4 Ways to Manage Your Mental Health Over the Holidays (and Beyond)

Perhaps you’re one of the many people who, as soon as they notice the first holiday decorations go up (and they go up earlier and earlier each year), they feel a ball of anxiety or dread start to form in their stomachs.

The fact is that, even under the best of circumstances, nearly 9 out of 10 people in the United States report that the holidays lead to added stress in their lives. Furthermore, 3 out 5 Americans feel that the holidays affect their mental health in a negative way.

At LaSante Health Center, our team of skilled and experienced healthcare providers includes mental and behavioral health specialists who understand the deeper issues behind the holiday blues.

So if you’re among the millions of Americans who struggle with mental health issues like depression or anxiety, read on for some coping strategies that can help you this year and beyond.

Stay connected, on your own terms

If you’re anxious about the holidays, bear in mind that your anxiety revolves around something that hasn’t happened yet. Instead of making decisions based on this anxiety or dread, which aren’t based on anything real, we want you to go in with an open mind. 

Staying connected during the holidays is important, and we caution against isolating. That said, putting a smile on your face when you’re not feeling all that cheerful can be exhausting, so you want to do the holidays at your own pace. 

Establish balance during the holidays — make the effort to engage, but if you start to feel depressed or anxious, leave early or bow out of one of the many events.

Practice mindfulness over the holidays

As we just mentioned above, many of us get stressed, anxious, or sad about things that haven’t happened yet. And they likely won’t. So stay out of a negative what-if mindset and focus on the present, the here and now. 

Some practices to ground you and keep your mind in the only place that’s real include:

• Meditation — you can find guided meditations all over the internet
• Deep breathing exercises, such as box breathing — inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, and hold for 4 seconds
• A walk out in nature where you focus on everything around you and not your thoughts

For more mindfulness ideas, click here.

Exercise is important

There’s an expression that we love when it comes to mental health: Move a muscle, change a thought. Mental health issues lead to negative thinking patterns in your brain, and they can get stuck in this pattern, especially when you add holiday stress.

If you do a little exercise each day, such as that meditative walk we referenced earlier, this movement gets your brain unstuck and onto healthier mood regulation pathways.

Get a holiday plan in place

If you’re worried about your mental health over the holidays, come see us beforehand so we can come up with your own personal plan of action. We can review some great de-stressing techniques and make sure you have the resources you need to get through the holidays.

If you head into the holidays with a plan already in place about how you’re going to take care of yourself and your mental health, we can promise that you’ll feel less stress.

To get started on your holiday mental health plan today, we invite you to book an appointment online or call us at our Brooklyn, New York, office at 718-246-5700.  

We serve the Flatbush and East Flatbush, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Little Haiti, Little Caribbean, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens communities.