How can centering values help you thrive during the holidays? A University of Iowa professor offers tips

How can you avoid feeling like Scrooge this holiday season?

When holiday obligations arise, we may spend too much money on gifts, stay up too late, fill our calendar with holiday parties, skip regular exercise or eat too many treats. That all creates a “perfect storm” to be overwhelmed during the holidays, said University of Iowa education professor and wellness expert Kari Vogelgesang.

But centering your values and prioritizing wellness can help avoid holiday burnout. Here’s what Vogelgesang had to say about setting boundaries to thrive, not merely survive, this holiday season.

Q: On one end, you might be attending lots of holiday parties and gatherings, seeing family, dealing with expectations that all those encounters entail. How can people set boundaries and balance personal wellness with the social obligations that come with the holidays?

A: This is the million-dollar question: … How I want to spend my holiday time and negotiate that in a healthy way with how other people are wanting me to share me with them — share my space and share my time?

I think the No. 1 thing that you can do is center values. Before you go through the holiday season … remind yourself of what you value the most. Is it spending time with family and friends? Is it your health, your wealth, your work, your spirituality, etc.? What are your top two and how do you have those centered during this particular time during the holidays? That's going to help you make really healthy choices and allow you to set some firm boundaries around how you share yourself and how you spend your time.

For example, my two most important values to me are my children and my health. I really make sure I remember that so that I can plan for how I spend my time during the day. I make sure I start with exercise and I make sure that I carve out times where I can really show up in a quality way with my children. And then if I feel like I have extra energy and time to spend on going to other awesome holiday parties, I will, but I also know it is absolutely OK for me — it's the healthy thing for me — to set some boundaries around that and to also decline those invitations if I feel like I need to.

Q: What about the flip side of that: People may be grieving relationships with family who’ve died or there may be LGBTQ community members who are disconnected from a family that isn’t accepting. Are there ways people can counteract the loneliness the holidays may bring?

A: Connection before the holidays is extremely important. We know that human beings in general, we are kind of tribal in that we need and desire to be with other people and to be around people who make us feel like we belong and that we're valued and loved and supported.

… I know that there's lots of information out there that tells us that social media is really bad for us … but there’s also some good sides of social media as well, particularly with groups of people who have been historically marginalized. We know that they can build connection with other groups of people … and thinking about our LGBTQ+ community, they report this to us.

Also connecting to different groups in your community. If you can look for different activities and different organizations that are having different kinds of holiday get-togethers, caroling or going to different activities within different organizations within your community to make connection with people.

Q: Financially, people have different means to provide gifts for their families or to take holiday trips. How can people give to others in a way that feels meaningful while also not completely stressing by depleting the bank account?

A: It's going back to those values. I think that if your values are to build connections with and healthy relationships with others, then I would suggest leaning into different types of activities that you can do with people or time that you can spend with people. So giving a gift, going on a date with somebody that is maybe a hike, for example, or having dinner with somebody and spending time with them, doing an activity with them …

If that is something that you're feeling like spending money on somebody is not realistic for you, then you can always give the gift of yourself, which is your time and spending connection with somebody.

Q: The holidays are a natural time where it’s easy to overeat, overdrink, decrease physical activity. How can people strike a balance between having fun and relaxing without overindulging?

A: … If you value your health and you know that prioritizing your health is something that's really important to you, then just keep centering that and reminding yourself of that. Prioritizing self-care over the holidays is different than overindulging.

It's OK to treat yourself with something that you maybe wouldn't have outside of the holiday season, but if you prioritize self-care then what you're doing is you are telling yourself that I'm going to treat myself to this, but I'm not going to overindulge because that would actually be the opposite of self-care. That's actually self-harm when you are drinking too much, you're not giving your body enough rest and recovery, when you are overindulging sweets, so on and so forth … It just means to make sure that we think about moderation.

Q: Is there any final advice you have for how people can prioritize self-care and not get too off balance during the holidays?

A: If you center (the things you value most) first, it allows you to thrive as your authentic self. Because then you're really able to say, ‘No, I told myself that what I really value is spending time, some high-quality time, with my college-age adult children over this holiday and I'm not going to be able to do that if I'm hung over in the morning, going to all of these different holiday parties. I'm going to be stretched too thin.’ Then that allows you to set some really good boundaries.

… We've all imagined how things are going to go on in our own heads during the holiday season, but know that that's probably not going to happen the way that you're fantasizing about. Be flexible. When things don't happen exactly that way, you've got to be able to still lean into gratitude and pivot a little bit and still be present with your family and make some adjustments.

The last thing is to set intentions. Intentions are different than goals … Write them down, make sure that they align with your values. Remind yourself that your life doesn't get better by chance, it gets better by change. … You have to really set out the values, intentions, make plans, also be flexible with that plan and that is going to help prepare you to get through the holidays in a healthy way.

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