Unbelievably, the holiday season has returned again. It feels like just yesterday was back-to-school season, and here we are, up to our necks in turkey and mashed potatoes, shivering in the blustery cold weather. This time of year tends to be a mixed bag for many. It can bring joy, hope, and optimism through delicious meals, time spent with family, beautiful decor, and anticipation for happy memories. It can also bring an increase in stress, however, due to immense pressures of preparing food, hosting guests, traveling, navigating crowded roads and stores, spending money, and engaging with family who may not be your ideal companions. For others, it can be a time of profound loneliness and grief due to family estrangement or conflict, coping with the loss of a family member, or battling seasonal mood symptoms. For many, it can be a whirlwind mix of all of the above. Let's go over a few quick tips to help navigate this assortment of emotions and make the most of the holiday season.

1. Be Present: The busyness and pressure of this time of year can make us feel pulled in many different directions. It often feels like there is always something to do, someone to see, a gift to buy, a meal to prepare, a terrible driver to shout at. Before we know it, it's the new year and the holiday season passed by in a blink. Carving out mental space to be fully present with family, friends, pets, food, and any other joys this time of years can bring is incredibly important. Notice when you have been succumbing to pressure and stress, not being fully attentive with those around you. Practice putting aside the to-do lists, racing thoughts, perfectionism, and high expectations to just be. Practice a guided meditation in the mornings to set the tone for your day. Yoga or mindful walking can also help you remain centered. At the end of the day, the joy, connection, and fun memories  will be remembered and cherished - not the pesky little details.
2. Set Boundaries: Those with not-so-perfect family relationships (aka, ummm, everyone?), this one is for you. I encourage you to feel empowered to set boundaries with those in your life, especially people who cause you distress or create toxic environments. Spending time with people who are not good to be around simply because "that's what we do every year" does not translate to an obligation on your end. Think about your needs and how you can ensure that you will take care of yourself. You might consider limiting the time you spend with the family that day. Or, if things become uncomfortable, come up with exit strategies to get space - help out in the kitchen, go outside for a breather, or play with the dog/cat/hamster for a while. If holiday gatherings are always unpleasant, maybe it's time to make yourself a new tradition! Look around for shelters, soup kitchens, or nursing homes to volunteer for the day. Call up a friend and tag along to their family dinner. Whatever the solution, you have the right to set limits and boundaries to take care of yourself. 
3. Get Support: For some, the holiday season can bring about some difficult emotions due to grief and hardship. Living in isolation or estrangement from family can cause deep loneliness. The holidays can also make grief - even from years ago - feel fresh again. If you are in this camp, it is important to reach out for support. Stay in touch with friends or family that are encouraging and empathetic listeners. Let people know when you are having an especially difficult time - even a brief interaction can lighten the burden of sadness. Look into securing a therapist to support you. Keep up with self-care routines and coping skills. Take a hot bath, a brisk walk, or read a good book. You may even consider getting away for a while - a day trip or even a vacation might be enough to shake up your typical holiday routine and the struggle that comes with it. Remember that you are worthy and loved, even if it feels far away sometimes. 

​What helps you get through the holiday season in one piece? Share your thoughts in the comments. Wishing you a joyful and mindful season!

Anxiety can be exhausting, grueling, and overwhelming. It consumes copious amounts of physical energy and mental space. Many clients describe their racing thoughts as a track running constantly in their minds at 100 miles per hour, taking up valuable room that could be used for more productive things. In Part 1, we discussed what anxiety is and the value of insight. In Part 2, we reviewed the negative effects of finding ways to avoid anxiety triggers, which only serves to make anxiety worse in the long-run. However, avoidance is only one of many less-than-helpful ways of coping with anxiety. The discomfort of anxiety offers tempting invitations to find quick fixes for relief. Those facing physical exhaustion from anxiety-induced sleep issues or fatigue may grab a few extra cups of coffee or a Red Bull to get through the day. Some who always feel keyed up or tense may look to alcohol or other drugs to take the edge off. Still others turn to what they can control and rely on - food, shopping, social media - to provide distraction or comfort. Let's break down some of these quick-fix anxiety responses that may not be so helpful for long-term symptom reduction:

• Caffeine: Taking in caffeine actually amps up your anxiety. Caffeine can mimic the physical and mental response of fight-or-flight, adding fuel to the fire of anxiety. If you are feeling anxious, it's smart to avoid caffeine. Look for herbal teas instead, or something that is more soothing and hydrating to help you feel more level.  
• Alcohol: While safe, moderate consumption of alcohol is not inherently problematic even for those with anxiety, it can become a slippery slope when it is taken to directly combat anxiety. Just as avoiding triggers reinforces anxiety, taking alcohol or other drugs reinforces the pattern of needing a substance to manage anxiety. Over time, that pattern solidifies with repeated use, causing risk for developing substance use problems, risky situations, or the development of other mental health issues. 
• Control: At its core, anxiety is often linked with trying to control things we can't. Humans are designed to dislike uncertainty, unknowns, and unfinished business. This dislike breeds anxiety when we want to know all of the answers - what is going to happen, what people will think, how to keep bad things from happening, etc. In actuality, we can never have control over the many variables in our lives. You'd think we'd be better at tolerating ambiguity with how ambiguous our lives are! Unfortunately, that's not the case. It is common to look for things we can control when we feel out of control, including food/eating, compulsive shopping/gambling/OCD behaviors, trying to answer all of the "what ifs" running through our minds, etc. Rather than indulge your mind's control-freak side, practice instead sitting with uncertainty. Try mindfulness practices, including meditation, walking meditation, deep breathing, guided relaxation, yoga, etc. Over time, mindfulness practices fine-tune the brain to reduce neural responsiveness to perceived threats, thereby reducing anxiety. 

