While the holidays can be stressful for everyone, those dealing with depression and anxiety can struggle that much more. About 1 in 5 adults will suffer from mental illness each year and the holidays can create more stress, that triggers or exacerbates those mental health conditions. One of the best ways to alleviate stress is to engage in effective self-care such as eating balanced meals, getting enough sleep, and making sure you have enough downtime.
As the weather is getting colder and the holidays are approaching, more to-dos, deadlines, and social pressures may arise. However, there are many ways to take care of your emotional wellbeing during the holiday season. Did you know, the winter sun in Norway doesn’t rise above the horizon, the days are short and dimly lit. So the Norwegians take the opportunity to create koselig, or a cozy way of living. This tradition means getting under a blanket with a cup of tea and enjoying your time with family and friends peacefully. And koselig must be working as Norwegians have astonishingly low rates of seasonal affective disorder and depression rates during the winter.
The holidays hold a lot of pressure for many. Even if you are looking forward to the lights, food, and festivities during the holiday season, there may also be a lot of stress. Pressure to impress loved ones with the most picture-perfect meal or the greatest gift can lead to stress. Wanting to buy the best gift can lead to strains on a tight budget, and this year, the delays in packages can lead to stress and anxiety that your gifts won’t arrive on time. For many this year, feelings of sadness may also arise from being unable to be close to family during this time. Below are a few things you can do if you find yourself stressed or depressed during this holiday season.
While the holidays may bring up thoughts of spending time with friends, delicious food, and other festivities, for others the holidays can bring up feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression. This year, these feelings may be stronger with many unable to see family and friends. If you’re experiencing stress during this holiday season, below are some coping strategies to manage increased levels of stress, anxiety, and sadness.
As the holidays approach, many struggle with difficulties that can make it a challenge to feel grateful and maintain a positive outlook. However, having a positive outlook has been linked to better ability to problem solve, and overall greater emotional wellness. So why be grateful at all? Well, gratitude enables you to see your life in a larger context beyond immediate problems. Gratitude expands your life experiences and counteracts ego-centered preoccupations with losses, fears, and wants. If you are only grateful when good things happen, it reinforces your ego’s demand for good things, leading to greater disappointment when things do not turn out the way you had hoped.
With the holiday season approaching, as stress and anxiety heighten, it can be helpful to develop more coping strategies to get through particularly difficult moments throughout your day. Mindfulness meditation can be an extremely helpful technique to reduce your stress and anxiety.However, you can engage in these practices even without any formal meditation throughout your day. Below are a few ways to incorporate mindfulness into your daily life allowing you to feel more focused, calm, and at peace.
As we end Halloween and approach Thanksgiving, thoughts of other winter holidays also begin to come up. Planning for all of these holidays and events can bring about panic, anxiety, stress, and a feeling of all the things we “have to” do. These “have to’s” such as cooking, decorating, buying gifts, getting together with others, etc. are the “have to’s” many of us face throughout the holiday season. With so many things to do, these “have to’s” can take a toll on our well-being. But do we really have to do all of these “have to’s”? Not necessarily. There are ways to make sure you find a balance between what you want to do, and what you have to do this holiday season.
As Thanksgiving approaches, the focus on gratitude and being thankful for others comes to mind. The research on understanding the impact of gratitude on health and relationships has also expanded over the last several years. Expressing gratitude on a consistent basis has been shown to positively impact important areas in one’s life including emotional wellbeing, physical health, and connectedness in relationships.
Often we may feel we have to brave through stress and worry, and that this is the only way to tackle the holiday: by grinning and bearing it. While this may seem like the best option in the short-term, when you add up the holidays each year and multiple by the many years you may manage holiday stress, this can seem overwhelming. The holidays are not a mental health sprint, but a marathon thus why not strategize on how to make the most of the holidays. Read below for some tips and tricks to manage stress during the holiday season.
