The Helpful AAA Holiday Strategy

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How to feel better this Christmas

We’ve just had Diwali and Hanukkah and Christmas is fast approaching. For many, it’s the season for traditions, holidays and family. For some it’s a season of joy, for others a season of suffering. For most of us, it’s a time our own self-care can be at risk and along with it our health and well-being. In this blog we share self-care ideas and an evidence-informed strategy to ensure you maintain your personal agency* and prevent your self-care activities from getting lost.

*Personal agency means taking control of your life by listening to the information that your mind and body give to you in the form of feelings so that you understand what you need to feel better and are able to ask for it. It is also known as “self advocacy“.

Don’t let Christmas stress take your personal agency

At this time of year, there can be enormous pressure to make the festive season an all round happy and joyous occasion. Organising the right food, perfect presents, beautiful decorations creates a lot of stress. Having joyous times together becomes so important that we forget the actual people. Inevitably, the pressure piles up – especially when you consider that the holidays are often a period of conflicted emotions and fraught dynamics with loved ones.

It’s the time of year when personal agency and self-care can get lost. The pressure of making other people’s needs more important than your own can feel crippling. It’s also the time of year when you’re more likely to eat too much, not sleep enough and spend more energy than you’ve got. Bring it altogether and it’s likely to have a detrimental impact on your health.

This is why we developed the Helpful AAA Holiday Strategy. This is a tried and tested approach that we bring out every year when the festive period arrives. In fact, the Helpful AAA Holiday Strategy can be beneficial at any occasion that involves traditions – think birthdays, weddings, Easter, Eid, etc.

Knowing what the issues and triggers are likely to be for you and having support and strategies in place can make the difference between having helpful or unhelpful holidays. Are you likely to truly enjoy the holidays or is the risk that the aspects you find challenging undermine what you find easier and more enjoyable? Here are some self-care ideas and activities to help.

How to feel better this Christmas by managing expectations

The holidays are a time when you may be surrounded by people. Friends and family may want to come and visit or for you to visit them. You may feel that you need to be sociable (even if you don’t really enjoy doing so). That’s why it is important to manage expectations – both yours and other people’s.

At the end of the day, the holidays don’t need to be “perfect”. It’s a small part of the year and so you don’t need to push yourself or override what you want in order to make others happy. This is especially important if it will affect your health and that applies to all three dimensions of health – mental, physical and social.

Let people know what works for you and do that in a way that’s comfortable for you. For example, if a voice call or face-to-face conversation feels unsettling, consider sending a text or an email instead. When you’re able to share such information and manage people’s expectations accordingly, you’re much more likely to have have a more enjoyable time, and so are they.

Show others how taking personal agency can help them to feel better this Christmas

When you give information like this it can also show others that it’s ok to talk about what they need. It’s surprising how often we realise that by sharing information about what each one of us wants and needs, everyone is much more likely to be able to enjoy themselves making the whole experience more enjoyable all around.

Maintain your personal agency and manage your own expectations

It can also be a time when you feel acutely alone because you don’t have the kind of family and friends depicted in the media or on TV. You can feel excluded, rejected and lonely. This is when it’s helpful to keep an eye on your own expectations. What kind of experience do you want to have with yourself during this time? Can you give yourself permission to do your own celebrations if that’s what you’d like? What about permission to ignore the holidays altogether if you’d prefer that? By managing your own expectations of what you can and want to do, you give yourself a more enjoyable festive time too. The invitation is to embrace the experience of solitude and make the festive days your own, creating your own traditions. With solitude comes the opportunity to experience harmony away from fraught dynamics and focus on what matters to you.

Keep an eye on your dashboard indicators to feel better this Christmas

We’ve all got our individual indicators. Look at a dashboard in a car, showing water, fuel, speed and rev-counter (this shows how hard the engine is working), as well as other indicators like brake fluid or oil light. Now, imagine you’ve got your own personal dashboard with your own indicators for water, food, speed and effort (for example hammering the keyboard means you’re using more effort that is required for the task). Then imagine what might be some of the other indicators for you.

These are the warning lights that let you know when you’re overexerting yourself or there’s something you need or don’t need. Keep an eye on your dashboard and check in regularly. The holidays are a season that’s likely to be a busy or stressful time for you depending on what’s going on in your life.

Symptoms and struggles are indicators

Look out for symptoms like headaches, back pain or your mood changing. It can also be helpful to look out for behaviours like drinking too much coffee or not doing your laundry. A laundry basket overflowing and no clean clothes is a sign of lack of self-care. This is one of my indicators and shows that I haven’t prioritised this important aspect of self-care. Know your indicators, name them, write them down.

It can also be helpful to think of them in a traffic-light system. An indicator is at green when it’s as you need it to be. When you start to struggle it goes to amber. When you’re then really struggling it’s at red. The more you practice checking in on your indicators the quicker you’ll be able to notice them before they go into red. This then means that less effort or action is needed to bring it back to green. Knowing this helps you safeguard energy, reduce risks of symptoms like pain and fatigue escalating. It also increases your ability to feel joy and pleasure.

Know your baseline

Get curious about what you’re able to do and for how long. If you’re not sure, think back to the last week or two and write down how much you can do and for how long. This becomes your reference for your activity capacity baseline. Setting realistic expectations of what you can and can’t do and adhering to that can make all the difference between a difficult experience and an enjoyable one.

While it might seem like a great idea to go for a long family walk after Christmas dinner, refrain if you know it will make your symptoms worse. If you’ve managed people’s expectations beforehand, situations like this are much less likely to be an issue.

If you struggle with people having multiple conversations, get curious about what your stamina is. This is how long before you start to struggle. It could be ten minutes, an hour or day, whatever it is, having a realistic sense of your baseline is the key.

Know that you need to have at least x hours of sleep in order to be able to function well? Get curious about how you can safeguard your sleep time and consider negotiating avoiding late evening or early morning invitations or visit. For tips on negotiating, check out the blog Negotiation skills – the Helpful way.

By knowing your baseline and sticking to it (your actual baseline and not one you would like have), you will feel better this Christmas and boost your chances of having an enjoyable time and keeping your self-care and your health stable. Push too hard and the repercussions in the New Year could see you struggling or even going backwards in terms of health.

How to feel better this Christmas by creating your Helpful AAA Holiday Strategy