Your Brain on Holiday Stress: A Faith-Based Guide to Regulating Your Nervous System
It's 3:15 PM on a Tuesday, and you're standing in the middle of a crowded store. The holiday music is a little too loud, the checkout line is a mile long, and your phone is buzzing with notifications. You can feel a familiar tension creeping up your neck, your jaw is clenched, and your mind is racing through the seventeen other things you still need to do before the day is over. You take a deep breath and tell yourself to "just relax" and "get in the holiday spirit," but the feeling of being completely overwhelmed only grows stronger.
If this scene feels even remotely familiar, I want you to know something: you are not failing at the holidays. Your feeling of being frazzled, anxious, and utterly exhausted is not a character flaw or a lack of faith. It's a biological response. It's your nervous system, doing exactly what it was designed to do when it perceives a threat, and right now, it's perceiving threats everywhere.
In my work as a neurocoach, I see so many women who believe they should be able to think or pray their way out of holiday stress. But here's the truth I've come to understand through both neuroscience and my own faith journey: true, lasting peace comes when we learn to work with the magnificent brain and body God gave us, not against them.
What's Really Happening in Your Brain and Body
Let's pull back the curtain on what's happening inside you during the holiday rush. Your body has a remarkable, built-in system for managing threats and keeping you safe. It's called the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), and it has two main branches: the Sympathetic and the Parasympathetic.
Think of the Sympathetic Nervous System as your body's gas pedal. It's your "fight-or-flight" response. When it's activated, your brain's threat-detection center, the amygdala, sounds the alarm. It floods your body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, your heart rate increases, your muscles tense, and your focus narrows. This system is brilliant for helping you swerve to avoid a car accident or react quickly in a crisis.
Then there's the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which is your body's brake pedal. This is your "rest-and-digest" (or "feed-and-breed") system. It's what helps you feel calm, connected, and safe. It lowers your heart rate, relaxes your muscles, and allows for digestion, healing, and restoration.
Here's the critical part: your nervous system doesn't know the difference between a life-threatening emergency and a packed holiday schedule. The relentless pace, financial pressures, family tensions, and the sheer volume of your to-do list are all interpreted by your amygdala as threats. As a result, your Sympathetic nervous system gets stuck in the "on" position. You're living with your foot slammed on the gas pedal, day after day.
Living in this state of chronic activation is what leads to that all-too-familiar feeling of burnout. It's why you feel irritable, have trouble sleeping, can't think clearly (hello, brain fog!), and feel emotionally fragile. Your body wasn't designed to sustain this level of alert for weeks on end.
Why "Just Pray More" or "Choose Joy" Isn't Enough
As women of faith, our default response to feeling overwhelmed is often to pray harder, read more scripture, or try to force ourselves to feel more joyful and grateful. These are beautiful, essential practices. But when your nervous system is dysregulated, they can sometimes feel like they're not working, which only adds a layer of guilt to your stress.
Have you ever tried to sit and pray when your heart is racing and your mind is spinning? It's nearly impossible. That's because you can't think your way into a state of calm when your body is in a state of survival. You have to address the physiological reality first. You have to gently guide your body out of "fight-or-flight" and into "rest-and-digest."
This isn't a lack of faith; it's an acknowledgment of our integrated design. God created us as whole beings. Mind, body, and spirit are intricately connected. Tending to the needs of our physical body and our nervous system is a form of spiritual stewardship. It's how we create the internal conditions necessary for our spirit to truly connect with God's peace.
As it says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." Honoring God with our bodies includes honoring the way He designed our nervous systems to function.
3 Practical Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System
So, how do we actually do this? How do we signal to our brain and body that we are safe, even amidst the holiday chaos? It's about intentionally and repeatedly activating your Parasympathetic nervous system. Here are three simple, science-backed strategies you can start using today.
1. The Physiological Sigh
This is a powerful, evidence-based breathing technique that you can do anywhere, anytime. It was popularized by Stanford neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman and is one of the fastest ways to calm your body's stress response.
How to do it:
Take a deep inhale through your nose.
When your lungs feel full, take another short, sharp inhale to expand them just a little bit more.
Then, perform a long, slow, complete exhale through your mouth.
That's it. Just one or two rounds of the physiological sigh can immediately offload carbon dioxide and send a direct message to your brain to slow your heart rate and switch on the Parasympathetic system. Try it before you walk into a store, when you're sitting in traffic, or before responding to a stressful email.
2. Engage Your Senses (The 5-4-3-2-1 Method)
When you're stuck in your head, worrying about the future or ruminating on the past, your brain stays in a state of threat. Grounding yourself in the present moment through your five senses is a powerful way to anchor your nervous system in safety.
How to do it:
Name 5 things you can see. Look around and notice the details. The color of the ornament on the tree, the texture of your sweater, a crack in the ceiling.
Name 4 things you can feel. The softness of the chair you're sitting on, the warmth of your coffee mug, the feeling of your feet on the floor, the texture of your jeans.
Name 3 things you can hear. The hum of the refrigerator, the sound of distant traffic, the ticking of a clock.
Name 2 things you can smell. The scent of pine from the Christmas tree, the aroma of your tea.
Name 1 thing you can taste. The lingering taste of your toothpaste or your morning coffee.
This grounding exercise pulls your brain out of anxious thought loops and into the physical reality of the present moment, signaling that you are safe right now.
3. The "Bookend Your Day" Practice
I've found that one of the most transformative habits for my clients, and for myself, is to intentionally "bookend" the day with moments of regulation. This creates a foundation of calm that makes you more resilient to the stressors that pop up in between.
How to do it:
Morning Bookend (First 10 minutes):Before you pick up your phone, before you check your email, before you start the day's to-do list, spend 10 minutes in quiet. This could be prayer, scripture reading, journaling, or simply sitting with a warm drink and breathing. The goal is to start your day from a place of Parasympathetic activation, not Sympathetic reactivity.
Evening Bookend (Last 10 minutes):In the last 10 minutes before you go to sleep, put away all screens. Do a gentle stretching routine, listen to calming music, read a physical book (not on a screen!), or practice a simple body scan meditation, noticing any areas of tension and consciously releasing them. This helps your body transition into a state of deep, restorative sleep.
Protecting these small pockets of time at the beginning and end of your day is a powerful act of stewardship over your well-being.
The Invitation: Choose Regulation Over Reactivity
This holiday season, I want to invite you to release the pressure to feel a certain way and instead focus on what your body needs. The goal isn't to eliminate all stress. That's impossible. The goal is to become skilled at navigating it. It's about learning to move fluidly between the gas pedal and the brake pedal, to respond to challenges from a place of regulation rather than reactivity.
Every time you pause to take a deep breath, every time you ground yourself in the present moment, you are strengthening the neural pathways that lead to peace. You are teaching your nervous system that it is safe, that it is cared for, and that it doesn't have to live in a constant state of high alert.
This is not another thing to add to your to-do list. Think of it as a subtraction. A letting go of the need to push through, to ignore your body's signals, and to pretend you're fine when you're not. It's the gift of presence, of peace, of honoring the beautiful, intricate way you were made.
This year, let's make our goal not a "perfect" holiday, but a regulated one. Your brain, your body, and your spirit will thank you for it.
If you're feeling stuck in a cycle of stress and burnout and are ready to find a new way forward, I'm here to help. Schedule a free consultation and let's talk about how faith-based neurocoaching can help you rewire your brain for lasting peace and resilience.
