By Jennifer Spurr, Psy.D.
Stopping + Giving + Thanks = Less Holiday Blues.
Every year when I turn the calendar to November, I’m confronted with memories… memories of some of my happiest times and memories of my deepest pain. While years have passed since my personal season of loss during the holidays, I remember the grief, the sadness, and the feelings of being an outsider, unable to enter the joy and happiness of those around me. If you find that you are feeling blue this holiday season, here’s what I’ve found can be helpful.
1. Stop. Breathe. Pay attention.
Our bodies have a built-in alarm system that is activated during times of stress, the sympathetic nervous system. This system was designed to protect us from immediate personal dangers, and as such, it does a good job at keeping us safe from bears and other dangers in the woods. However, in our modern world, where much of our stress is chronic and long-term, the sympathetic nervous system is often activated because of a stressful situation without an off button because the stress goes on and on and on.
This is why it’s important during the holiday season when we feel hurried and stressed to take a moment to stop and breathe. When we take a pause to breathe deeply, filling our lungs with oxygen and then breathe out slowly to empty our lungs fully, we are giving our body the message that it is okay… for the moment, I am safe and you can relax. This signals our body to switch back over to the parasympathetic nervous system that manages day to day routines. When we take this moment to slow down, we are basically telling our body that it is okay to shut off the stress alarms.
This allows us to pay attention and listen. We notice our surroundings and become attuned to the present moment. This focus allows us to be present to what is happening now and gives us a break from past hurts and future stressors. We can take a minute to disconnect from what we need to “do” and just “be”.
It is from this place of being present that we can pay attention to what we’re feeling and needing. This, in turn, allows us to tune into what is most important in the moment, which has the potential to further reduce our stress. This pause provides an opportunity for us to make a choice about how we want to enter the holiday season,
2. Giving.
One tradition that is practiced by many people during the holiday season is the act of giving and receiving gifts. When we feel stressed by holiday expectations and demands, it can be helpful to take a moment and consider what role we want giving and receiving to play in our holiday season.
When we give out of habit or obligation, or give gifts beyond our financial means, this is a sure way to add stress to our lives. One way to relieve this stress is to consider our motivation for giving and allow ourselves the freedom to give from the heart and within the boundaries of our time and financial means. Giving from within this context is not only a blessing to the receiver but also has a positive impact on us, the giver.
In the book, Healthy Brain, Happy Life, author, neuroscientist, and NYU researcher, Wendy Suzuki PhD. talks about the impact that giving has on our brain circuitry focusing on the brain’s reward center. She writes, “When people voluntarily gave money to a charity on their own, it activated the same reward circuit as getting the money themselves. This is neuroscientific proof that giving is as rewarding as getting. In other words, generosity is rewarding and good for the brain” (p. 202).
In this context, giving and receiving both have the potential to be rewarding for our hearts and our minds. Being intentional about this practice is a way to relieve holiday stress and be present to the joy of giving.
3. Thanks.
Another practice that can help reduce holiday stress is that of giving thanks and practicing gratitude. From a cognitive-behavioral perspective, this taps into a strategy known as reframing.
Just as a picture taken on a cellphone depends on the frame of the lens, our feelings and stress levels are often determined by where we focus our time, thoughts, and attention. This opens the possibility of choice. Do I want to choose to focus on the hurt and losses and pain? Or do I choose to shift my attention to what I have in my life that is a blessing?
Please note, this is not an invitation to ignore reality and avoid the hard stuff. Just because we shift our attention doesn’t mean that the hurt, pain, and losses magically disappear or go away. The hard stuff in life is still there, and there will be a time to shift back and attend to these difficult matters. Reframing simply means that we get to choose where we want to focus our attention and when. It gives us the possibility of containing the hard stuff so that there’s room for the good stuff as well.
Giving thanks is one way that we can shift the frame of our attention. It is a practice that helps us to shift our focus “from the negative” and intentionally notice our blessings. During dark seasons, this may be as simple and concrete as the feel of a cool drink of water or the flickering light of a candle. This is where we start. We look for one small sliver of hope and give thanks for this. From there, we build.
To state this a different way, two cognitive distortions that are often present in a state of depression are “focusing on the negative” and “discounting the positive.” Giving thanks is a way to address both of these and learn a new, adaptive way of thinking.
This holiday season, I wish you time to stop and breathe. I hope you find a way to engage the reward circuit in your brain that blesses you as a giver and a receiver. And I hope that you are intentional about choosing where to frame your attention in a manner that includes giving thanks and practicing gratitude.
Reference: Suzuki, Wendy: Healthy Brain, Happy Life: A personal program to activate your brain and do everything better. (2015). Dey St. Press