10 Tips to Protect Your Energy During the Holidays
It helps to be conscious of protecting our energy during the holidays, even if we spend it with our own household. It is important to plan ahead a bit with your energy points. If you have 100 points of energy for the day, gathering with family can likely drain many of those points for a highly sensitive person (HSP). If you go into that day without your full points, you may have a hard time, but there are ways to preserve your energy points with some conscious intention.
Here are my tips for HSPs:
Take a quiet day to yourself, if possible, the day before and spend some time in nature, meditating, practicing yoga, or whatever helps you center and balance yourself the best. Resting the nervous system before overstimulating days helps a lot. Your goal is to feel rested and restored before you enter that day. When your energy points are full, you will maintain cognitive brain ability and be less likely to be in the emotional reaction space. That will help you know what your needs are and have the ability to meet them.
Wear clothes that feel comfortable to you. The last thing you need is to be uncomfortable with what you are wearing. Think of soft materials that feel good and are not too tight. Enter the day hydrated and have some healthy food before the day gets busy, so your blood sugar is stabilized. This will help with mood and energy.
Be compassionate with yourself. How can you be kinder to yourself? Self-compassion is like protective armor. If you love and support yourself, you will preserve precious energy points. Normalize and validate the feelings you are having without judgment. They are real for you. Ask yourself what you might need to make it easier for you.
In the morning, practice the 4-2-7 breathing technique. Breathe in for the count of 4, hold for 2, and exhale for 7 that helps slow your heart rate and lets your brain know to activate the calming centers. Do it for about 5-7 cycles. The long exhale activates a calming center in your brain that deactivates the stress center. They can’t be activated simultaneously, so if you do practices that activate the calming center, you will feel much better! Do this up to seven cycles at a time. You can also practice this technique throughout the day to keep yourself balanced.
During the day, take some time to pause and check in with yourself. If possible, step outside for 10 to 15 minutes or take a little walk every couple of hours or as needed. Take in the sky, the trees, plants, birds, or whatever is near you. This will help ground you and even give you some energy points back. Being mindful of nature’s beauty is very grounding. If you have no access to nature, you can take some extra time to yourself in another room or even a bathroom if there are no other options. The idea is to do this alone, so you have the ability to check in with yourself. It is important not to feel guilty about doing this because you will drain a lot of points with guilt. You are practicing self-care, and that’s a positive, empowering thing to do!
While taking the time alone, ask yourself two questions in a loving, compassionate, and supportive way. How am I doing? What do I need? This gives you the chance to become conscious of how you are doing. Honoring your energy space is a priority. Have you eaten? Are you staying hydrated? Taking care of your needs will help you stay balanced.
You don’t have to be social the entire time if you don’t want to. It is okay and very necessary as an HSP to take quiet time for yourself to rebalance the nervous system. The people who love and care about you want you to feel your best, and you are the only person that knows what that would be for you. Simply saying, I’m going for a walk, meditating, taking a break, nap, or whatever you want, is enough. You also don’t have to explain yourself. Remember, people who have the hardest time with you not meeting their needs are the ones you need to hold the boundary with the most. Your job is not to meet everyone’s needs. You have a different and more sensitive nervous system than the majority, so meeting your needs to be most in balance is your responsibility.
If you have a partner, let them know what you need ahead of time. Some people do well in planning a check-in with each other too. It can be helpful to check in with each other to see how you are doing and what you need. I’ve seen couples who do this come to me and say it was the first time they did a family holiday without an argument afterward because they checked in with each other. Teach your partner about what supports you.
Plan a quiet day after to decompress, process, and restore. If you don’t do this, you might suffer for weeks trying to recover. It’s faster to give yourself the downtime right when you need it. Nature time usually helps us recover the fastest.
After the holiday, give yourself some time to journal. What worked? What didn’t? What would you do differently next time? We can begin to develop templates in life that help us support our sensitive system the best when we consciously pay attention to our needs.
When you take care of your needs, everyone around you benefits, and it supports healthier relationships when we are balanced and thriving. We don’t have to do everything everyone else is doing, either. Creating your own template in life is what will work better than comparing it to others. Remember, you have a more sensitive nervous system than up to 80 percent of the population, so your needs will be different. You also take in more information and detail than most, so all those details need to be processed, followed by the proper rest and restorative time. It is very empowering to develop these life templates as an HSP, and you feel more in control too! When you feel balanced, you feel better about yourself, which also preserves energy!
Add your ideas in the comments below!
Need some more support?
Explore my Free Masterclasses for HSPs!
How to Set Healthy Boundaries and Why it’s Essential for Wellness as an HSP
High Sensitivity and Anxiety: Free Masterclass with Julie
Join our Sensitive Empowerment Community for more support and tips!
Julie Bjelland, LMFT, is an HSP Psychotherapist specializing in high sensitivity, the author of The Empowered Highly Sensitive Person, and founder of The Sensitive Empowerment Community. Her HSP Podcast ranks top 5% of most shared and listened to worldwide. Julie's free webinars and resources, online courses, and blog have helped millions of HSPs reduce the challenges of living with sensitivity in an overstimulating world. Her greatest joy is helping sensitive people discover their significant value and see them share their much-needed gifts with the world. Julie loves connecting in her community and warmly invites you to join this positive, professionally moderated, ad-free, inclusive, welcoming, sensitive family. Explore her resources and learn how her brain training program reduces anxiety within the first two weeks at JulieBjelland.com❤️🌈❤️ (she/her)
Having a child feel thoroughly understood and having their natural interests encouraged and celebrated is the key to making education a lifelong joyful experience.