7 Tips To Overcome Holiday Depression
The holidays can bring up a lot of emotions in people, with this year compounded by fears and worries around the pandemic. In a depressed state, many people choose to self-isolate, which only makes matters much worse. The good news is that there is a roadmap out of depression, and it starts with calming your nervous system and activating your intrinsic social engagement networks.
The holiday season seems to bring up every emotion in the book. For some, it's joy and excitement and a sense of new beginnings. For others, it's feelings of longing and sadness and an undertone of anxiety as they wish the whole season would just blow by.
This year, many people are feeling the latter due to the added stress of the pandemic, and the isolation that has ensued.
In this article, we'll outline tips to calm your nervous system to help you navigate the holiday season on your terms with a more open mind and open heart.
Depression And The Holidays
Whether it's the smell of a Christmas tree or the familiar melody of your favorite holiday song, this time of year has a unique way of pulling our attention to the past. Some of the memories that illuminate your consciousness bring thoughts of joy and happiness, while many may bring feelings of sadness and longing for years gone by.
During the holiday season, it's not uncommon to go through a bout of depression. This is especially true if you're someone who already struggles with low mood or depressive symptoms.
When you're feeling low and depressed, the natural inclination is to isolate yourself. This is only compounded by the isolation many people are putting themselves in due to panic and fear around the pandemic.
The result is a never-ending loop of isolation, fear, and depression.
While this may lead to many lonely nights, the real impact of cutting yourself off from the world due to depression and fear hits your nervous system. Prolonged depression can activate your sympathetic nervous system, putting you into a state of fight or flight. In fight or flight, you are constantly activated in a state of fear, unable to relax and connect with others.
When left unresolved, fight or flight can push into freeze or fold, where you are completely shut down and shut off. In the freeze response, you don't know how to move forward; in the fold response, you have given up the will to try.
For many people that are struggling with depression, the thought of attending social gatherings is more than they can bear. If this is true for you, then the first step is to get out of fight, flight, freeze, or fold. Below are some tips to bring your nervous system back into alignment and engage a stronger sense of personal power during the holidays.
Overcoming Holiday Depression
#1 Manage Your Environment
Managing your sensory inputs is one of the most powerful ways to calm your nervous system.
The holidays can be very emotionally triggering for some people due to the constant reminders of the past. Specific songs, movies, holiday light displays, you name it – if there is an emotional trigger, you're more than likely to come across it this time of year.
Furthermore, the bright lights, loud music, and hoards of people running around can push anyone's nervous system into overdrive.
Managing your personal environment can go a long way in reducing the number of emotional landmines you encounter daily. This may look like making your own playlist of music that calms and soothes you to listen to while you drive, finding a great book to keep you entertained, so you avoid turning on the TV, or filling your home with beautiful flowers to decorate in a way that makes you feel grounded.
Perhaps most important of all is to avoid any input and visuals that may trigger a fight, flight, freeze, or fold response – like the evening news. If there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that if something important is happening that you should know about, someone will fill you in.
#2 Watch Out For Sugar And Alcohol
Sugar and alcohol are common pick-me-ups when people are feeling low. Sugar activates the dopamine receptors in your brain, which are your feel-good hormones, while alcohol reduces inhibitions and allows your mind to relax.
Unfortunately, these effects are often short-lived and on the other side, all that's left is worsening symptoms of depression and anxiety, and often a dose of shame to go with it.
The pull to sugar and alcohol is heightened during the holiday season as sweets and cocktails tend to be lurking around every corner. Even in isolation, a trip to the grocery store can shuttle in temptations of holiday treats and festive alcoholic beverages.
While avoiding all alcohol and sugar is not entirely necessary, keeping these indulgences to a minimum will pay dividends as you move through the season, feeling stronger in your resolve and not being pulled down by their adverse effects.
#3 Prioritize Sleep
Holidays or not, keeping a consistent sleep schedule will do more for your mental and physical health than nearly any other lifestyle adjustment out there. Your brain requires a certain amount of sleep each night to process information and memories and allow you to wake feeling refreshed.
Many people that struggle with depression find that getting enough sleep can be a struggle. Instead of throwing in the towel and settling for poor sleep, try some of the below tips to help you get more shut-eye:
Wear blue light blockers in the evening to block out melatonin-disrupting blue light
Turn off electronics two hours before bed (unplug WiFi)
Practice deep breathing exercises in the evening to bring your nervous system into a place of calm (parasympathetic mode).
Try supplements/favorites like Gaba Cream or Dreampad to induce a restful nights sleep (get 20% off when you click that Gaba link)
#4 Set Boundaries And Know Your Limits
Believe it or not, there is a way to experience the holidays without the drama – and the key is to know your boundaries.
