6 Top Tips To Help You Cope With Anxiety At Christmas

For many Christmas is a wonderfully magical time of year, however if you suffer from anxiety the Christmas period can make it worse. According to the mental health charity Mind…

76% of people who have anxiety have problems sleeping at Christmas

Even the day to day organisation of the festive season can bring added stress into your life and you can start to feel as though things are getting too much – and that is before you even consider the effect relatives can have on you. So many of us to spend time with people we may not wish to have in your lives on a regular basis and this in itself can bring about further feelings of anxiety and stress.

So how do you deal with all this additional pressure?

It can be so easy to get lost in all the arrangements and forget to focus on you, so I want to share some top tips to help you feel grounded and deal with those symptoms of anxiety as soon as they hit you rather than letting them build up and grow as you get closer to Christmas day.

1. Keep Calm – meditate, listen to some relaxing music or take a relaxing bath to help you unwind.
2. Breathe – breathing deeply when you start to feel anxious helps to reduce your heart rate and make you feel calmer – breathe in deeply through your nose for 10-15 seconds and breathe out slowly through your mouth – repeat for a few minutes.
3. Stimulate a pressure point – applying pressure to the webbing between the thumb and index finger stimulates the union valley pressure point which may help to reduce muscle tension and relieve stress.
4. Reduce your caffeine intake – caffeine can increase levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your body – try to drink decaffeinated tea and coffee or even herbal alternatives.
5. Exercise – don’t stop exercising just because it is Christmas – exercise releases endorphins which help bring a more positive feeling to the body.
6. Have a get out plan – if you find a particular family member is making you feel more anxious – agree a ‘get out signal’ with your partner or a close friend so that you can leave early if you need to.

If you start to feel that you are getting more anxious as the ‘big day’ approaches – then consider booking in for a treatment so that we can look at some of your triggers more closely and help provide you with more techniques to deal with them.