Holiday Blues and Motivation

We are in the thick of it! Holiday season. With this time of year, there are a lot of wonderful things- celebration, time with family and friends, the nostalgia from when we were kids. However, for many of us, this time of year can bring up a lot of frustration, anxiety, and even sadness. The days are shorter and there’s less sunshine, which can make us tired and increase feelings of depression. Depending on your relationships with your relatives and friends you may have increased stress and/or sadness. The holidays can be a very mixed bag and then adding the expectation that you be jolly and relaxed this time of year or people will label you a “Grinch” or a “Scrooge” if you aren’t a ball of sunshine and Holiday Cheer. There’s a lot of pressure.

All this to say, it’s normal to feel tired and drained around this time. It’s also normal not to feel that way. Some people are very energized by the holidays and what they represent. But this post is about the other half. The people who are tired and find themselves with a lack of motivation and maybe even some sadness or depression around this time. In the previous paragraph, I listed a few reasons people develop the Holiday Blues but here are a few more:

Shorter days, less sun, it’s cold, our routines are disrupted, the pressure to produce the same at work with less time, family/friend expectations (Making time to get together, holiday parties, what gifts to get them) financial stress (affording presents and travel all while maybe not being able to work as much), and then there may be trauma or grief related to the holidays (A loved one passed away this time of year or maybe your family aren’t people you feel safe around).

So what can we do with the Holiday Blues. My advice sounds really easy and may seem a little unsatisfying, but you just allow yourself to have your feelings. That’s it, that’s all you can do. You allow yourself to be sad, frustrated, annoyed, depressed, or whatever the feeling and simply honor it by acknowledging it and allowing it to exist. Emotions demand to be felt, even when we do not want them there. They are our mind’s way of giving us information. Like the check engine light for our cars, our emotions let us know there is something we should check in on. You are not being a “Scrooge”, “Grinch”, or “weak” for having emotions other than happy or excited this time of year. You are human and you have different experiences and associations with this time of year. It’s great that some people are energized and happy this time of year, but it doesn’t make them better or “more normal” for having those emotions over others emotions. Keeping this in mind will be important for your own morale.

Now, realistically, we may not always have the time or opportunity to feel our emotions the very moment we are having them. That’s actually why we have the capability to compartmentalize (The ability to put our emotions aside so we can focus on something else). Compartmentalizing only becomes unhealthy if we never revisit the emotions we had to put away. When emotions are put away and never revisted or are put away continuously, we never have the chance to feel and process them. Then emotions get desperate and start coming out other ways- increased irritability, having a breakdown, passive-aggression, shutting down, etc. How you explore emotions depends on you and how you process. Internal processors will primarily sit with themselves and think about the feelings and where they are coming from. External processors do better talking about the feelings and where they may be coming from with another person, like a friend or therapist.

So what does allowing our emotions look like? Here is a list of ideas but ultimately, this is self-care we are talking about. Like I’ve talked about in the past, self-care is very specific to the individual and situation. Some ideas include:

Be realistic with your commitments and don’t overbook yourself, it’s not realistic and it’s ok to not go to every party or get together. Save your energy for the parties and get togethers you actually want to go to or really need to go to.

Remind yourself you are only one person and there is only so much time in a day- another version of being realistic with yourself. Not everything is going to get done at work or at home with these extra commitments.

Take a day or two off that is not a holiday related thing. We “take time off” for work during these 2 months but they are filled with commitments and usually is not restful “time off”. It’s just time not at work but we are usually doing something that is not recharging or restful. Take time to recharge by doing some of your favorite self-care activities (i.e. naps, baths, reading, enjoying a favorite treat, seeing people we like, being alone- whatever self-care is for you)

Listen to your internal dialogue/narrative. If you notice your thinking is shaming or punitive towards yourself or someone/something else, this will strengthen our feelings of sadness and frustration and decrease our motivation. This doesn’t mean we push the feelings away, rather, we want to be curious about the feelings and understand where they are coming from so we can process and let them go. As noted earlier, if you are at work or a situation where you cannot be curious or feel your feelings, then make a note, take some deep breaths, and remind yourself “I’m ok and I’ll explore this (pick a time to explore it)”. It’s amazing how, when we take space to be curious with our feelings how much more sense they make.

Doing these, fairly simple things, will help a lot with any Holiday Blues or lack of motivation you may be feeling this time of year. Comment below with some of your favorite methods of self-care and how you handle the Holiday Blues.

I hope this was helpful! Take care!