By Brittany Tiplady
@yellowbird888
The weather outside is frightful and so is your schedule, anxiety, and bank account.
It’s a stressful time of year for everyone and in an age of anxiety, the holidays can certainly be an added trigger. We spoke to leading psychologist Dr. Khush Amaria PhD, CPsych, an expert in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and a Clinical Director of the MindBeacon Group, about some easy-to-use tactics to help mitigate the holiday stress for you and your loved ones.
Before we get into, let’s explore what Cognitive Behavioural Therapy actually is. CBT is an evidence-based form of psychotherapy that has been proven through over 40 years of research and practice to help with a broad range of mental health and wellness concerns. As a short-term, skills-building approach to psychotherapy, CBT is most effective when guided by a trained mental health professional who can tailor the therapy to the individual’s specific concerns. CBT helps people learn skills to adjust their thoughts and behaviours, so they can better manage their emotions and help themselves feel better. Essentially, it’s a technique used to elevate standard talk-therapy sessions with action items and take-home tools for stress, anxiety, and depression management.
“The best way to really understand Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is to think of it as kind of an umbrella term,” explains Dr. Amaria. “It includes a bunch of different methods and therapeutic approaches, but they all focus around having individuals learn how to change their thoughts and behaviours which of course have an impact on their emotions.”
The first step to using the CBT technique is to grasp an understanding of your thoughts. The next step is being able to challenge those thoughts.
“Let’s think about someone with a lot of anxiety. We know that individuals that have higher than normal levels of anxiety tend to have what we call distorted thinking in certain areas. Their beliefs and interpretations become sort of biased. Someone who is highly anxious is often predicting that bad things are going to happen, they are jumping to conclusions and catastrophizing,” says Dr. Amaria.
“The key to using a CBT approach is really understanding these tendencies and developing thought awareness; to be aware of these thoughts that come in and out of our heads quite quickly.”
When it comes to the holiday season and managing your mental health, Dr. Amaria shares some tips and tricks for mitigating stress over the holidays
Figure out the rules you have for yourself.
“If the holidays are a stressful time for someone, I would guess that that person has a lot of built-in ‘should’ statements around this time. And that can be everything from ‘I should buy the perfect gift’ and ‘I should host the perfect holiday party,’ and I ‘should have the house perfectly clean.'”
Dr. Amaria suggests identifying what those stressors are as the first step. And then individuals can sort out what is a reasonable priority for them.
“It’s okay to decide you don’t have to do everything, and you don’t have to do everything perfectly and you don’t have to do everything exactly how it has been done in past years. Figure out your own rules as a way to challenge your ‘should’ statements.”
Pin point what you really want to get out of that holiday season.
Setting priorities and boundaries for yourself can be helpful during this time of year. Practice saying “no,” and declining invitations and expectations that won’t serve you in the long run.C
If you catch yourself getting really down during this time, ask yourself what are some things you can do to improve your mood? This can be even something as simple as planning some self-care time, changing up your schedule, and doing things that you would normally do that are good for you.
“Self-care doesn’t need to go out the window, even though we are all a little more pressed for time, during the holidays this means maintaining sleep hygiene, rest, healthy eating,” Dr. Amaria adds.
Communicate with your kids.
As a parent, Dr. Amria suggests that it can be helpful to be open about what you find stressful about the holidays and to keep that conversation going.
“We know that children really thrive under structure and predictability because it gives them a sense of control and understanding. And it’s not that we can give up on that complete structure during the holidays but we can be careful and cautious about what’s reasonable for children based on their ages,” Dr. Amaria says.
“It’s obviously okay to take a break from a usual routine, but be aware that there might be some stressors to anticipate. Keep your children in the loop about what’s going on and give them that sense of control by keeping them in the conversation about holiday schedule changes, social events, family gatherings, etc.”
With other older teens, parents might hold onto some rigid view points: maybe you feel pressure to keep family traditions going, and do everything perfectly. “Keep in mind that for teens, it might be good to allow them to choose what parts they want to participate in, and what parts they don’t. Remember that their structures and schedules are off too.”
Brittany Tiplady is a writer, editor, former ballet teacher, and the co-founder of Loose Lips Magazine. She loves the indoors, fast wifi, collecting maps, and a generous glass of red wine. She’s a self-proclaimed wizard of time management and a notorious loud talker with a penchant for all things Internet and pop culture.
