The Mayo clinic offers helpful material related to banishing holiday blues. The advice offered has been repeated over and over again and it is also worth highlighting over and over again. When you tell yourself that you have to cook, shop, clean and get together with friends more than usual, it is difficult to imagine that you can avoid depression. And now that you have the worries about the virus, your thoughts and your mood are likely to take a nose dive.
Professionals at Mayo offer ten time tested tips to help us cope with the stress of the holidays. Tell yourself that it is normal to feel blue when others around you appear to be happy. If you have suffered a recent loss, misery is even more normal.
1. Recognize that all yearly holidays are not the same. Someone close to you may have died. Your health or the health of loved ones may have changed.
2. Find people for companionship and comparison of feelings.
3. Realize that Christmas, Chanukah and New Years Day don't have to be joyous. They are what they are and your current feelings or individual memories are yours to cherish.
4. As families age and grow - emotionally as well as physically - recognize the importance of accepting differences that emerge....political, racial, sexual and social.
5. Budget. Determine how may dollars you have to spend and do not give in to the temptation to exceed your limits.
6. Plan. Decide what you would like to do on which days so that you can stay away from considering too many things during too few days.
7. The magic word is "NO." You do not have to get together with everyone who asks for your company.
8. Pay attention to your health. Eat well. Sleep well and rest as often as you feel the need to do so.
9. Make time for yourself. Watch entertainment that is cheerful and fulfilling for you.
10. Keep away from triggers that lower your mood like financial pressure or lack of planning.
"DO NOT LET PEOPLE PULL YOU INTO THEIR STORM. PULL THEM INTO OUR PEACE."
-anon