Something to try: A saying I use often with clients is to strive to find your comfort within life's discomfort. We have no way to ensure life will be smooth and easy; in fact, it tends to be just the opposite - but that's what makes our lives meaningful. We are tasked with finding ways to cultivate a sense of peace even when our lives feel far from peaceful. When you are feeling anxious, practice closing your eyes, taking some measured breaths, and mentally stepping back so you can appraise your situation from a different perspective. Try to hold in your mind the realities of whatever discomfort is causing your distress, but also hold your grit - your inner strength and resilience - and remind yourself that you can lean into the discomfort with grace and persevere. Breathe through the discomfort and notice how even in the midst of our tumultuous worlds, we can still hold peace within. 

I hope you enjoyed this three-part series on anxiety! Are there other topics you'd like to learn more about? Share them below or reach out.  

By far the most common anxiety mistake I see people making is giving into it. As I reviewed in Part 1, anxiety often boils down to a misapplied fight-or-flight response to a threat that isn't truly life-or-death. It is a good thing that we have fight-or-flight, as it keeps us from harm through readying our minds and bodies for action or escape. However, sometimes that response can get linked up with things we face in life that are not actually threatening enough to warrant such a strong neurobiological response (e.g., meeting new people, public speaking, spiders, unknowns, compulsive behaviors, being imperfect, etc.), resulting in a state of anxiety.  When we are in an anxious state, our minds and bodies are basically screaming at us to get ourselves OUT of that situation through trying to find things to control (hello, perfectionism!), numb the anxious feeling (hey there, comfort food), or avoid the threat altogether. This post focuses on the danger of avoiding the anxious trigger.

What happens when we listen to our screaming brain and simply avoid the trigger? Avoidance often gives us immediate relief from anxiety, but it does us no favors in terms of making our anxiety better. In fact, it seems to make it worse. By giving in and avoiding the trigger, we reinforce our brains, telling ourselves that yes, this threat I am facing truly is life-or-death, and we give our fight-or-flight response a pat on the head (brain?) for a job well done. The next time we face the same trigger, our brains will respond as actively, if not even more so, as the first time we faced it because we reinforced the fear by giving in.  

So what should we do instead? Face the fear directly. Anxiety lives on a bell curve (see below) - it builds up with those initial signs (the red zone) and continues to grow in intensity (the orange). Often, we look for ways to cut those anxious feelings before it crests - we become afraid of our own anxiety - through avoidance, numbing, or control. However, if we can muster our inner strength to sit in the discomfort of anxiety, it will subside. The acute anxiety state does not last forever, and the more that we face the threat, breathe, and ride the wave, the less intense our response will get every time we face our fear.  

Ignorance is definitely not bliss when it comes to understanding what your mind and body are doing when you feel anxious. I think about anxiety (vs. appropriate fear) as an incredibly valuable neural response that is being either overblown or misapplied. In other words, the sensations that accompany an anxious state (accelerated breathing and heart rate, sweaty palms, muscle tension, decreased or increased appetite, racing thoughts, adrenaline rush) are highly useful when we are faced with actual threats to our safety or well-being. These bodily and cognitive changes represent our fight-or-flight response that readies us for survival in threatening situations. Our bodies are poised for action with activated muscles and quick respiration and heart rate, and our thoughts are running on high speed to alert us to our surroundings and possible ways to escape. Think about how adaptive this response is, especially remembering what life was like for the original humans fending off vicious predators and fighting for the survival of our species.

However, anxiety happens when that fight-or-flight response is misapplied to situations that aren't actually threatening to our safety, or at least not threatening enough to truly need that type of response. This is where having insight into what is happening mentally and physically can give you some leverage with anxiety - it gives answers to what you are feeling, it fights "anxiety about anxiety" (e.g., thinking you may pass out or die due to how your body feels in a state of fight-or-flight), and it opens up the possibility for challenging your anxious thoughts and practicing physical relaxation training to regain a sense of calm. Truly, knowledge is power when it comes to managing anxiety. 

Something to practice: If you are feeling anxious or even just stressed out, try to pause for a minute and notice what is going on in your body and mind:

• Where is your body holding tension? Your jaw? Shoulders? Neck?
• Check in with your breathing - is it rapid and shallow or smooth and deep?
• How quickly is your mind jumping from thought to thought?

Notice these sensations and place them in context of fight-or-flight. Remind yourself that your body and mind are simply following through with a hardwired response to perceived threat. Now, try to identify what that threat seems to be. Is it truly a threat to your safety? Or, is it something that maybe just makes you feel uncomfortable, thrown off, stressed, or vulnerable that doesn't need you in full-blown survival mode? Finally, see if you can slow down your breathing. Take your tongue off the roof of your mouth and relax your jaw. Bring your shoulders out of your ears. Remind yourself that this saber tooth tiger your mind is picturing is not a real threat, but rather something you are more than well-equipped to handle as an advanced, modern human. Repeat this mental and physical exercise as needed to start to teach your brain a new and more appropriate way or responding to your anxiety triggers. 

Keep an eye out for Part 2, which will discuss how giving in to our fears exacerbates anxiety. What strategies do you use to manage stress and anxiety? Share your go-to coping methods in the comments below.