The holiday season can be both joyful and overwhelming. Between travel, family gatherings, work deadlines, and social expectations, your nervous system might be taking in far more stimulation than it can comfortably process.
At Untethered Therapy, we often remind clients that stress isn’t just emotional — it’s physiological. The body keeps score of noise, crowds, pressure, and even unspoken tension. Knowing how your nervous system responds — and how to soothe it — can make the difference between just getting through the holidays and actually finding moments of calm within them.
Why the Holidays Can Feel Dysregulating
Your nervous system is designed to help you survive and connect — but during the holidays, both systems can be overloaded.
Sensory overload (noise, lights, travel, crowds) and emotional overload (expectations, conflict, grief, loneliness) can activate your body’s stress response. Even joyful events can push your system into fight, flight, or freeze if there’s too much stimulation too quickly.
Signs that your nervous system may be dysregulated include:
- Feeling constantly “on edge” or irritable.
- Trouble sleeping or relaxing, even when things are going well.
- Emotional swings — tearful one moment, numb the next.
- A sense of disconnection or overwhelm.
The good news: regulation isn’t about staying perfectly calm. It’s about recognizing when you’re activated and learning to bring yourself back into balance.
Simple Ways to Support Regulation
Here are some practices to help your nervous system stay steady during the holiday chaos:
1. Create Micro-Moments of Calm
You don’t need an hour-long meditation to regulate your body — even 30 seconds can help.
Try:
- Taking 3 slow, deep breaths, lengthening your exhale.
- Rubbing your hands together and feeling the warmth.
- Noticing one thing you can see, hear, and touch in the present moment.
These tiny resets tell your body: You’re safe right now.
2. Plan Recovery Time, Not Just Activity
Balance stimulation with stillness.
If you know a gathering or travel day will be draining, schedule quiet time before and after — even 15 minutes of silence, a walk outside, or listening to soft music can help your body discharge stress before it accumulates.
3. Ground Through Your Senses
Grounding helps bring your focus out of anxious thoughts and into the present.
Try:
- Wrapping yourself in a blanket and noticing the weight and warmth.
- Drinking something warm and focusing on its smell and texture.
- Running cold water over your hands to release tension.
Engaging your senses gently signals safety to your nervous system.
4. Honor Your Body’s Boundaries
You might not be able to control every environment, but you can set boundaries around your own energy.
- Limit time with people or spaces that feel draining.
- Step outside during gatherings if you need a sensory break.
- Give yourself permission to decline invitations that overwhelm you.
Boundaries aren’t barriers — they’re tools for regulation.
5. Reframe Connection
If social events feel stressful, focus on connection in smaller, safer doses — a walk with one friend, quiet laughter with a loved one, or time with a pet. Regulation happens through co-regulation too: safe, steady presence with another person or being who feels calming.
After the Holidays: The Regulation Hangover
Even once the decorations are put away, your body might still be recovering from weeks of stimulation and emotional demand. Notice what your system needs to downshift — rest, hydration, sleep, sunlight, or solitude. The “come down” period is part of healing.
A Gentle Reminder
You don’t have to feel calm all the time to be okay. Regulation is a process of coming back to yourself again and again — especially when the world around you feels loud.
At Untethered Therapy, we believe that self-awareness and nervous system care are acts of compassion. This season, may you find ways to meet your body where it is — with gentleness, patience, and presence.
Calm isn’t the absence of chaos.
It’s the ability to return to yourself within it.