Our Favorite Tips for Navigating the Holiday Season
overhead photo of coffee cup, candy canes, evergreen sprig, ornaments, and presents.
The holiday season is upon us! While the holiday season brings joy, excitement, rest, rejuvenation, gratitude, time with family, and more, it can also bring on feelings of anxiety and fear around food, exercise, and the body. Today, we are sharing some of our favorite tips (from some of our favorite providers) for navigating and supporting yourself this holiday season!
Our Favorite Tips for Navigating the Holiday Season
Don’t forget to focus on the small things that make this season magical. What brings you joy this time of year? The weather, the community, the events, the extra rest? While we recognize that this time of year can be incredibly difficult for a variety of reasons, we also believe there is always an opportunity to find joy, no matter how small. Consider writing a list of your favorite parts of this season or start a daily gratitude practice.
Practice honoring your hunger. It might feel impossible to tune into your hunger with the variety of savory and sweet options readily available this season. We shared 5 Ways to Honor Your Hunger on the blog and encourage you to refer to that post for ways to utilize the Hunger/Fullness Scale and examples of what biological hunger can feel like in your body. It could also be helpful to refresh yourself on the 4 Types of Hunger!
Last year, Therapist Lauren Harding, LSW shared her 4 Tips for Navigating the Holiday Season, focusing on creating a plan, setting boundaries, and more.
Amp up your self-care practice. I’m a firm believer that self-care needs change based on the season of life. With the shorter days, hustle and bustle of the season, and increase in uncomfortable feelings, it’s crucial to ramp up your self-care routine. Check out our 10 Tips for Creating A Self-Care Practice.
Keep practicing self-compassion. As we practice gratitude this time of year, you have a great opportunity to keep practicing self-compassion. Last year, Dietitian Rachel Shoup, RD shared 3 Ways to Cultivate Self-Compassion.
This year, Rachel’s top tip is to Ditch the Last Supper Mentality. Last supper mentality typically happens before starting a diet. It sounds like: ‘Diet starts tomorrow so I’m going to eat all the foods I can’t have now.’ Over the holidays, it might sound like: ‘Diet starts January 1 so I’m going to eat whatever I want now before I can’t have it.’ The problem with this mentality is that it creates an endless cycle of restriction and binge eating. When you notice yourself stuck in the Last Supper mentality, remind yourself that ALL foods are available ALL year round.
Similarly, we want to encourage you to give yourself permission to enjoy all foods this season. When you shift away from Last Supper Mentality and give yourself permission to eat all foods, you build self and body trust, increase your interoceptive awareness, and start to decrease anxiety around food. Check out our post on Ways to Manage Anxiety Around Food for more tips.
Remember the bigger picture. Therapist Kristen Rosenberger, LMHCA says “A common thing I work with clients about is the small decisions that they think will ruin or sabotage their goals. This especially hits hard during the holiday season with all the extra eating! I always give my clients the analogy of painting a picture. The small picture might have a paint blob (the unwise or unhealthy decision) on it that ruins the entire thing and you might consider it a failure. But if you were to put that same paint blob on the bigger picture of things....you may not even see it or realize it doesn't affect the "bigger picture of things". It might be an imperfection, but it doesn't spell disaster. So sometimes realizing where your perspective is (big picture or small picture) helps with the guilt or shame of food around the holidays, putting on a little extra weight, and feeling overwhelmed at gatherings because of both. Whatever it may be!”
Feel your feelings. Feelings are going to come up this holiday season. It’s a fact. Rather than push them down, judge them, or hope they will magically go away, consider what it would be like to FEEL them. If you aren’t sure how check out our post on How to Recognize and Feel Your Feelings.
Shift from working out to ‘burn calories’ to joyful, supportive movement. This time of year, posts about doing X number of burpees to burn off X number of calories are plentiful. What would it be like for you to shift your mindset to doing joyful, intuitive, supportive movement this season? We recently shared a few tips on How to Create Your Own Joyful, Intuitive Movement Practice.
Anticipate tough body image days and plan accordingly. Tough body image days are pretty common during the holiday season. Grab our 8 Tips for Supporting Yourself During Tough Body Image Days.
Respond to food and body comments from a place of empowerment. It often feels like this time of year gives people full permission to make comments about other people’s food choices and bodies. Making these kinds of comments is never okay. Our friend Priscilla Moore shared two posts (here and here) on her Instagram with ways to respond to food and body comments this season.
Create a plan with your treatment team and/or support system. Having a plan helps to ensure that you have all the support you need. Work with your treatment or support system to create a plan that feels safe, supportive, and tailored to your needs.
If you have a loved one with an eating disorder, please utilize our post sharing 3 Ways to Support A Loved One.
Final Thoughts
We know this time of year can be really difficult. If you have a loved one struggling with an eating disorder and are looking for help from a licensed professional, please reach out to our team via the contact form at the top of the page.
