How to Survive the Holidays Alone

As someone who has spent the holidays alone the last few years, I’ve become a somewhat self-proclaimed expert on the subject.

Riding out the holidays alone, especially when you’re used to spending time with friends and family, can be overwhelming and incredibly lonely. The impacts this can have on your mental health can be disastrous if you’re not taking the time to prepare and protect yourself. Finding small ways to enjoy the time, even if you are feeling down, can go a long way in helping you get through this time.

Tip 1 - Be proactive

Don’t wait until depression or anxiety hits you full force to realize that you need to do something about being alone this year for the holidays. If you anticipate you’re going to have trouble embracing or enjoying this time, take action steps now to support your future self. Begin planning!

Tip 2 - Feel your emotions

Trying to pretend like the emotions you do have are unwarranted or are “wrong” will only lead you down a path of repression and likely a bigger backlash emotionally when your emotions figure out you’re trying to suppress them.

Instead, feel what you are feeling. Make it a safe place to feel those feelings. Don’t let in judgment about those feelings.

Understanding that this would be a tough situation for most people and your struggle with it has no reflection on who you are will go a long way in giving yourself space to make your mood and experience more up lifting.

Tip 3 - Do not let indecision lead the way

Whether you decide you would prefer to get into the holiday spirit on your own or write off the holidays altogether, make a decision on which.

Being indecisive about your plans will only guarantee that your emotions remain unresolved and prohibits you from moving forward and taking action on what you actually want or should be planning to do this year.

Tip 4 - Shake things up

The reasons you are spending this year alone may look different for everyone - it could be a choice to keep distance from unhealthy and toxic relationships or it could be forced through separation from friends and family for reasons that were not expected, like a breakup. Despite different reasons, we all have the ability to choose to do things a little differently this year. Shake it up. There is no one way we HAVE to experience the holidays.

From a science perspective, changing the way you normally associate items and memories to holidays creates new pathways and associations neurologically that help build a healthier and more adaptable brain. Change is not always bad and there is something good that could come from making this year different!

Depending on your own needs and comfort levels, this change could look very different for you, but be open with this experiment to get the most out of it and the benefits it can bring you.

If you normally frequent certain stores with friends or family, change it up and try a different area of town. If you normally spend the holidays baking with family, spend the time doing another activity or learning a different form of baking (like an international dish) that is slightly different from the normal you are used to. Decorate with a different theme this year.

Tip 5 - Donate time or items

If you have the spoons, donating your time around the holidays is a great way to boost your mood and get in some socialization on the side. It can also be a great place to spend your money if you’re not having to buy gifts for as many people this year.

These ideas aren’t limited to physical, in-person work either!

If you have the spoons and energy to spare, look into these options:

• Volunteering to help out at a soup kitchen or food pantry

• Helping out at a shelter or rescue by doing chores or socializing/exercising with animals, helping pick ups and drop offs of rescue animals, or going to an event for them as a helper, or if you’re really driven - maybe try fostering one of the adoptables this holiday season!

• Womens shelters are always in need of essential items - if you have extra money to spare, help out by loading up a cart at your local grocery store with some essentials and dropping them off

If you’re interesting in donating time or items but have little spoons or funds, try out these ideas:

• Offering to help out with social media pages for rescues or charities that you are most interested in, you can offer to make holiday centered content for a month to take the extra work off them

• Gather up old blankets and sheets and donate them to a rescue

• Gather up odd items around your home, like clothing and extras of essentials and donate them to a womens shelter

As a side note, a 2017 study showed that volunteering leads to better health outcomes, especially when the volunteering is other-oriented volunteering as opposed to self-oriented volunteering. (Other-oriented volunteering is when you do volunteer work based in helping others like animal rescue, self-oriented volunteering would be volunteer work for a political campaign.) Both were found to be beneficial but other-oriented was found to be the best overall.

Tip 6 - Use the time to relax and heal

Reframing how you think of the time you have available to now you can be essential to helping you see the situation in a different, more positive light. This doesn’t mean you have to be beaming with joy if that’s not how you feel, but being open to the idea that change is not always bad and there may be things you can do to make this experience better can do loads to boost a negative mood.

