Stress and the Holidays
We've just ended the long Thanksgiving weekend and I wanted to share about this time of the year, the stress and the holidays.
From Thanksgiving on, our time and energy can be overwhelmed with many activities, obligations, invitations, and events. And, we eat more high calorie foods/meals, drink more alcohol, spend more money, and spend more time around people more often than at other times of the year. And we’re expected to be joyful, cheerful, and peppy throughout it all.
STRESS!
As animals, our brains project onto the future what we’ve learned from the past. From an evolutionary predictive state, our brains assume what’s going to happen and begin to prepare us for it. It's happened before...it'll happen again.
An analogy that comes to mind would be animals in the African Serengeti who know there's a drought every year so instinctively they move on to areas they've known in the past to have the water resources they need. Quite often this migration covers several hundred miles. The animals experience increases in testosterone, adrenaline, and cortisol to give their bodies fortitude to make the long journey to where they'll have plenty to drink and eat.
In the same way, our brain prepares us for events, activities, etc. that it's learned have been stressful to us in the past and it begins to rally those powerful hormones: "Hey Cortisol, Adrenaline, Testosterone, Dopamine! Let's go everyone, let's be on the alert! We need to be strong and get this body ready for the long haul!"
That’s fundamentally where “limiting beliefs” start from - those primitively designed automatic responses meant to keep us aligned to safety - or so the not-so-modern brain thinks!
Fortunately, we really don't need all of that power because what our brain thinks we'll experience is likely a skewed, filtered version of what actually happened in the past. Since we can't accurately remember what happened, the brain fills in what it thinks happened and analyzes the situation to strategize what it believes it needs to protect us from: People and situations.
And as long as you're not currently in a dangerous situation, the foundation of the holiday stress is a learned response that can be unlearned/relearned. For the most part, the brain is struggling to "protect" us. The higher the feelings of anxiety and depression, the more the brain is working to protect us. Even for people with a history of abuse, violence, neglect, confusion, overwhelm or fear, it's the same reaction inside their brains, just to a more intense degree. And it can be unlearned/relearned and you can feel peace throughout the holiday season.
How? It's important to take care of your physical self. Eat properly, limit alcohol, hydrate, and get enough rest. It's also important to take care of your mental and emotional self. To do this, we need to do is move the conscious mind, the thinking mind, off-line. Take some good long deep breaths several times and allow your body to relax, and allow it to share with you what it's feeling.
What are you feeling? Are you feeling tightness in your chest? Shallow breathing? Tension headaches? Nausea or burning in your belly? Your feelings are unique and may not be anything suggested here. Again, take some good long deep breaths several times and allow your body to relax and reveal its protective secrets to you. What are you noticing?
Ask your mind how those feelings are serving you and if they're needed. Ask your mind if there are alternative ways of thinking and feeling about what has come to mind. How has the holiday season created memories that just aren't accurate or don't existing anymore?
I invite you to meet up me to help you clear out the unnecessary, inaccurate, outdated thoughts and responses that are buried deep in your unconscious mind. Even if you don't have time to talk with me at this incredibly busy time of year, taking the time to reset your nervous system and going inside your mind will help you release the tension that the holidays are bringing up.
Give yourself the gift of peace this holiday season.