As autumn approaches, the colder weather, shorter days, and busier schedules leave us feeling as though we have less time to accomplish what we want. Additionally, the holidays come closer with the many tasks to prepare as well. Stress comes with the changes the fall brings; it is a natural part of life to experience stress, however we can engage in activities to relieve that to some extent. Self-care can help us reduce the effects stress may have on ourselves. Without self-care, stress builds leaving us overwhelmed, fatigued, down, and physically sick. Self-care is any activity that is healthy and supports emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.
Dating during the pandemic? What are the rules? Is there an etiquette to it? While we currently live in an ever-changing world as social distancing remains at the forefront of much of what we do there are still ways to determine how to date safely and form connections with others, while still practicing social distancing. What are the fears around dating during the time of COVID?
It’s fall, that means it’s pumpkin spice time! It’s everywhere! Coffee creamer, cereal, ice cream, pop tarts, granola bars and more, we see pumpkin spice as an ingredient in almost every item you could imagine. Do you know there is even pumpkin-spice flavored spam? While some may sound more delicious than others, either way pumpkin spice is good for you. There are health benefits to this that we often don’t talk about as we are indulging in some pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls. And while the baked goods may not be the healthiest, pumpkin spice itself has some major benefits.
As the days get shorter, temperatures drop, and we recognize those days of sitting by the pool, or going for a swim are ending, we can sometimes find ourselves feeling anxious. Autumn anxiety has been defined as, “The tendency for people to suffer from low mood or anxiety during the fall months.”. Typically autumn anxiety is triggered by the seasonal changes and occurs annually for those that experience this.
National Pumpkin Day is October 26th, however we seem to celebrate the joys of pumpkin throughout the fall, particularly in October. Whether it be a pumpkin spiced-latte, pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream, there are so many options on the market throughout the fall. While we eat these because they taste good, and bring back positive feelings of fall, there are other benefits to eating pumpkin as well. Read about the amazing health benefits of pumpkin!
We are always changing, and our lives are always evolving. Whether on a small or large scale we are constantly facing various stressors, challenges, different viewpoints and other situations that enact change. Some change occurs because we choose it, or we have some control over it, other times this change is out of our control. How does change impact our goals if we are ever-changing? Settings goals often serves as a motivator, it contributes to our emotional and physical health and allows us to find a sense of purpose. However, we often struggle to keep consistent with the goals we set. It’s so hard to predict what the future holds for each of us, and how our plans might need to shift or can be impacted by potential challenges in the future. While this feels like a lot to take on and consider, one solution to this concern is: goal adjustment..
It is crucial during this time to create healthy boundaries and engage in self-care. This looks different for all whether this be dancing, crafts, cooking, gardening, spiritual or religious practices, and many others. Limiting social media and news activity may be helpful in engaging in self-care, as well as breathing exercises and other mindful techniques to reduce anxiety and process difficult feelings. Self-care is crucial during this time, here are a few resources from the NAMI list of health resources for the black community.
As protestors continue to take to the streets across the country, highlighting ongoing systemic racism, social media is amplifying these messages. Videos and photos depicting police violence toward protestors such as shooting them with rubber bullets, driving cruisers into crowds, and throwing tear gas at protestors can be viewed daily, across social media platforms. According to research, while this imagery shines light on racism and aims to bolster efforts in fighting it, the explosion of content can also cause and reinforce trauma, especially for black people. Trauma and the possibility of symptoms of PTSD can occur due to the accumulation of experiences of racism and discrimination.
It is reported that 20% of Black Americans are more likely to report symptoms of psychological distress than their white counterparts (MHA, 2020). Black teenagers are also more likely to attempt suicide than their white counterparts, and Black Americans are more likely to be victims of serious violent crimes than white Americans - thus leading to symptoms fulfilling criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (MHA, 2020). Racialized trauma plays a large role in these astounding numbers and the ongoing cycle of violence so many experience.
Ongoing media coverage and public outcry among many upsetting incidents across our country have sparked rage, anger, sadness, and action across not only our country, but the world. Conversations around race relations and biases within ourselves and the justice system, against individuals of color have been building and growing. From George Floyd to Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and other lesser known cases such as the beating of homeless grandmother Marlene Pinnock, psychology is an important topic within the discussion on racial inequality and racial biases in America.
