Oh man, is anything more tailor-made to disrupt our equilibrium and throw our balanced sleep and anxiety out of whack than the holidays?! I mean, between the pressure to find those perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the increased social engagements (read: obligations), and the typical end-of-year press at work, it’s no wonder sleep takes a hit during this season!
I recommend you do your best to stick to a routine sleep schedule during the holidays (same bedtime and waketime 7 days/week). This will help preserve your circadian rhythm, even if other patterns such as meal times are being disrupted.
But I want to talk about another issue: rumination. See, when we get anxious, our mind can sometimes get carried away with ruminating tendencies. I akin rumination to being on a hamster wheel: your mind continuously chases some problem or anxiety, but you don’t ever get anywhere or find a resolution to the thing you’re worried about. You feel stuck!
And maybe it’s just me, but I find my tendency to ruminate ticks upward during the holidays. Rumination can impede our ability to sleep, as it creates cognitive arousal that is counter-productive for sleep.
So what can be done? I recommend a simple technique of scheduling worry time. Therapists have been teaching this trick for years. The idea is that you limit the amount of time you will worry about a certain thing to a specific time on your calendar. A lot of people do this on their commute home. Then if you need to write anything down or add anything to your to do list, you do this at the end of the worry sesh.
After worry time is over, you work to ride the wave of anxieties as they occur. So if an anxious thought creeps in at a time other than “worry time” you say to yourself, “Self, it is not worry time. You have to put that on a shelf for now and come back to it at the proper time.” It sounds kind of funny, but it can be quite effective.
So give it a try they next time a holiday-themed (or life-themed) rumination seems to crop up that you just can’t shake. Schedule worry time and observe the effect. You might find it gives you a greater sense of control over your worries!
And Happy Holidays to all! I wish you sweet dreams and restorative sleep during this busiest of seasons.
