For many of us, New Year’s and Christmas days during wartime are a small ray of something warm, bright, and pleasant. An opportunity to spend time with family, feel the joy of meeting loved ones, and enjoy communication. However, it is after the New Year holidays that many people feel tired, depressed, or lose motivation. The festive period is over, it’s time to go back to work, no miracles have happened, and there are still two months of cold winter ahead. Constant shelling and power cuts have added to an already bleak situation. Olga Soboleva, supervisor of psychologists for the mobile teams of the Stabilization Support Services Charitable Foundation, crisis clinical psychologist, and psychotherapist, shared some tips on how to cope with stress during this difficult winter.
According to the psychologist, returning to work after the New Year’s break is especially difficult. When the fairy lights are turned off and reality remains with its cold, power cuts, and fatigue, our bodies can break down. At this time, it is important to take care of yourself in order to preserve your strength and ability to act.
How to support yourself during this difficult period. Advice from our Foundation’s psychologist:
1. Allow yourself to “hibernate” (Legalization of the condition)
The first thing to do is to stop demanding excessive productivity from yourself.
Recommendation: Recognize: “I am having a hard time right now, I am tired, and that is okay.” Winter is a time to conserve resources, not to overuse them. Don’t blame yourself for low motivation.
2. Find resources in the little things
Notice the small moments that support you. In times of exhaustion, it is these simple things that help the nervous system calm down and move on.
Recommendation: find 5 things in your routine that bring you positive emotions.
3. Light and information management
Turning off the lights affects our production of melatonin and serotonin, which can lead to depression.
Recommendations: Try to spend at least 15-20 minutes outside during daylight hours, even if it is cloudy. At home, use warm yellow battery-powered fairy lights — they create a feeling of security.
Set “quiet hours.” No news for 2 hours before bedtime. Your brain needs to rest from stressful content so that you can recover at least a little during sleep.
4. The “Small Steps” Strategy
When you have two months of winter ahead of you, the prospect seems endless.
Recommendation: Don’t plan for a month. Plan for a day or two. What can I do today to make things a little easier for myself? (Drink some warm tea, call a friend, finish reading a chapter of a book). Small victories over routine give your brain dopamine.
5. Look for “your people”
Social isolation in winter is the shortest route to depression.
Recommendation: Even if there is no light, try to stay in touch. A joint trip to get water, a chat with neighbors, or a quick “How are you?” in a messenger app are your threads to normality.
These seemingly simple methods are among the most effective and will help you get through this difficult winter period. However, according to Olga Soboleva, supervisor of the mobile teams of psychologists at the SSS Charitable Foundation, if none of these methods help, it is better not to delay and seek professional help.
“If you feel that your apathy has lasted for more than two weeks, you cannot sleep or eat, or you have lost interest in your daily activities, do not hesitate to seek professional help. Our psychologists are ready to support you,” — the psychologist emphasizes.
As part of the Charitable Foundation’s project, our mobile teams have been visiting settlements in the Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, and Kherson regions for about four months. Psychologists conduct group and individual psychosocial support sessions for residents of frontline territories.
The project “Lifesaving response to protection concerns and humanitarian needs of conflict affected people in the South and South-East of Ukraine” is implemented by the Stabilization Support Services Charitable Foundation in partnership with the international humanitarian organization CARE, with financial support from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.