 Hi, this video is going to be about Christmas. I feel like I should be wearing some sort of festive headgear or something I'm drinking from a Christmas mug. Does that count maybe? Thing is I find Christmas really hard. So that's one of the reasons I'm not really into the festive headgear and stuff and The fact I find Christmas really hard and that lots of people I know do too And that lots of people with mental health issues the world round whether they're big or small or somewhere in between Find Christmas hard is why I'm making the video So please excuse the lack of Christmas headgear while I talked to you about Five ideas think it's gonna be five who knows I might add one in but five ideas for managing Christmas If you find it a difficult time now there are loads of different reasons that you might find it a difficult time It's a difficult time for anyone with a mental health issue difficult For specific reasons if you suffer with an eating disorder very tricky if you struggle with anxiety It might be that you suffered bereavements around this time. There might be difficult memories that go with it It's also different reasons why you might find Christmas hard And these tips are really designed to be adaptable for anyone So whether they're for you yourself or for a friend or for a child or young person you're working with I hope they're helpful. Okay, so tip number one and this is the one It took me many many years to learn and is the most useful thing I ever learnt This one I thank Joe Heyman for I think Joe often Joe is one of my best friends in the whole world see me through thick and thin and He talks a lot of sense and what he said to me was you need to tell people What the problems are and the things that you find hard and they will be supportive and he was right So actually my tip number one is if you find Christmas hard Actually talk to the people around you let them know that you find it difficult You don't have to go into the ins and outs of exactly why if that's uncomfortable But let them know that whether it's I don't know I find social gatherings really hard or I find it difficult eating in front of other people Or I don't like situations where people get drunk or whatever it might be let people know Let them know ahead talk to them about it ahead and talk to them about how they can be supportive to you because do you know What most of us have got lots of people in our lives who if only they knew how much we were struggling Would do everything they could to help us if we don't tell them and we don't tell them how they can support us Then they can't help us Okay, so talk to people people are nice largely and they will help, but they're not mind readers. So yeah Thank you Joe for that one. I really wish I would have worked on that sooner But you know, I'm using it now and people really are kind and helpful Okay, number two and this one I thank my mother-in-law for Zoe my mother-in-law is again an incredibly wise individual My mother-in-law taught me it's okay to say no So at Christmas we tend to get inundated with lots and lots and lots of different invitations to different things And we think there are you know, there are lots of expectations on us to be places It's all right not to say yes to everything It's fine. You just say no if you don't want to do it you can say no And if you struggle with anxiety or low self-esteem often you'll worry hugely about how people are going to interpret that But do you know what you don't go or maybe you sneak out early? Oftentimes people don't really notice and that's not because they don't care It's just that there's loads going on and everyone else has got their other stuff You know their own things going on in their mind and it's all right if you don't go to everything You can say no it's important that you do sometimes in order to look after your own well-being So it's okay to say no. Thank you Zoe Number three is about learning to prioritize so This is kind of linked to number two So you might want to think about well, which bits really matter to me because if you think about kind of I always think of myself as managing and I think of myself as like an kind of like an energy bar like you were getting a computer game and that I as I go through the day I Become less and less kind of able to manage as different things come upon me And so that you know by bedtime I've maybe run out of but managing and might need to kind of go off and spend some time on My own people who use the spoony theory would use this as spoons So I run out of spoons throughout the day and it's the same for many many people So actually we need to think about well Which are the ones that really matter to me and how can I make sure that I'm able to do those things that really matter Even if they are quite hard. So for me, for example, I have two small children Actually, they're not so small anymore. They're in year three, but whatever they're almost as big as me But anyway, I have young children Who I want to make sure that if nothing else that Christmas Day is a day when I am Managing and I am able to make it feel good for them Even if it doesn't feel perfect for me the whole time and that's really important for me So I'll be thinking about well What are my expectations on myself the day before Christmas and the day before that in order to make sure that I've got as enough mental energy to manage Christmas Day itself and you might have you know other things that you want to do There might be certain people you want to see certain events that are particularly important to you and so you might think right Well, if I work around that one that one's a highlight That's my priority Which things am I going to drop around that or how am I going to do self-care? Surrounding that in order to help me manage it. Okay, so prioritize So number four is linked to that which is giving yourself time to recover now This again is one that I have been historically Terrible it can take a huge amount of mentor and physical sometimes energy in order to do Christmas things and you might not be able like some people to bounce from one to the next to the next to the next to the next Because you need a bit of time to kind of look after yourself take a moment recover And prepare yourself mentally for the next one So again, make sure when you're planning your kind of Christmas diary and these can get very very full very very quickly Make sure that as well as planning what you're going to do You're planning in the time for self-care and the time the downtime so plan that time in and what you will Hopefully find what I've found as I started to do this just in life. Generally Is that you're more able to enjoy and do better? At the things that you do choose to do if you give yourself enough time in space around them to approach them in the best frame of mind And number five and this one comes with thanks to my therapist Matt he taught me a couple of years ago that we Might find Christmas difficult for different reasons for many of us There will be bits of it that we like or we can find a way to enjoy it And so he suggested make some new traditions that work for you So instead of beating yourself up for not being able to go and do all of the things that might be you know Things that are tradition within your family extended family friends for example think about what you can manage What you would enjoy and what might be a new tradition that you can you could put in place for yourself for your family with your friends or whatever That is going to look completely different for different people But I really love this idea of actually making a positive out of a negative So instead of thinking I can't do X. I can't do Y and Z is too hard instead of thinking Well, you know what maybe I'm going to start a new thing a is going to be something I'm going to try and do each year from now on because that's something I can manage I enjoy and it's a way for me to enjoy the people around me. So yeah new traditions So there you go five ideas to help you manage Christmas if it's a time that you find really hard Sorry if it's a time that you find really hard massively not alone in this we are surrounded by You know the media telling us that everyone is having this perfect happy jolly time But honestly, it's not true It's not true lots and lots of people don't enjoy it or don't enjoy all of it or find aspects of it's stressful and difficult to manage And it's okay if you feel like that too But if you're able to use some of these ideas to make bits of it okay and manageable and to help you get through Then that's great Okay, I will stop there. Thank you so much for watching if you have ideas to share or experiences to share Please leave a comment down below if you like what you saw give a thumbs up and if you would like to hear more from me in The future then please hit subscribe and then you'll get notified when I make new videos, which I do quite a lot Thank you. Bye