How to overcome stress before the New Year: psychologists gave advice

The New Year is just around the corner, but many Russians admit that they do not feel the approach of the holiday this time. It is understandable, times have changed: a special operation, partial mobilization, falling incomes, rising prices … The majority of citizens clearly have more reasons to worry. Many are anxious or even depressed. “MK” found out from psychologists how to get out of a state of depression in order to feel the closeness of the holiday and celebrate the New Year with dignity.

The reasons for the stress with which many approach the turn of the old 2022 and the new 2023 are different for everyone. Someone worries about their husbands and sons in the war zone, someone from the older generation yearns for adult children and grandchildren who, due to sanctions or partial mobilization, moved to other lands for some time. Someone’s income has fallen as a result of sanctions…

Psychotherapists and psychologists, as best they can, are trying to help reduce the increased degree of anxiety and sad mood before the New Year holidays, and it is worth listening to their professional advice.

“If people are waiting for the holiday, well, or not waiting for it, which many people are talking about now, I would still recommend doing what they have always done,” the candidate of psychological sciences, associate professor of the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy shared her opinion with MK MSUPE Tatyana Yudeeva. – Of course, Olivier should be on the table; each family has its favorite New Year’s dish, someone has a herring under a fur coat, someone has jelly – you need to cook it this time too. If possible, invite someone to visit you, and you will obviously want to do something for the guests. Or – do not refuse if you are invited to visit. Be sure to decorate the Christmas tree. In a word, do everything that you have always done. Operate from the opposite: do not wait for the New Year mood to appear, and then I will do something, but on the contrary, do something, and then the mood will come. Of course, it will not be the same as before, for obvious reasons. But still, this is just the case when you need to understand: there are some things in our life that should always be! We experienced different times … And it was such that in stores there was only salt on the shelves, but sandwiches with caviar were on everyone’s tables on New Year’s Eve.

All the holidays that we celebrate – New Year, birthdays and others – they are like a support for a building, a supporting structure. This is what gives us some kind of pivot in life. When we celebrate them, we do not deviate from our traditions, we know that no matter what, we have something to rely on and there is something that no one will take away from us.

In turn, psychologist Yevgeny Idzikovsky gave his recommendations – what you need to realize and do so as not to spoil your mood and loved ones on the eve of the holidays:

– Here you need to understand that the very concept of fighting a bad mood is not very true. If your mood corresponds to reality, and this is a one-time thing, then nothing needs to be done about it. And if reality does not suit you, then you should try to do something with it. Psychologists help in those situations when the internal state of a person does not correspond to reality: everything is relatively normal for you, but you have focused on some negative aspect, and because of this you cannot normally celebrate the New Year. This is exactly what you can work with.

First: you need to understand for yourself whether there is a problem in reality or not? How significant is it? Second: you need to use switching: when you are at work – be at work, when you are at home – be at home, that is, be here and now.

Third, which is also very important: you need to cover your basic needs – in sleep, nutrition, physical comfort, warmth. If they are not closed, then the amount of stress increases and this complicates, among other things, a person’s rational perception of reality. If a person is in biological comfort, then it is easier for him to understand that his problems are not so acute.

There is a whole psychological scheme when a person is fixated on the negative. Usually we rationally understand that whatever the problems are, because we worry about them a lot, they are not solved and the situation does not improve. Yes, we have a desire to control some things, moments, but from the fact that we only think about them, in this case we only “multiply our sorrows”.