Your Mental Health and the Holiday Season

HealthyPlace Mental Health Newsletter

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Mental Health Issues Over The Holidays
• Solutions for Coping with Mental Illness During the Holidays
• Help Spread Awareness of Mental Illness
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Stand Up for Mental Health
• Coaching The Preschooler With ADHD
• Latest Mental Health News

Mental Health Issues Over The Holidays

Many with mental health problems wonder, "How am I going to make it through the holiday season?" If that's you, you're definitely not alone in that regard. Some of the issues facing those with mental illness include:

• Being estranged from family and friends resulting in loneliness during the holiday season.
• Having an eating disorder and having to face the issue head-on during family gatherings and parties that center around food.
• Dealing with alcoholism or other addiction with alcohol being a main attraction during holiday get-togethers.
• Stress and anxiety that comes along with hosting holiday season celebrations or going to too many events.
• It's the holidays and your therapist or doctor is out of town.

Solutions for Coping with Mental Illness During the Holidays

How do you make it through the holiday season when you're living with a mental health condition? Here are a few ideas:

• For loneliness, see if there's a DBSA, NAMI, or other support group meeting in your community. Volunteer and help others in need during this time of year. Do something you enjoy. (Read Mental Illness and Feeling Alone)
• If eating or drinking is an issue for you, skip the parties and holiday toasts. If you feel obligated to attend, plan to stay for a few minutes and leave.
• Don't overschedule. Don't attend too many events in a row. Politely turn down some invitations. If you're hosting a party, ask for help. No need to stress yourself out in jammed malls shopping for gifts. Do you shopping online.
• Plan ahead for emergencies. Make sure you have enough of your prescription medication to get you through the holidays. Contact your doctor now if you don't. If you're needing extra therapy sessions, contact your therapist to see about availability. If you have a close family member or friend, ask them if they will be available during the holidays in case you need them for something.

All of these ideas can be grouped under one heading: Know your limits. Don't do things that will hurt you in the end and don't ignore warning signs that your mental health is deteriorating.

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: How do you manage your mental health during the holiday season? We invite you to participate by commenting and sharing your feelings, experiences and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page.

Mental Health and the Holidays Articles

• Managing Depression Over The Holidays
• PTSD: The Holiday Season's Unwelcome Guest
• Do’s and Dont’s to Avoid Holiday Depression
• Dealing with Bipolar at the Holidays – Expectations

Help Spread Awareness of Mental Illness

Get Our Mental Health Blog Widget

Over 370 sites and blogs are helping spread awareness of mental illness. How about putting our mental health blogs widget on your website, blog or social page? The latest HealthyPlace blog headlines appear as soon as the articles are posted on our site. Just click "Get Widget" at the bottom of the widget, grab the embed code and paste it into your page. You'll also see embed links for Wordpress, Blogger, Linkedin and other social sites there.

As a bonus, put the blogs widget on your site or blog, email us (info AT healthyplace.com) with a page link where it appears, and we'll give a shoutout to your site, blog, or social site on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Share our Stories

At the top and bottom of all our stories, you'll find social share buttons for Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites. If you find a particular story, video, psychological test or other HealthyPlace feature helpful, there's a good chance others in need will too. Please share.

We also get many inquiries about our linking policy. If you have a website or blog, you can link to any page on the HealthyPlace website without asking us beforehand.

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Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. PTSD Symptoms: How Trauma Affects the Brain
2. Abuse: Personality Changes And Authenticity
3. Bipolar Schizoaffective Disorder

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

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From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Birthdays Don’t Have To Be Depressing (Coping with Depression Blog)
• Reduce Social Anxiety, Focus on Your Strengths and Depression is to Winter as Anxiety is to the Holidays (Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog)
• If You Keep Yourself Busy, You Won’t Be Depressed? (Breaking Bipolar Blog)
• The Holiday Season… Need I Say More? (Bipolar Vida Blog)
• Poverty Mindset? Poverty and Mental Health (Recovering From Mental Illness Blog)
• Trusting Your Therapist: Some Practical Approaches (Trauma! A PTSD Blog)
• What is Combat PTSD? (Understanding Combat PTSD)
• Confidence Tips from The Self-Help Experts (Building Self-Esteem Blog)
• The Military and Mental Health Stigma (Surviving Mental Health Stigma Blog)
• Denial Was My Biggest Mistake After Leaving Abuse (Verbal Abuse and Relationships Blog)
• Self-Harm and “Monsters”: Connecting with Music (Speaking Out About Self-Injury Blog)
• How Do I Help My Family Member with Mental Illness? (Mental Illness in the Family Blog)
• Destructive Effects of Adult ADHD (Your Mental Health Blog)
• Parenting Lessons: Call for Back Up (Life with Bob Blog)
• Three Things People Don’t Know About Disability (More Than Borderline Blog)
• Navigating the Holiday Season and Eating Disorders and When Your Eating Disorder Isn’t Your Only Worry (Part 2) (Surviving ED Blog)
• When It Comes To Thanks Giving, Enough Is Never Enough (Funny in the Head: A Mental Health Humor Blog)
• Adult ADHD and Roommates (Living with Adult ADHD Blog)
• Being A Crime Victim With Schizophrenia (Creative Schizophrenia Blog)
• Finding LGBT Friendly Mental Health Care for the Uninsured (The Life: LGBT Mental Health and Relationships Blog)

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

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Stand Up for Mental Health

Thousands Have Joined the Stand Up for Mental Health Campaign

But we still need you. Let others know there's no shame in having depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, trichotillomania, OCD, ADHD, schizophrenia or any other mental illness.

Join the Stand Up for Mental Health campaign. Put a button on your website or blog (buttons for family members, parents, mental health professionals and organizations too). We also have covers for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

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Helping Children Understand Social Cues

Does your child misunderstand the behavior of other children? The Parent Coach, Dr. Steven Richfield, has some helpful tips on how to help your child correctly understand what peers are saying and doing.

Latest Mental Health News

These stories and more are featured on our mental health news page:

• A Cold War Fought by Women
• Work Up a Sweat, and Bargain Better
• Cognition and Illness Course Predict Bipolar Employment
• Childhood Social Functioning Predicts Schizophrenia Risk
• Bipolar Disorder Treatment Nonadherence ‘Needs More Attention’
• Cerebral Basis for Positive Psychosis Symptoms Pinpointed
• Teenage Bereavement Linked to Asthma Hospitalization Risk
• Problem-Solving Education Reduces Parental Stress After Child Autism Diagnosis
• Services Fail to Treat Prisoners with Schizophrenia - Increasing Risk of Violent Reoffending
• Why Being Bad Feels So Good
• Novel Approach Confirms Dysfunctional Energy Production in Schizophrenia
• Insomnia Hurts Job Performance of Depressed Patients
• Obesity, Bipolarity May Have Common Mechanisms

That's it for now. If you know of anyone who can benefit from this newsletter or the HealthyPlace.com site, I hope you'll pass this onto them. You can also share the newsletter on any social network (like facebook, stumbleupon, or digg) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week:

• circle HealthyPlace on Google+,
• follow HealthyPlace on Twitter
• follow HealthyPlace on Pinterest
• or become a fan of HealthyPlace on Facebook.

Photo by Ryan Graybill on Unsplash

back to: HealthyPlace.com Mental-Health Newsletter Index