Why self-care at Christmas is important

AH, Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year allegedly - at least for advertising firms and jingle writers (and some retailers, toymakers and confectioners)!

But most of us appreciate it.

As a friend of mine recently put it - he’s looking forward to an unbroken run of several days off, and he couldn’t care less what it’s called.

Indeed, this is at least in part a reflection of why some sort of festival has been a mainstay in mid-winter in many cultures; long before Christianity, the Romans had Saturnalia, the Goths had Yule.

Why? We do really seem to need SOMETHING to break the streak of cold, grey and misery.

So we embrace it and look forward to it. “Downtime”, “A break”, “Recharging the batteries”.

Yet so often over Christmas, people seem more exhausted and lacklustre than usual. Filling much time with nothing, and other time with things they don’t enjoy.

On returning to normal life, far from reinvigorated they seem the worse for it, complaining of needing a break to recover from the break.

What’s going on?

I daresay few of us relish holidays ending, but so often Christmas seems a backward step.

I think that the fact is we often use it wrong. We take it, sure, but don’t take care of ourselves when we have the chance.

I suspect part of this is habit. ‘This is what we’ll do this year’ becomes ‘this is what we did last year’, then ‘this is what we always do’, until it is just what we do.

An awful lot happens on autopilot - but some time and mental energy can really begin to turn that around.

Always ask - what do I need? What’s my goal here? How do I get there? Will this choice help me or hurt me? Why am I doing this?

As a starting point, why do we have a break in mid-winter?

Surely because we’ve been working consistently; we are impacted by climate; we’ve gone a while without a break. We need to recover. We need to lift our eyes, look at the horizon, see positives.

We need to do things that give us pleasure. Note that this is about US - not others.

Of course we want those we love to be happy, but both goals are important and can be balanced where necessary. This is not the time to sacrifice your own wellbeing for that of others!

When considering routes to feeling well, I often turn to the PERMA model of happiness, developed by Martin P. Seligman in 2011 and supported by subsequent research.

It is very widely applied, and suggests that much of our wellbeing can be influenced by focusing on Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments.

Positive emotions

This is about enjoyment and pleasure, feeling good.

So - what makes you feel good? What will make you feel good today, tomorrow, over Christmas?

It doesn’t have to be the old staples of eating too much, long pub sessions, and lounging endlessly. For me, it’s often a good book over a nice coffee, or coffee with a good friend. For some, it’s a walk by the sea, a swim, preparing a curry from scratch, or painting.

Whatever it is, this is your time - you HAVE time. Try to build these things into your day; if we feel positive emotions, it opens the way to happiness.

Engagement

To me, this is very similar to the idea of ‘flow’. It’s about really getting into something, losing ourselves in it. Just living it.

You might love playing music with friends, and get lost in the process and the sounds jointly produced; perhaps history is your thing, and you get lost reading of Lenin, Lincoln or Lumumba; or sitting in the dark listening to Beethoven, Leonard Cohen, or Adele, feeling it wash over you or through you.

Whatever. This is what engages you, makes you part of it, becomes part of you. This is precious and deserves time.

Relationships

A drum I keep banging! We are social animals, we rely on others for so much.

We have people who are extremely important in our lives, but with the demands of life we rarely get to spend time with them.

Well, this is a chance - do it!

Even where abroad, a call, a video chat, all readily doable. That personal, meaningful contact has repeatedly been found in research to contribute to our physical and mental wellbeing.

It’s not just seeing people, mind - it’s seeing the right people. Almost invariably it’s worth the effort.

Meaning

What’s important to you? What are your values? Often, to feel happiness within, we need to look out.

Perhaps it’s your kids, your parents, your partner; helping others; campaigning on some issue; creating.

Whatever it is, again try to build it in to Christmas. This stuff is not an externally imposed or internalised duty. These are really authentically parts of us.

Pay attention to them, and we also pay attention to ourselves.

Act in accordance with your values and your true self. It can add so much to your life.

Accomplishments

This can be tricky, because again so often we have internalised the targets others have set for us.

We see our target as promotion, a bigger home, a cooler car. But are these OUR goals, or somebody else’s (or society’s perceived) goals FOR us? Only you can know.

What do YOU want? Set the targets.

Remember, bite-sized chunks; if it’s a big target, break it into steps - each one achieved is an accomplishment.

For me, the big goal of Christmas is to relax, recharge, reconnect with things other than duty.

If you make that your conscious goal, then getting there will be a real accomplishment too. Worthy of celebration!

Mind yourself this Christmas - literally.