How to Practice Self Care During the Holiday Season

The Holiday Season can be a wonderful time of the year with lovely decorations, gift-exchanging, visiting with friends and family, and lovely meals. 

However, for many of us, the holiday season can also be quite overwhelming. All the added activities of this time of year, such as decorating, selecting, buying, wrapping, and exchanging gifts and hosting our friends and family while we prepare multi-course elaborate meals add to the stress.

The question is, "What can we do to practice more self care during the holidays?" Let’s find out in this post. 

Why Self-Care Is Essential During the Holidays

Handling gift shopping, social events, family obligations, and financial pressures can make you lose yourself and become very stressed. That’s exactly why self-care during the holidays is essential.

Without intentional self-care, all the demands of the season can negatively affect your mental health, causing anxiety and even seasonal affective disorder (SAD). You can also get physically exhausted and struggle to sleep. 

When you prioritize self-care, you're not being selfish. Instead, you're creating space to truly enjoy the season from a place of balance, energy, and authenticity. Self-care helps you move from surviving the holidays to actually thriving in them.

Whether it’s choosing rest over a packed calendar, eating nourishing meals, or  saying no to something that doesn’t feel right; these self-care helps you prioritize your well-being, joy, and peace of mind.

5 Self Care Tips for the Holiday Season

Here are some tips to help you prioritize yourself during the holidays.

1. Simplify Your Life

Holidays that are full of complexity sound neither fun nor comfortable. It can easily contribute to feeling overwhelmed. We can be invited to numerous events and want to host others ourselves. Although these activities can be very wonderful experiences, there can be too many for us to prepare for and attend to in a short period.

There is also the gift selection, wrapping, and delivery. Then, there is the house decorating and potentially traveling to visit with friends and family across the country. Keeping the holidays simple with a manageable number of events to attend and/or host can greatly contribute to Overcoming Overwhelm during the Holidays.

2. Practice Extreme Self-Care.

Many times, our physical bodies are the very last consideration in terms of priority. We drag our bodies around nonstop, and we can be indifferent to signs of exhaustion while doing self-care incorrectly.

When we practice extreme self-care, our mind, body, and spirit are much more likely to assist us in our other efforts by providing strong support, including energy, enthusiasm, and presence. With extreme self-care, our energy is up, our confidence is up, and we feel much more positive. 

Some examples of self-care activities include sufficient sleep, quiet time, exercise, healthy food, joyful recreation, etc. Often during the holidays, some of our self-care activities can be put on hold. Taking the best care of ourselves during the holiday season can contribute greatly to overcoming overwhelming circumstances during the holidays.

3. Celebrate The Unique You

Sometimes, there are things on our to-do list that we feel we "should" or "must" do that we really don't enjoy doing or that don't leverage our best skills.

These things can end up being delayed or undone, or if taken on, they can contribute to frustration or overwhelm. Instead, we can consider whether there is someone else who can take care of the item for us. We can also determine if the activity really needs to be done at this time.

4. Say No

There are many events and activities that we can participate in during the holidays, on top of regular life activities. If we don't know what we really want during the Holiday Season, then it will be much harder to say no to invitations that are not in alignment with our desires.

Defining clearly our preferences in writing is a great place to start. Ask your partner what their desired holiday season is, and you two can plan activities together.

5. Let Go of Perfection

One of the simplest yet most powerful forms of self-care during the holidays is embracing gratitude and releasing the pressure to make everything perfect. With so many expectations in this season, from making the perfect meals to giving the perfect gifts to curating the perfect family moments; it’s easy to fall into the trap of comparison and self-judgment.

But here’s the truth: perfection is an illusion. Struggling for it can leave you feeling anxious, depleted, and disconnected from the joy of the season.

Instead, try shifting your focus to what’s going right. Take time each day to reflect on what you're grateful for, whether it’s a warm cup of tea, a meaningful conversation, or simply the chance to rest. Gratitude gently re-centers you and reduces stress. 

Make Self-Care A Holiday Tradition

From setting healthy boundaries and simplifying your schedule to nourishing your body and practicing gratitude, self-care allows you to show up as your best self: grounded, joyful, and present.

This year, give yourself the gift of slowing down, tuning in, and honoring your needs. Because when you care for yourself, you’re better equipped to enjoy the moments that matter most truly.

via Donna Lendykezine