This wonderful time of the year! Music is loud in the shopping centres, everyone is kind and smiling, shops allure to cheer up your loved ones with nice gifs, TV stations, radio stations, internet... they all encourage to enjoy the holidays! For most people it is a long waited time of the year, filled with fun and joy, parties and celebrations and festive gathering with family and friends. However, for many this is a time filled with sadness, loneliness and anxiety.

What triggers holiday sadness?

Sadness is a truly personal feeling, and it often depends solely on the emotional state of a person. What makes sad one person might not have any impact on others. Each of us is a personality with wishes, unique worldview, feeling of affiliation, happiness; nonetheless there are some sources of sadness, if we may call them so, characteristic to all:

• Stress;
• Fatigue
• Unrealistic expectation (I wish my holidays to be just like in movies or on a postcard)
• Excessive commercialisation (we must admit that it is hardly possible to avoid it)
• Financial stress (this often goes hand in hand with unrealistic expectations and commercialisation)
• Inability to spend holidays with family or friends

Efforts to keep balance between shopping, parties, family events, work and meeting your guests happy can make you feel that it is slipping through your fingers, nothing is as planned and it certainly adds to the pressure. Even those who claim not to be depressed or anxious, not to mention those who are anxious from day to day, may experience stress exacerbation, for example:

• Headache
• Excessive alcohol consumption
• Overeating
• Insomnia

Others in their turn may face post-holiday sadness, because they feel that it is over, and it manifests especially vivid after the New Year's Day. These sentiments can be caused by expectations and disappointment accumulated over a course of previous year, and also stress and tiredness.

What can we do to handle the stress, sadness and anxiety building up during holidays:

• Try to be real – accept things as they are and come up with real goals;
• Pamper yourself! Do not take more responsibilities than you can truly accomplish. This is a holiday for you, not only those that you create for others;
• If there is a lot to do, make a list of works and prioritise them. Firstly, it can greatly contribute to work transparency and organise your day. Secondly, perhaps you will notice that some tasks can be skipped;
• Evaluate what you can do and what you can entrust to a family member or buy (you can also buy house cleaning service, meals cooked at a restaurant);
• Do not put all energy into preparing for just one day, for example, Christmas, because next holidays will follow that you might want to celebrate.
• Live and enjoy this moment;
• Look into future with optimism (it is not always easy, but you can try to see only good versions of what could happen);
• Today is definitely not worse than yesterday. Do not give in to disappointment and sadness by comparing this day to “good old times";
• If you are lonely, try to volunteer to help others;
• Find activities that are free of charge – a stroll through the old city, enjoying holiday ornaments, appreciate snowflakes or raindrops;
• Limit alcohol consumption because excessive drinking will only add to the depressive mood;
• Try to celebrate holidays differently this time;
• Find a time to contact a friend and a relative that you have not seen for a while to share the holiday moods;
• Take a record of your spendings. Large bills and poor account balance can cause depression after holidays;
• Find a time for yourself!