How to survive this particularly stressful holiday season
Plus recommendations & little things to inspire you this week.
December is days away, and for many, it is a heavy month. We work hard to finish projects before the holiday break, and in between gift-buying, traveling to see family and 1000 holiday parties, we stress over the year ending. Did we do enough?
Yes. You did plenty. You did the exact right amount. The year is not over today. The year is not over next week. You can still make creative choices you’re proud of. I genuinely believe so much joy can come from this month (I’m a Sagittarius, so I’m biased) if we learn to slow down and celebrate what we already have instead of worrying about what we don’t.
Yet, this holiday season is a particularly hard one. Strikes have led many of us to tighten our belts: WGA, SAG, UWA, hotel workers, and even Starbucks employees went on strike. Thousands of people in related jobs were also impacted. Different ideologies surrounding Israel-Palestine, on top of a myriad of other political and moral issues, may cause added anxiety at family gatherings. On top of all that, so many people I know are sick or now recovering from sickness this winter.
Today is all about taking care of yourself so that you can take care of your art.
Here are 9 tips for managing stress this month:
✨Get rid of the idea that you need to make up for lost time
There is no such thing as “a lost year,” although, with the strikes, that phase has been constantly used — which I wrote about here. Not working is not lost time. Did you spend time with your family instead? Make new friends? Did you work on yourself? Exercise more? Try to embrace the idea that there is no other way this year could have gone. You did exactly what you needed to do for yourself. There is no such thing as lost time. There is only moving forward.
✨Reflect on how you grew in 2023
Make a list of what you’re proud of doing this year. What are you grateful for? What memories did you make this year that you’ll keep forever? What relationships did you invest in? You will be surprised how much emerges on this list, and it will ease some of the desire to be hard on yourself right now.
✨Don’t overspend
If this was a difficult financial year, do not put added pressure on yourself by buying into the commodification of the holidays. Have a conversation with the adults in your life about this. Ask if everybody is okay doing limited presents, or setting a price limit on spending. I know this can be difficult if you have children, but it can still apply. Perhaps everybody gets one present, and you spend Christmas Day or certain days of Hanukkah volunteering at a food bank instead. Rather than making it about what you’re lacking, can you make it about how much you already do have?
✨Create boundaries around conversation topics
The holidays are a chance to have hard but important conversations with family members over political and moral differences. If that’s your jam, I salute you. However, if you know there are people in your family who will not, in good faith, listen to your perspective, I urge you to create clear boundaries with them. If you know you will be pressed and prodded for things like… idk, thinking all people deserve human rights, I recommend perhaps sending a group text in advance to say what topics you will not engage in (and you can withhold your presence if it’s not agreed to).
✨Spend time with people who make you feel good
Instead of feeling obligated to hang out with family or friends who make you feel bad about yourself, prioritize the people who make you feel loved and appreciated. Here’s my test for this: Do you see their name appear on your phone and think, oh god, or are you happy to answer their call? Spend time with the people you’re excited to talk to. Self-care cannot replace community care, so reach out to your community when you need support.
✨Do things that make you feel like yourself
It’s easy to lose yourself this time of year and start prioritizing what’s best for others instead of yourself. Can you take a moment each day or even once a week to do something that makes you feel truly like yourself? If you’re feeling particularly overwhelmed, consider doing something alone, just for you, to check in with yourself.
✨Take your sicknesses seriously and take days off work
I went to see Killers of the Flower Moon, and the man next to me was blowing his nose and coughing during the whole 3.5-hour movie. (Don’t worry: I gave him dirty looks and moved seats). If you are sick, stay home. You do not have to see that movie everybody is talking about. You need rest. Try your best not to give into the narrative that you need to get all your work done before the holidays. It is a lie that benefits nobody. If you are sick, take a day off. What we all need right now is rest.
✨Eat healthy and monitor your alcohol intake
I support getting seconds on stuffing and eating all of the desserts. But how we eat this time of year can also negatively impact our health if we don’t balance it out. And the last thing you need is to get sick, or sicker! I’m talking to you, man from the movie theater. So eat all the pie, but also eat veggies and get lots of insoluble fiber, like beans. (Here are some of the healthiest foods you can eat). Drink all the hot toddies your heart desires, but consider a supplement with lots of Vitamins C, D3, and Zinc, too. If you stay out late at a party, give yourself deep rest the next day.
✨Make your 2024 goals now — and then forget about them
When you start feeling regret about what you didn’t accomplish this year (or this week or this month), forgive yourself and note it as a 2024 goal. There is no point in being hard on ourselves right now, but when those feelings appear, they can indicate where we want to put our energies next year. Goal setting and planning for next year may relieve some stress and, ironically, help you live more presently in the now.
