Tips for the holidays in eating disorder recovery
The holiday season is often filled with joy, celebration, family gatherings, and lots of food. For those navigating eating disorder recovery, this time of year can bring added challenges and triggers. Coping with the abundance of food-centric gatherings and societal pressures can feel overwhelming. But with thoughtful preparation and self-care strategies, it's possible to enjoy the holidays while prioritizing your recovery journey.
In this blog, I am going to provide some tips for navigating the holidays. I hope these help you, you’ve got this!
1. Recognize Your Progress
Recognize and honor the progress you've made in your recovery. Acknowledging the courage it takes to confront and navigate the holiday season while navigating eating disorder recovery is crucial. Celebrate your wins, and give yourself credit for getting through this tough time.
2. Plan Ahead
Prepare for holiday gatherings by planning ahead. Consider the events you'll attend, the types of food that might be served, and potential triggers. Come with a list of coping skills you can use. Designate a buddy if needed that you can vent to or text if things are getting difficult, or someone who can steer you clear of uncomfortable conversations you don’t want to have. ;)
3. Use Your Support System
Identify a trusted support system for the holidays. Whether it's a friend, family member, therapist, or support group, having someone you can turn to for guidance or simply for reassurance during challenging moments can be immensely helpful. Have a holiday support system
4. Open Communication
Building on the point above, I encourage you to have open and honest conversations with close friends or family members about your recovery journey (here’s my blog about helpful communication skills with loved ones). Express your needs and boundaries, whether it's having alternative food options available or requesting supportive conversations that don't revolve around food and body image. It’s ok if you need additional support right now. There’s nothing wrong with advocating for your needs in this moment.
5. Establish Boundaries
Set boundaries to protect your mental well-being. This can look like communicating that you don’t want to have food-related discussions or comments about your body. You have the right to prioritize your comfort and avoid triggering conversations, always!
5. Slow Down the Moment
When you’re actually at these holiday gatherings, try to slow down the moment as best you can. I say this because emotions can get really high, and things can feel very overwhelming quickly. If you are able, try to practice mindful eating during the meal - focus on savoring the flavors and enjoying the food. If this feels to hard, focus instead on enjoying the company and engaging in conversations with your loved ones. Whenever you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, have a plan - deep breathing, removing yourself from the space temporarily, texting / calling a friend, finding a way to ground yourself…which leads me to my next point. :)
6. Use Grounding Tools
Grounding tools are techniques used to help individuals stay connected to the present moment, especially when feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or dissociated. I’ll link some grounding tools here. My personal favorites are to practice deep breathing, do a full body scan, or have a small grounding object with me. For example, you may have a smooth stone, textured fabric, a hair tie, or a keychain - just something that you can touch that can bring you back to the present moment.
7. Holiday Self-Care
Throughout the holiday season, make sure you’re taking enough time to enjoy self-care activities that promote relaxation and comfort. Engage in activities that bring you joy and peace, like reading, meditating, taking walks, or practicing hobbies. For me, I always like to make sure I have enough “plug in the wall time” which means I need alone time to make sure I can recharge.
8. Coping Strategies
I’ve talked about this throughout this blog, but work to develop coping strategies for moments of distress or triggers. I’m linking a list of healthy coping skills here. Or, find ones that work for you! One of my favorites is simply connecting to my breath.
9. Find Ways to Maintain Routine
Routine can be really helpful in recovery, and it can be hard to maintain throughout the holiday season; however, I encourage you to build just one routine in the morning that may help ground you for the rest of the day. For me, my morning trifecta of a Bible, journal, and coffee really grounds me for the day ahead no matter where I am. I’m a big environment person, so wherever I go, I also try to find a Starbucks if I can to do my morning routine. Think about what your morning routine could look like!
10. Professional Support / Other Means of Support
I’m clearly not a therapist or dietician, so for those who do have them, make sure to lean on them during this time! Or consider putting together a team. Discuss specific strategies or scenarios with your team for navigating holiday-related challenges. You might want additional sessions or support, and that’s totally fine. That said, if you don’t have professional support, it isn’t needed to get through the season. I encourage you to join free support groups if you feel they could be helpful for you. :)
11. Focus on Connections with Friends and Family
As best you can, try to focus on the people around you. Engage in activities that don't revolve around food, such as games, crafts, or putting up festive decorations, to foster connections with loved ones.
12. Give Yourself Grace
Lastly, be gentle with yourself. Recovery is a journey with ups and downs. If you encounter setbacks, practice self-compassion and seek support without self-judgment. It’s okay to struggle throughout the holiday season, lots of people going through recovery do. But beating yourself up about struggling won’t help your recovery. So be kind to yourself like you would be to your best friend.
13. Write down your wins.
Throughout the holiday season, I want to encourage you to write down your wins. If you have my recovery journal, this is a great place to do it, but you can use whatever method you like - a list in your phone, sticky notes, etc. It’s so easy to focus on what is going wrong that we often forget everything we are doing RIGHT. Remember that wins are anything that your eating disorder hates (maybe it’s having a bigger meal than usual, or a new food, or extra dessert) but your authentic self knows is okay. For example, I had a lot of brownie and ice cream the other night because I was honoring my cravings. My eating disorder hated it - so I counted it as a win!
As I write this, I want you to remember that recovery is about finding ways to be kind to yourself, and realizing that it’s okay to give up control and be imperfect. This holiday season, I encourage you to just do the best you can. Focus on making pro-recovery decisions, navigate meals as best you can (although it will ALWAYS be imperfect - so don’t ever expect perfection), and lean on those around you for support. You WILL get through this.
Sending you so much love!
xx tori