Holiday behavioral challenges affect many people. Here are some explanations and things you can do to help. You may notice your child and others having more trouble with their anxiety, ADD, ADHD, or other sensory conditions during the fall months, when they seem relatively fine the rest of the year. Transitioning back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas…there’s a lot going on.
Here are some tips to help your kids de-stress and have a smoother, happier, calmer, more sensory, emotional, and behavioral-regulated transition.
What Causes Holiday Behavioral Challenges?
- Changes – Let’s face it; some people don’t handle changes very well. Children, in particular, have trouble with changes, especially when things get a bit chaotic. Add to that the anticipation for a school break and all the fun times during the holidays, and it’s understandable why it can be a sensory overloading time. Children with sensory conditions like ADD, ADHS, seizures, anxiety, and ASD (autism spectrum disorder) may find it especially difficult during the holidays.
- Our Emotions Follow the Seasons – It’s natural for our bodies to adjust to the seasons. Holiday behavioral challenges are just a difficulty adapting to changes and can cause sensory overload. The way nature intended, our nervous system follows our circadian rhythms and is always adapting to changes in the environment and our surroundings. Seasonal changes like temperature, changes to daylight hours, time changes, and seasonal activities all create changes we must navigate. Naturally, our bodies attempt to slow down in the winter months when a typical family’s activities are at an all-time high. Our activity contradicts our circadian rhythms, causing stress that can affect those with or without existing challenges.
- Seasonal Allergies – Allergies can cause additional stress on our bodies. During the holiday months, our immune systems have a hard job. When the green turns to tan, the leaves fall, the grass goes dormant, and there’s an increase in dust in the air. Our bodies have processes in place to handle allergies, but they can increase our inflammation levels and increase stress. But what do you think happens if something is preventing your body from reacting the way it should? What if you add drugs to the mix, which counteract your body’s natural responses? It can take some of the fun out of the holidays.
So, how does chiropractic affect your body’s response to seasonal allergies, emotions, adaptability, and more? A subluxation can hinder your body’s defenses along with something called The Perfect Storm, which can trigger sympathetic nervous system dominance. When this happens, your immune system is less effective, and you could have moderate to severe inflammation issues (allergies, aches, pains, stiffness, headaches, etc.)
Fall and winter come with more stress. It’s that simple. We come in contact with more people, more germs, and more stressful situations that we need to mitigate. But germs are not the problem; our ability to fight them off is the problem. Our immune system needs support from our bodies, which need to be functioning properly. If something hurts our ability to adapt and fight off illness, that’s where problems arise. And if your immune system is working overtime, it takes more energy away from other processes that regulate neurosensory, behavioral, emotional, and other brain functions.
3 Things That Could Help Counteract Holiday Behavioral Challenges
First, neurologically focused chiropractic care can help your body function as it should, enabling it to adapt properly. Chiropractic treatment can activate the parasympathetic system by activating the Vagus Nerve, which can have a relaxing and calming effect very quickly.
You and your child will benefit from a balanced, properly functioning system, which could go a long way to reducing the holiday’s emotional, behavioral, or stress challenges.
If you or your child is experiencing trouble with emotions, anxiety, ADD, ADHD, or a challenged immune system, and you haven’t visited Bronson Heritage Chiropractic yet, it may be beneficial to do so. We want to help you make holiday challenges easier to handle.
Second, it’s important to slow down and stop scheduling every waking moment. Downtime is important. Unplug from the computer, phone, and TV and go outside or read a book. Protect your bedtime and get plenty of sleep. Drink enough water each day to help your body circulate important nutrients. Eat right whenever possible and add plenty of fruits and vegetables to your diet.
Third, increase supplements like magnesium, potassium, Vitamin C, and zinc. Magnesium is calming to your system and can help you get to sleep easier. Vitamin C, zinc, allicin, and elderberry can help boost your immune system.
It’s a balancing scale. When there’s more stress, add more things to counteract it. We are all busy, but we don’t all take the necessary precautions to protect our immune systems, emotions, and behavior. When we get too busy for good health, it can cause holiday behavior problems, seasonal illness, and symptoms of high stress.
Come see us to give your body the balance it needs for good health. You’ll be glad you did.