The holiday season is supposed to be joyful, but mental health experts say it can also be stressful.
Among the added stressors, according to Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) are:
- Family encounters, especially when relationships with relatives are strained
- Travelling through busy airports, and on roads during bad winter weather
- Loneliness among those who don’t have family or friends spend celebrate with
- Missing loved ones who have died, and
- Financial pressure from costly travel and gifts.
So how can a person reduce the stress?
CAMH clinical psychologist Donna Ferguson told CTV’s Canada AM that it is important to lower expectations.
For example, “sometimes it means not entertaining at your own home, but going out to eat or to someone else’s home.”
Ferguson also said that self-care is important.
That might mean making time for exercise, yoga or meditation, which can reduce anxiety, she said.
It could also mean consciously avoiding unhealthy food and excessive alcohol, which can take its toll.
Mental health advocate Mark Henick agrees that self-care is important.
Henick told CTV News Channel that self-care includes preparing for “the types of situations and types of people you have difficulty with.”
When to seek help?
Ferguson said people may need professional help if they have a persistent low mood, which could be depression.
If someone suspects depression, Ferguson suggests speaking with a family doctor or seeking out counseling services (for example, online through ConnexOntario) and considering ways to build up social networks, perhaps through volunteering.
According to CAMH, the signs and symptoms of depression include:
- changes in appetite and weight
- sleep problems
- loss of interest in work, hobbies, family, friends, sex
- feeling useless, hopeless, excessively guilty, pessimistic
- agitation, irritability
- feeling slowed down, a lack of energy
- trouble concentrating, remembering and making decisions
- crying easily, or feeling like crying but not being able to.
