Navigating the Holidays with Chronic Illness in New York
Guide for New York women: How to enjoy your holiday season while living with chronic illness.
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The holidays are both a joyful and stressful time of the year. Holiday parties, shopping for gifts, trying to pack all the holiday magic in-it can take a toll on your body. This is even more true for women with complex chronic illness, pain or women’s health issues. New York City is a magical place during the holidays and we at Women’s CBT have created your holiday survivial guide to enjoy your holiday even with chronic illness.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy Tools
Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, tools are incredibly helpful in managing overwhelming feelings, sensations and emotions. Create a personalized distress tolerance toolbox for low symptom, medium symptom, high symptom days. For instance, if you are having a low-medium day, gentle chair yoga, tapping exercises or breathing exercises may be accessible and helpful in getting through intense emotions or sensations. During a high pain day, you may need healthy distractions like naps, holiday movies or your favorite TV show. By planning ahead, you take out the mental load of making a decision of which tool to use and you can communicate your needs to your loved ones.
Reframing Unhelpful Thoughts
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We all have unhelpful thoughts. In fact, research shows we have about 6,000 thoughts per day! We can’t expect all of these thoughts to be rational or helpful all the time. When we reframe thoughts, we are creating new neural networks and more helpful thought patterns. You can use a dialectal thought approach to manage distressing thoughts during the holidays. Dialectical thoughts acknowledge both the emotional mind and the rational mind at the same time. For example, say you had ice skating planned for the evening holiday activity. You are having a pain flare and aren’t feeling up to it and may be self downing saying “Today is ruined, I am missing out on everything this holiday”. If we acknowledge both our rational and emotional mind, we can instead think "I am feeling so disappointed that I am not up to a physical activity today (the emotional mind) AND I can tolerate my disappointment/replace with a less intense holiday activity (rational mind)”.
Pace Yourself
Pace yourself! The schedule of the holiday season can get jam packed quickly. Your pace this year may not be what it used to be. It's okay to be disappointed by this and also okay to adapt this holiday season. You will be able to do more over time with pacing your physical and mental exertion. This can be hard to accept and hard to explain to those around you. However, you can share your pacing approach by using the Spoon Theory and sharing this helpful Washington Post article to your loved ones!
Prioritize Your Holiday Traditions
Prioritize your holiday activities and traditions. What are your must do holiday celebrations? Let these come first and see what leftover energy you may have for other holiday activities you were hoping to include! In a perfect world, you would be able to do every activity or tradition you hope to do. However, it is helpful to make sure you pace yourself with time and energy to tackle your most beloved celebrations first.
Adapt and Accommodate
Adapt where you can, making accommodations for yourself. Using adaptive aids, chairs, canes where you can be incredibly helpful. Ask your occupational therapist for recommendations. Hand Coach Corinne is an amazing resource and specialized occupational therapist with free resources and coaching services worldwide!
Schedule Your Appointments for the New Year
Prepare for the post holiday season by having your mental health therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy appointments booked in January! If things were more challenging over the holidays, you know you have support coming your way to get back into a routine in the new year. If you are looking for a therapy group for chronic illness, sign up for our next therapy group for women with chronic illness and pain in the new year! This 8 week online group is an uplifting and supportive way to begin 2025.
Therapy for Women’s Health Issues and Chronic Illness in New York
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is proven to be an effective treatment modality for anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder among other women’s health issues like chronic illness and perinatal mental health. Our New York City therapy office with a team of warm, compassionate trained therapists is passionate about walking with you through this process of healing. It is possible for women’s health issues to be a part of your story, not your entire story. Follow the steps below to get started on your journey to healing.
Get to know us here.
Fill out our convenient online mental health services contact form.
Start your journey to healing.
Other Mental Health Services Offered at New York City CBT Counseling for Women
We understand that women’s health issues, chronic illness, pregnancy loss and infertility can feel so isolating. No two mental health journey’s are the same and our specialized team provides evidence based, integrative and compassionate care. We offer services for anxiety, trauma, perinatal mental health, chronic illness, and women’s health issues in both Individual and Group counseling settings. We also specialize in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy in addition to ACT. For more helpful information check out my blogs and videos!