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The pre-Christmas fever leaves us stressed, overburdened and exhausted. That is why it is so important to take care of your mental well-being, resilience and harmonization of all senses in order to disenchant the infamous magic of Christmas.
If you don’t like walking around shopping centers on a daily basis, then in December you avoid them for a kilometer. This is where the holiday rush begins – last-minute gift-shopping, hours in lines and a complete nervous system out-of-tune. In stores, the temperature goes up, merchandising is used, loud, irritating music is played and aggressive smells are sprayed. All this so that, in an act of desperation, we would buy anything and leave as soon as possible. Added to this is the pressure to organize a Christmas meeting. We take care of cooking twelve dishes, cleaning the house for the whole family’s arrival, decorating the Christmas tree, wrapping gifts. The list is endless. And December is rarely a month of holidays. So we go to work, where we get irritated by everyone around us, and we try to button everything up, regardless of… ourselves.
It is no wonder then that when we sit down at the table on Christmas Eve, we get a sense of exhaustion and irritation. We often feel that our efforts are underestimated, and yet we have been working hard for the whole month to ensure that Christmas Eve meets the expectations of the whole family. Meanwhile, the questions asked during it make us embarrassed and we quietly count down to the end of dinner so that we can bury ourselves under the covers and cut off all stimuli. What if we could break the looping pattern this year? Take care of yourself, not catch the Christmas fever and be able to enjoy the time spent with your loved ones? Put your stress aside for a moment – try to calm down with a short anti-stress video, for example.
Balance between taking and giving
In order to be able to engage in being with others, we need to first take care of ourselves. Realizing that no one will do it for us allows you to take responsibility for your inner peace. Brené Brown, principal investigator of sensitivity, shame and courage, reminds in her TEDxHouston speech that “you can’t be compassionate towards others if you can’t treat yourself well.”
In the excitement of giving our attention, care, time and money to others, we no longer even enjoy their reaction. Why? Because we forget to pay attention to our own needs. For some, it may be buying something that was a waste of money all year round. For others, spare time for regeneration, pleasure or relaxation. Sometimes nourishing exercise, staying in nature or communing with beauty will turn out to be beneficial. Sometimes we will need stillness, work with the breath, cold or warmth. There is no one-size-fits-all recipe for looking after your own resources. We can listen to the signals coming from the body, verify the thoughts that arise when we eliminate the excess of stimuli, and take steps to take care of our well-being. Without it, there is no way to be conscious and healthy for others.
See also: Psychotherapy and coping with stress. How to reduce the negative effects of stress
Building resilience, i.e. mental resilience
Resilience is the ability to adapt to changing conditions, as well as resistance to stress and flexibility. Thanks to resilience, we are able to rebuild our endurance after failure and regain immunity despite unfavorable circumstances. This key skill is inextricably linked with three basic needs: security, satisfaction and connection.
Mental resilience, however, requires a great deal of compassion, awareness, gratitude, self-confidence and courage. Only by being kind to ourselves can we allow ourselves to make mistakes, stressful situations, and changing plans. In the face of adversities, instead of blaming ourselves and criticizing ourselves, we can approach circumstances with understanding and kindness. Access to recordings prepared by certified experts that will help you build mental resilience can be found in the Polish Mindy application. Take advantage of the unique offer prepared in cooperation with the Medonet portal as part of the “Peaceful Head” campaign.
In 2020, a study at the University of Arizona showed that people achieving higher levels of resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic spend more time outdoors, believe they receive support from family, partners and friends, get enough sleep, and engage in spiritual practices more frequently. such as prayer. Resistance to stressful situations is inextricably linked not only to close relationships, but also to taking care of your mental well-being through being in nature, proper sleep hygiene and spiritual practices. When facing the December holiday rush, ask yourself the following questions:
- What do you need to prepare for the upcoming holidays?
- What do you want to remember when they’re over?
- What are your priorities during this period, what is important to you?
- What potential obstacles may stand in your way?
- And how can you deal with them?
In addition to defining your needs, it’s important to just give yourself time. Confess a moment that will be destined to improve your, not someone else’s, well-being. Why is it so important? This is best reflected in the title of the meditation below, which you can also find on the Mindy app.
A sense of security and senses
We live in an age of oculocentrism, the domination of sight over all other senses, which, according to architect Juhani Pallasmaa, “pushes us towards exclusion, isolation and superficiality.” We perceive 80% of information from the surrounding reality through our eyesight. There are also city noises, intense smells, extremely salty or sweet flavors and a lack of touch. As a result, we deal with a phenomenon that researchers call skin hunger, i.e. the physical need to be touched. Especially in times of excessive stress and rush, it is worth limiting the amount of information and stimuli absorbed from the outside. Maybe instead of listening to loud music, eating out and inhaling exhaust fumes, let’s try to serve ourselves an evening in silence. Try to eat your meal carefully and slowly, savoring every taste. Before going to bed, instead of stimulating ourselves with information from the world, focus on those inside us. Take a quarter of an hour to practice breathing to ensure you get quality sleep.
Taking care of your senses also directly affects our sense of security. Our nervous system is not designed to be constantly alert. In order to engage in social relationships, to be open and mindful, we need to feel calm and safe. That is why it is so important to verify the space that surrounds us. From the point of view of psychology, the feeling of security is an internal state. When external circumstances bring chaos and haste to our lives, we can rely on the knowledge of our own needs and solutions that support this feeling. “By building a safe environment and closeness around us through favorite fragrances, soft materials, pleasant-to-touch clothes, light adjusted to the time of day, we can really increase our comfort” – says Dr. Joanna Jurga, researcher and designer.
Also read: Stress – former friend, present killer
First me
In the fire of pre-holiday preparations, let’s think about what we need to be able to give to others. At this time, it is especially important to build resilience so that adversities do not throw us off balance, but rather allow us to adapt to changing circumstances. To support our internal resources, let’s also take care of the spaces in which we are staying. Because the environment matters. Focusing on the harmonization of all senses, let us arrange our apartments or workplaces so that they do not provide us with an excess of stimuli. Thanks to this, it will be easier for us to cope with high stress and find relief. All these techniques help to deepen our awareness of ourselves, building a sense of agency and resourcefulness in us. However, each of us must develop our own methods that will be supportive, so that even the December pre-Christmas madness will not throw us off balance.
Who knows, maybe you will find one of them among meditation, relaxation music or development exercises. You can find a wide selection of them in the Polish Mindy application. As part of the “Peaceful Head” campaign prepared by Mindy and Medonet, you get access to the best promotional offer for access to the full library of recordings. Take a look and see for yourself that you can also go through December calmly.
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