Looking after your mental wellbeing over the holidays

The holidays can often be a difficult time, especially if you struggle with your physical and/or your mental health. Here are a list of things to help you look after your mental health over the holidays:

Plan something lovely for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve 

Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve can be two days that are the most difficult. You may have a lot of anxiety on Christmas Eve about how Christmas Day will go and how you’ll cope. On New Year’s Eve you may be reflecting on the year that has been and the year ahead and be struggling with many mixed emotions.

Making a plan ahead to do something nice for either or both of these dates mights be an idea to help you cope and get through those days as well as having something to look forward to.

You might plan a whole day or just a small part of the day, it’s up to you and what other things you have going on on those days. - Always remember too that it’s okay to sit out of events over the holidays if you need to look out for your physical or mental wellbeing.

You could do something like have a cosy PJ evening and have your favourite meal and/or dessert. You could get a takeaway or cook something or buy in your favourite flavour of ice cream alternatively you could make a special hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows and have this while you watch a box set or a film. You could also do your nails and have a go at some nail art. Or alternatively if you wanted to do something in the daytime you could go to somewhere special to you like a park or the beach and go for a walk or a ride (however you travel) out in the fresh air.

Plan some moments of ‘Me Time’

Self-care isn’t selfish; it’s important to spend time on yourself. Planning moments of ‘me time’, whether it be 5 minutes, a hour or a whole evening can really help with emotional wellbeing. 

Some things you could do are:

• Read a book or listen to an audiobook 
• Sit quietly with your favourite hot drink
• Spend time with a pet (if you have one)
• Have a DIY facial 
• Paint your nails
• Watch your favourite box set 
• Listen to music or a podcast 
• Do some crafting like colouring, card making, crochet, diamond art etc.
• Doing your makeup or a nice hairstyle 

Have some screen free time

These days we live with our hands attached to us and on average adults spend 6 hours and 40 on our phones a day with 2 hours and 20 minutes being the average time spent on social media. Research has shown that this time spent social media does have an impact on our physical and mental health.

I know from my own experience that the less time I spend on social media the better it is for my mental health and I don’t actually miss social media if I haven’t logged on for a few days. I personally would rather write a letter to a friend or message a friend if I had to use my phone. 

One way you could look after your mental wellbeing could be to have some screen free time away from either social media or your phone completely. Alternatively you could set up an app timer to limit time spent on social media or what I’ve done is delete the social media apps from my home screen. Especially over the holidays you could use your screen free time to do other things like making thank you cards to give out in the new year to everyone who has bought you a gift, or you could spend the time with your family doing things together such as playing a game or watching a film or you could get last minute jobs done like wrapping gifts.

Spend time outdoors 

Spending time outdoors does wonders for our mental health which research supports.

I know since I’ve got my Batec and being able to go out for a ride with it in the outdoors more often has really benefited my mental health.

Obviously the weather isn’t the greatest this time of year but wrapping up and going for a walk or a ride (if your a wheelchair or mobility scooter user) when the weather is nice even for 5 minutes as often as possible can really benefit your mental health.

If you struggle with the cold you can get thermal hat, scarves and gloves and thermal coats. For wheelchair users you can get wheelchair cosies (mine is very thermal and warm). You can also get reusable hand warmers.

Get plenty of sleep

Getting plenty of sleep is so important for our mental wellbeing. Often when you’re struggling with your mental health it has a negative impact on your sleep. You might struggle to get off to sleep instead you may lay awake worrying about things or just find you have insomnia. Alternatively you might have broken sleep or unrefreshed sleep where you’ll still feel tired when you wake up in the morning.

If you have physical health problems you might find you struggle to sleep because of symptoms like pain, or if you have limited energy and you’re very fatigued you might find it hard to sleep because your body doesn’t have enough energy to sleep. You also might have unrefreshed sleep too and wake up feeling tired too. This can impact on both your physical, cognitive and mental health.

Some things to do to help with sleep are:

• Avoiding screens before bed so doing an activity like reading or laying and listening to a book or podcast before bed
• Having a hot milky drink at bedtime 
• Having some sort of bedtime routine where you get ready for bed and then settle down at the same time and do your screen free activity until you’re tired and ready to sleep 
• Wake up at the same time each morning and have a small morning routine 
• Get ahead of your pain before it becomes your pain levels are really difficult 
• If you can’t sleep don’t fight sleep - if you can get out of bed do this for a short period of and do a screen free activity until you feel able to sleep - if you can’t get out of bed do something in bed until you feel ready to sleep
• If you just can’t sleep at all just laying in bed and doing something like listening to a book, podcast, music or the radio is still allowing your body to rest as often just laying with your thoughts can be difficult for your mental health 

Keep it in a journal

Journaling can really help with emotional wellbeing; instead of bottling feelings up you can write or draw in a journal how you are feeling an it can be a good emotional outlet. 

Writing or drawing (or both) in a journal can also help you work out your feelings and analyse them to make sense of them. You can put how you’re feeling into your journal and keep it in there almost like a container for how you’re feeling. Doing this is especially helpful as the holidays can be a more difficult time of year and can bring up a lot of difficult thoughts and feelings.

You can also make lists in your journal to help you organise what’s in your mind; this really helps if you struggle with anxiety.