Wishing You the Best This Holiday Season (Plus Some Self-Care Suggestions)

Here at the West Valley Counseling Center, we’re winding down our year. As we leave our offices and head out to enjoy the holiday season, we want to say thank you. Whether you’re a patient or someone who reads our blogs, your interest in mental health is moving the needle.

The stigma around mental health conditions has started to lift (see here and here for evidence). Because you care about this important part of overall wellness, you’re a part of that change. As we thought about what we were thankful for this Thanksgiving, the groundswell of support for increased mental health awareness and care ranked high on our list.

Thanksgiving might be over, but the holiday season is still in full swing. It can be a beautiful time of year, but it can also be a challenging one. We want to share a few tips to help you manage some common difficulties that crop up during this time of year.

Self-care suggestions for the holidays

Everything from your family dynamics to your budget can impact how you feel during this time of year. Still, some challenges seem to affect lots of us during this season. To help you manage them, we gathered up some tips:

• Monitor your stress level throughout December. If you’re feeling tense or anxious, take some proactive steps to protect yourself.
• Put some time on your calendar that you use to do what you enjoy about the holiday season (e.g., walking around and looking at lights, seeing The Nutcracker). Before you make other plans this December, always check your calendar and protect that time for yourself.
• Stick with the parts of your routine that feel healthy. Make it a priority to get enough sleep, exercise regularly, and eat nutritious foods — even if that means saying no to some things.
• If you have difficult family dynamics, make a plan for yourself before you go to any holiday events. You might work on internal boundary setting, or you might script responses to difficult questions you routinely get asked (like when you’re going to start dating or having kids).
• Mind your budget. Overspending during this holiday season means heading into the new year stretched thin. Handmade gifts can mean a lot and help you save money.

We have a guide from a few years back that offers some additional guidance to help you protect yourself and the people you love this holiday season.

We wish you the best during this time of year

This time of year comes with its fair share of difficulties. It also invites us to slow down and drop into the moment with the people who matter most to us (including ourselves!).

To take advantage of that, we’re going to take a little break from blogging. We’ll be back in mid-January.

We hope you find similar ways to lean into the good parts of the holiday season. Take care of yourself. You deserve the gift of doing what you enjoy and protecting yourself from excess stress.

If you want help navigating the difficulties that come with this time of year or you want to get set up to start 2026 with support, we’re here. Contact our team to explore starting therapy.