainty straight on this year. The pandemic has brought so many situations that we can’t control into our lives. Embracing uncertainty means focussing on what we can do and what we can control. If you can’t see family or friends, try to think of how you could connect - via Facetime; online quizzes, more frequent phone calls. The problem is that if we think in a certain way, we can end up feeling this way. Yet our thoughts may not be founded on facts and reality. Uncertainty means that we just don’t know – and therefore any worries may be unfounded.
7. Be mindful
Mindfulness can be very helpful for people who find it difficult to cope. Often stresses and worries are not founded in fact – but rather on ‘what ifs’. Mindfulness is a useful technique to teach people to focus on the here and now – both in terms of time and in terms of what we know to be real and true at any given moment.
There are lots of online resources about mindfulness – give it a try!