5 Mental Health Tips for the Holiday Season

By Shahna Duerksen, M.A. LMFT, June 2025

The Holiday season is an important period to safeguard and plan for your mental, emotional, and physical well-being, particularly as you navigate celebrating during a post-COVID-19-era.

During typical times, individuals often experience emotional and mental stress around the holidays due to various factors such as busyness, family relationship challenges, stress, overwhelm, anxiety and a lack of healthy boundaries. Spending more time with family and friends at social gatherings might bring joy but also add stress and tension. Pre-existing mental health issues like social anxiety and depression can further exacerbate holiday stress, sometimes intensifying symptoms. So, what can you do?

Tips for protecting and planning for your mental health during the holiday season:

1. Set Realistic expectations:

• Reflect on what the internal and external expectations are for yourself and from others. Be real and authentic with what you can and cannot do or be involved in. Are you expected to host the latest family gathering? Do you feel compelled to make it bigger and better than ever? Remember: You can’t do everything, but you can do something. What is your something?

• Reflect on and set small manageable expectations of what is doable and what is not such as limiting the holiday gathering to just your immediate family and household instead of hosting a large gathering. Enlist everyone’s help planning and preparing and cleaning up so it does not all lie on your shoulders. Delegate responsibilities and set healthy boundaries.

• Choose what you are comfortable with and want to do this year. Decide ahead of time how much time you want to spend with family and friends and determine if this will be in person, social distanced on zoom or in another way.

  
  

2. Be gentle with yourself and others:

• Honor where your own mental, emotional and physical health is going into this holiday season. Give yourself and others permission to be authentic and real. Are you grieving, depressed, need people, or do not want to be around people? Do you want to gather for a large gathering or feel more comfortable staying home with your immediate family members?

• Listen to what your own mental, emotional and physical needs are telling you.

• If you feel anger or resentment, look further for possible areas of poor boundary setting. Poor boundaries lead to resentment, anger and burnout.

  
  

3. Practice healthy boundary setting:

• Set boundaries for yourself and how you will interact with others. After you recognize what your limitations and expectations of yourself and others are in this Holiday season, then communicate those in healthy ways ahead of time in what you will and will not be able to do.

• As Author Brené Brown says, “When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated.” Healthy boundaries help you honor your needs, prevent unwanted behaviors, and foster the behaviors you want. What are tangible, practical ways you can honor yourself and your needs specifically during the Holiday season?

• Use “I” statements; I feel: _____ when _____ because ________. What I need is ____. (Ex: I feel overwhelmed when I overcommit because of feeling obligated or pressured. What I need is to say no to some of my commitments this holiday season.” An ‘I’ statement is a clear and non-negotiable statement and allows your feelings and thoughts to be expressed.

• As part of setting healthy boundaries learn to say “No” to things that drain and overwhelm you and say “Yes” to things that are meaningful and bring joy.

• Say “NO” to tasks, people, expectations or other commitments that feel like an obligation or are not meaningful to you. Remember you do not have to defend your choices. Ex: “Thank you for your invitation. It doesn’t work for me to host the party this year but I will attend.”

• Say “YES” to new traditions or interests that are meaningful to you. New ways of celebrating the holidays may birth a new set of traditions. Be flexible.

  
  

4. Practice Self-Care:

• Planning for, protecting and practicing Self-care for your mental, emotional and physical health is of the utmost importance during the holiday season.

• Meditate, do a personal check-in and setting healthy boundaries are examples of healthy self-care practices.

• Other self-care tips are; Get good quality sleep, take time to exercise by going for walks or stretching, eat well-balanced foods, and drink plenty of water.

• Do not isolate. Ask for what you need and Reach out for help if you are in need of mental health support. Call a friend or family member, professional therapist, help line, Text.

• Be kind and gentle with the mental and emotional space you are in this year.

• Remember to take your medications.

• Practice moderation in food and alcohol usage.

  
  

5. Acts of Service

• Consider participating in small acts of kindness that serve other people such as making meals and delivering them to friends, neighbors and the homeless.

The November 2018 blog article has been updated in June 2025. Shahna Duerksen, M.A., LMFT #140986, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist located in Fresno, CA, providing both in-person therapy (Fresno, CA) and tele-health services throughout California. Shahna aims to help de-stigmatize mental illness and make it a normal topic of conversation for everyone. She enjoys photography, humor, and travel, often blending these interests into adventurous escapades. Her practice mainly centers on women's experiences. For more details and mental health resources, visit Instagram @shahnaduerksen, psychologytoday.com and to schedule appointments, go to headway.co/providers/shahna-duerksen