Manage your time with family during the holidays by setting your own schedule. Shorten your visit if an entire day with the family always leaves you feeling drained and overwhelmed. You still get to check the box of seeing loved ones without overextending yourself and putting your nervous system through more than it can handle.
Boundaries aren't always just meant for family either. Perhaps you have a holiday party with coworkers or friends or a festive engagement that's meant to spark the holiday spirit, like a cookie swap or ornament-making party.
Whatever the event may be, enjoy it on your terms and cut out when you're done. And if you're not quite ready or don't feel 100% on board with an invitation that comes your way, politely turn it down.
#5 Increase Safe Human Touch
Human touch is one of the most powerful ways to increase oxytocin levels in your body. Oxytocin is known as the love hormone, but its impact isn't just meant for romantic love. Rather, oxytocin helps us feel connected to other people and provides a sense of safety to your nervous system.
We all need to feel connected, but it can be overwhelming when your nervous system is in a heightened stress response. Safe touch can be found in the form of chiropractic adjustments, IV spa for hydration and immune support, and gentle massage.
If you're not ready to allow someone else's touch, you can even begin by doing a self-massage at home with warm oil, which will also stimulate oxytocin release.
#6 Sacred Alone Time
There is a significant difference between isolation and sacred alone time. In isolation, the intention is to shut others out, with sacred alone time, your intention is to touch base with yourself.
If you're finding the need for solitude this holiday season, change how you spend your time when you are by yourself. It doesn't matter what you do, as long as it is somewhat uplifting to your spirit.
Focus on staying even keel by comforting your nervous system through your senses. Light candles that smell good to you, put on music that uplifts your mood, engage in soothing self-massage, take a warm bath with essential oils, or watch movies that make you laugh and lighten your mood.
By setting a new rhythm for your home and body, you change your external environment, which will cause shifts in your internal environment.
If you start to feel emotional, allow your emotions to come through, but try not to lean into isolation too heavily. Even a phone call to a friend can break the cycle of isolation and begin to open you up to interpersonal connection.
#7 Thoughtful Gifts
The idea of gift-giving during the holidays can add an extra layer of stress both financially and in terms of responsibility – how are you supposed to know what each family member really wants?
If your family is open to it, you could suggest a secret Santa that allows each family member to pick out one special present for one person. This can make the gift-giving process much more meaningful as you only need to focus on one person.
You may also want to keep in mind that technological gifts tend to perpetuate isolation, so when possible, avoiding gifts that will send someone off into their own world should be avoided this season. Today more than ever, human engagement is a luxury item, so try to reinforce human connection instead of asking for or giving gifts that will further the divide.
How Brain Harmony Helps With Seasonal Depression
At Brain Harmony, we see many friends that present with seasonal depression. More often than not, seasonal depression is really a symptom of low mood and depressive feelings coming to the surface that has been effectively managed the rest of the year with denial and "plowing through" life.
In other words, it's unlikely that the season itself is cause for depression, but rather it serves as a trigger to unearth feelings that have been rumbling under your conscious awareness for a while.
Our plan for treating depression is a 5-step process, which starts with vagal regulation. As you learned earlier, most people that have been isolating and feeling depressed are in a state of fight, flight, freeze, or fold. The most effective way to pull you out of those nervous system states is to regulate your vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve, which runs all the way from your brain to your gut, is responsible for bringing you into a state of parasympathetic dominance. In this mode, you feel relaxed, safe, calm, and able to connect with other people.
We then move on to fill in any sensory processing issues that may have caused disturbance in your brain-body connection. The root of depression often comes back to unprocessed emotional experiences. Enhancing your sensory processing system allows you to process difficult emotions and strengthen your neural connectivity.
At this point, we can directly target depressive symptoms by adding in high frequencies which elevate your mood, creativity, and executive function. These high frequencies elevate you out of a depressive state and into a more optimistic frame of mind.
The consistent input from our program over several months trains your nervous system of the depressive stage and nudges you gently into a new direction. Unlike a pharmaceutical approach, we are not offering a bandaid to cover up unwanted feelings. Rather, we are retraining your brain so that you can leave the past in the past.
Takeaway
It is not at all uncommon to feel intense emotions and depressive symptoms during the holidays.
However, learning how to maneuver throughout December and the New Year with new routines, perspectives, and empowerment can make a world of difference. Consistently participating in activities or thought patterns that feel good grows connections in your brain that allow for parasympathetic activation and more mature and resilient responses.
You can master mood elevation during the holidays by figuring out what works for you and what doesn't and then repeating what works until it is second nature.
If you are interested in learning more about how Brain Harmony can help you during the holidays and beyond, contact us today for a Free Consultation.