Most of us feel we are lacking the appropriate time and space to heal or recover enough to get back on track a lot of the time, so let this be that for you!

The way a person approaches this can look different for everyone, only you know what you need right now to begin feeling more healed.

Some questions to think about:

• What things put you in a better mood automatically? A bubblebath with candles, adult coloring books, dancing around the house to music, putting on a face of make-up, baking, bullet journaling. Schedule in time to do these things to get you in the right headspace!

• What is one thing you have been putting off doing that you know will make you feel better? Healing and recovering sometimes requires looking outside the usual box to find what will make us feel the best. If it’s one phone call you’ve been putting off, one spot of cleaning you’ve been neglecting, one bill you’ve been avoiding. Do ONE thing that you know will make you feel more accomplished in your life.

• Do you need a recover day or do you need a reset day? If you need both, do a recover day first then spend any extra time around the holidays focused on resetting for the New Year!

If you already have a system or routine you use when healing and recovering, feel free to just do that.

If you don’t already have a good routine in place, use this time to try out different things, and then use your findings to help create a possible recovery routine for your future self.

Personally, I have FMLA through my employer which includes 2 days for 2 episodes in a month where I may call off for my mental health due to my symptoms worsening, and I have a set routine for those days that I know will help get me back on track overall so I can function better when I return. For me, I need simplicity. Although stress effects everyone, it effects me differently and can lead to things like tactile hallucinations and the beginning of delusions, so I have to be very careful when managing my stress. Because of this, my recovery days look very minimal - I spend a lot of time laying down, reading, doing the bare minimum with my animals, meditating, and that’s it.

I am using the extra days I have off for the holidays to do just that because I know it’s what will support my mental health the most during what can be stressful and lonely times.

Tip 7 - Find gratitude

A 2019 study found expressing gratitude and giving thanks for what you do have in your life can strengthen components of daily living and aide with loneliness.

Don’t overthink this practice. The only requirement is to write down things you feel actual gratitude for, even if it’s just the cup of coffee you just made that is helping you get out of bed this morning. That’s enough. Write it down!

I have a daily gratitude practice I do every morning and although it felt difficult at first, it feels very rewarding now. I sometimes struggled in the beginning to not place something on the list more than once, but I gave that up as I truly developed gratitude for the things I was appreciating. It no longer feels wrong to have something on my list repeated from another day when my gratitude towards that thing still feels strong in the moment.

I use a really cheap small notebook every morning to journal and practice gratitude, but if you’re looking for something fancier or with more direction, check out this version on Amazon.

Tip 8 - Find ways to connect with others

Unlike me, some people thrive and need social interaction with others to maintain a stable good mood. If you’re one of these people, remember that seeing people physically is not the only way to connect with others. If COVID-19 taught us anything, it’s that staying connected can be done in multiple ways and still bring us the same joy.

Some examples of connecting with others this year:

• Facetime a grandparent, aunt, or trusted friend

• Play an online or mobile app game with someone you love

• Visit and interact with some of your favorite forums or online communities (OR find one!)

In all honesty, I believe the holidays are a double-edged sword for almost all of us. Financial insecurities, the dynamics of new people at holidays, the intensity of questions we receive, and many other things contribute to us feeling not very festive or like ourselves during the holidays.

The first few years I spent the holidays alone were hard, now I welcome the extra day off but without all the excitement and energy that I know would wear me out and leave me needing a recovery day when it looked like I just had one.

Finding ways to enjoy the holiday, no matter how it looks for you, is one of the best things you can do to support your mental health during one of the harder times of the year. Remember, welcoming change leads to better adaptability for tough or new situations in the future, so you’re also doing your future self a favor when you open your heart to your own new experience.

Happy Holidays! And if no one has told you yet today, you matter.

If you do happen to find yourself in a spot where you need help, don’t hesitate to reach out to those who are dedicated to helping those who need an extra hand. Text or call 988 to speak with someone that can help.

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