Protecting your eating disorder recovery during the holidays

The holidays can be a time of mixed emotions for many. Stress, grief and overwhelm are common themes I hear in the therapy office. There's often busy schedules, financial tension and difficult relationships to navigate just to name a few common stressors. 

If you're in recovery from an eating disorder you may also struggle with more triggers around you during the holiday season. This could be more foods available that have typically been off limits or have caused binges, less structure and more tricky situations to navigate overall. We are often seeing family members we might not see very often, navigating boundaries and likely dealing with food and body comments made by well -meaning loved ones. 
As wonderful as the holidays can be, they can also be extremely stressful and challenging. Here are my tips as an eating disorder therapist, that I would encourage anyone in recovery to practice.
1. Continue to eat regular meals as often as possible
With all of the added celebrations, weird meal times (ahem... Thanksgiving dinner), and indulgent foods, I would encourage you to continue to eat your structured meals as often as possible. What I often see with people struggling with disordered eating is they "save up" their food for one giant feast in the afternoon. If you are having Thanksgiving dinner at 3pm you still need to eat your regular meals throughout the day. This could look like breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and an early dinner with dessert after. It's important that you continue with your regular meals the next day even if you feel like you over indulged or had a binge.  Work with your treatment team to decide what would support your recovery best. We want to be making sure we are eating regularly, we are eating enough and we are enjoying  the yummy foods that we want. 
2. Keep your therapy appointments and lean on your support team
Life can get busy and that tends to amplify during the holiday season. As easy as it is to miss therapy appointments, safeguard your sessions so you can have continued support. Use your support team to problem solve, come up with structure and support that will help you navigate recovery. If you are looking to begin therapy, feel free to reach out for a free 15 minute consultation here . 
3. Pick and choose what is truly important to you
You have permission to say no to events and gatherings that aren't supportive of your goals or recovery. Truly. There are ways to celebrate, to find joy and to enjoy the holiday season while still holding boundaries and maintaining recovery. We often feel like we have to say yes to all the invites and engage in all of the things so we don't miss out or we don't disappoint others, however here is your permission slip to choose quality over quantity. Maybe you don't make it to every event this holiday season and that's okay. If letting people down or missing out on events brings up big feelings for you, therapy is a great place to work through those. 
4. Practice your skills
This is a great time to practice skills such as mindfulness and other distress tolerance skills. A gentle reminder that just because it feels hard doesn't mean that you are doing it wrong. We often want to avoid difficult emotions such as anxiety, worry and disappointment. This year, let the work be making room for all of the emotions to be there and learning to ride the wave of them. Practicing acceptance of all emotions and leaning into values is a great skill to practice year round. Can you practice naming the emotions that come up and with curiosity asking yourself "What do I need to care for myself in this moment?". As with anything, this gets easier with practice,

This of course, is not an exhaustive list but a great starting point if you are wanting to continue on your path of eating disorder recovery.

Always rooting for you,
Hanna
LMFT  #135606