A short guidance piece (video transcript) offering strategies to manage holiday-related anxiety and OCD by recognizing fear-based thoughts, avoiding avoidance behaviors, staying present, and using gradual exposure to build comfort over time.
There's a lot of pressure for the holidays and anxiety and OCD wants things to look a certain way. This is the brain's way of seeking safety. If you start to worry, am I going to have anxiety during Christmas? Am I going to ruin this vacation? Is my birthday going to look the way that I want it to? These are just thoughts, and when we let a fear based thought take over, we go down the rabbit hole. If you are more avoidant, you might start to avoid things and that avoidance doesn't work. It feels safer, but it just reinforces discomfort or anxiety. When you learn to recognize these fear based thoughts or the need to avoid, and you start not giving them attention, what's going to happen is you're focused on the present moment and it fades away with consistency. In time, you're going to build comfort by exposing yourself and eventually you're comfortable.
