Are You Blue During the Holidays? Part 1

The Holidays are here! It’s the most wonderful time of the year… well, not for everyone.

While images of love and joy fill storefronts, TV screens and magazine pages, for many people the reality of the holidays isn’t so cheerful. Between stressful end-of-year deadlines, family dysfunction and loss, poor eating and drinking habits, and increasingly cold and dark winter days, it’s easy to feel blue during the holiday season and not-so-merry and bright!

The happiness and close family connections of others during the Holidays can serve as a painful reminder of the happiness and love that may be lacking in some of our own lives. The month of December can be a particularly difficult time of year for those dealing with family conflict, loss, break-ups, divorce, loneliness and mental health issues.

Sadly, feelings of depression and negative mood affect too many people during the Holidays, and not just those who have been diagnosed with clinical depression. Some experts say that the holiday blues are a very real phenomenon. Over the years I have had many clients who have expressed their feelings of loneliness, sadness, and emptiness during this time of year.

For those of you who feel sad during this time of year, here are some of the risk factors of holiday depression, and how you can avoid them.

Hoping for a picture-perfect White Christmas holiday is setting yourself up – not only for disappointment, but potentially for depression as well.

All too often people anticipate or fantasize about the holiday that you would see on TV. Often it’s never exactly as people anticipate and, sadly, it’s often disappointing. This can be especially true when there’s strife within families. It can blow out of proportion during the holidays.

It’s important to manage expectations during the holidays and not hope for things to be perfect. If holidays tend to be a time of conflict in your family, or you’ve recently experienced the loss of a loved one, putting pressure on your family to all get along or expecting yourself to be cheerful could lead to disappointment and additional anxiety.

Being mindful of what you do have to be thankful for — friends and family you care about, and who care about you, getting time off of work, or just the promise of a fresh start with the beginning of the new year — can help combat feelings of deficiency and lack.

During the holidays take stock of what you can be grateful for. Gratitude is the best antidote for the blues. And, fortunately, the Holidays don’t last forever. Soon it will be January and we can all start fresh in the New Year.

At the holidays, the pressure of trying to do everything — planning the perfect holiday decorations, dinner or party; or making it home to be with family; or saying yes to every event; or meeting those year-end deadlines that could be a killer at any time of the year — can be enough to send into overwhelm the calmest and most organized individual. And if you’re already prone to anxiety and depression, stress, not to mention lack of sleep, all of this can wreak havoc on your mood.

A heightened pressure and fear of not getting everything done is one of the most common triggers for the holiday blues.

Perfectionism, especially during the Holidays, puts unbearable stress on well-meaning hostesses, friends, families, and partners. Unfortunately, many people feel they just can’t do the right thing. Instead of enjoying the festivities they worry that their family members or guests are always disappointed in them for things not being just so!

Ease up during the Holiday Season and realize that your friends, family, partners and guests truly want to see you relaxed and enjoying yourself. That is much more important to them that the ‘perfect’ table setting and gourmet meal.

The Holidays can be a difficult time for some people. If this is true for you, then please contact Joy today for a complimentary 30-minute consultation. Email Joy or call 415-819-8769