The holiday season is an intense time of year. There’s a lot of pressure to enjoy yourself, to spend time with people (even if you have a difficult relationship the rest of the year), and to cram your schedule with activities. Many of us have complicated feelings or painful memories about the holidays; it is a time of year that has a negative impact on the mental health of a lot of people, especially those who already struggle with anxiety and depression.

Anxiety and depression make stressful situations even harder

Between mood swings, intense fear and agitation, irritability, strong negative thoughts and self-beliefs, quick reactions before you have a chance to think things through, constant worrying and rumination, hopelessness, and even thoughts of harm or suicide, anxiety and depression symptoms are highly disruptive, making even the most average day harder.

When you add in stress and disruption—like the pressure, expectations, and complicated feelings of the holiday season—the emotional dysregulation of anxiety or depression can make it hard to cope. Unhelpful attempts to cope, like overusing substances, repressing your feelings until they erupt, dissociating, people-pleasing, or avoidance, can all make your holiday season even harder to enjoy, escalating your stress instead of easing it.

DBT anxiety and depression treatment can help you cope with any situation

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is uniquely structured to help you grow and develop skills that help you cope with difficult emotions and situations. One of the key components of DBT is emotional regulation, helping you develop your ability to recognize, name, manage, and respond to your emotions, without self-judgment and without resorting to knee-jerk reactions. Emotional regulation provides both self-understanding and choice, helping you live your life the way you want to, even when something like holiday stress dysregulates you.

One of the key DBT skills people with depression and anxiety can use to improve their emotional regulation during the holidays is the Cope Ahead skill.

How to Cope Ahead

Cope Ahead is a visualization exercise that helps you prepare for stressful scenarios. You can work through Cope Ahead in your head, with a therapist or friend, or by writing it out.

1. Sticking to facts and being specific, describe to yourself the situation. Consider the emotions and thoughts that come up for you, taking special notice of emotional dysregulation.
2. Think about what DBT skills will help you most in the moments where you’re most likely to be dysregulated, and your anxiety or depression could interfere with getting your needs met. Will you feel like shutting down, or lashing out? What will help you the most? Write these skills down for future reference.
3. Imagine yourself in the situation. Take your time and don’t skip over details, even if they’re difficult to think about.
4. Think through how you’ll cope. Imagine yourself using DBT skills as you work through the possible experiences you may encounter. Imagine the most difficult experience you can think of, and visualize yourself successfully navigating it using DBT skills to help you through.
5. Take time to relax and soothe yourself; this has likely been stressful, but it is valuable preparation for tough experiences!

A note for this process: anxiety and depression can interfere with your Cope Ahead process by trying to convince you you’ll never succeed at coping effectively. Negative self-beliefs and fear may cause you to struggle to envision yourself doing well, or making it through a tough experience without leaning on old, unhelpful patterns. When you notice this, recognize it’s anxiety or depression, not you, and try to redirect your attention (without self-judgment) toward successful coping.

Cope Ahead can help with holiday stress

Anxiety and depression treatment that includes the use of Cope Ahead can make stressful holiday situations easier to approach and navigate, helping you recognize your own strength in sticking to your values and ensuring your needs are met.

Work and school parties

The holiday season means gatherings, especially at work and at school. These parties can feel like a minefield of stress, adding complex interpersonal interactions and high social expectations to a space that may already be high stakes for you.

When you’re stressed about a work or school party, Cope Ahead can help you replace dread and rumination of anxiety and depression with a straightforward visualization process. When you find your mind drifting to fear of feeling left out, or concern at being pressured to seem more celebratory than you feel, you can return to the DBT tools you chose for yourself, like the STOP skill or Positive Self-Talk, while using Cope Ahead. You can remind yourself that you know what to do and let your fears and worries pass without arguing or engaging with them.

Setting boundaries with family around the holidays

Holidays often center around time with family. For those of us who have a contentious relationship with family, or who aren’t in contact with family anymore, this can be particularly distressing. Well-meaning (or simply high-pressure) people may try to push you to spend time or money to be around family in ways that overstep or ignore your needs and wants.

The thought of setting a boundary with family, like refusing to travel for the holidays because you know your depression symptoms will worsen if you do, can feel totally overwhelming. With Cope Ahead, you can get a clear idea of the boundaries you want to state, and can come up with a variety of DBT skills to help you make it through the conversation with your boundaries intact. Instead of arguments that lead to you either ignoring your own needs or blowing up, you can use DBT skills like DEAR MAN, FAST, or Opposite Action to help you stand firm, or walk away calmly, if you encounter disrespect, guilt trips, or escalating emotions.

Advocating for your needs during the holiday season

The holiday season brings with it a lot of fun, but that fun can mean your regular routine can be totally disrupted. Many people lean on routine to help them cope with stress, so being pressured to participate and celebrate in ways that disrupt that routine can worsen symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Cope Ahead can help you think through turning down invitations to parties or gatherings that get in the way of your routine. When you feel that familiar dread of anxiety creep up on you, anticipating arguments or confirmation of depression’s negative self-beliefs, Cope Ahead equips you to use DBT skills to communicate a need to stick to your routine without self-judgment. For example, you might choose to focus on both delivering your decision in a relaxed, easy way with the GIVE skill and sticking to your decision through the FAST skill.

Intensive mental health treatment with THIRA Health can help you manage anxiety and depression this holiday season

You don’t have to face the holiday season alone. Cope Ahead is one of many DBT skills that can support people with anxiety and depression in making it through the disruption and pressure of the holiday season. We welcome you to connect with us to get started today. This can be a holiday season where you can transcend the emotional dysregulation of anxiety and depression, creating for yourself a season of hope and renewal that reflects your needs and wants. THIRA Health offers holistic, comprehensive DBT-based intensive mental health treatment for teens and adults that provides the DBT life skills, therapeutic support, and community that can help those with anxiety and depression to feel that life is worth living every day!