Welcome to Your Anxiety Toolkit. I'm your host Kimberly Quinlan. This podcast is fueled by three main goals. The first goal is to provide you with some extra tools to help you manage your anxiety. Second goal, to inspire you.

Anxiety doesn't get to decide how you live your life. And number three,

and I leave the best for last, is to provide you with one big, fat virtual hug, because experiencing

anxiety ain't easy. If that sounds good to you, let's go. Your holiday anxiety is not about the holidays.

If you're already dreading the holidays, the parties, the gifts giving, the endless pressure

to be cheerful, you are definitely, definitely not alone.

The holidays are the most triggering time of the year, but we can work to reduce the stress and the overwhelmed. Welcome, this is your anxiety

toolkit. This is a podcast where I teach you everything I know about anxiety so that you can go on to live your biggest, most

meaningful life. I am an OCD and anxiety specialist. I have a practice in Calabas, California,

and I am on a mission to help people with anxiety suffer less. Now let's talk about what we're

going to do today. In this episode, we are going to talk about the reasons why holiday anxiety can be so intense. We're going to talk about why you might be

noticing an increase in your symptoms of anxiety, OCD, depression, body image issues, or even

any kind of mental health struggle. And then I'm going to walk you through some compassionate

ways you can care for yourself in this season. So let's get started and get straight to it.

Now the holidays will often bring up very big feelings, some really joyful, wonderful

feelings, but for many, it's a time of heightened anxiety. It's important for you to understand

that the stress you're feeling mightn't necessarily be because of the holidays themselves.

Let me explain what I mean. Often, it's about the expectations that come from the holidays.

Not always, and we'll talk about some other examples, but our

expectations on ourselves is so high during the holidays that that stress can tippy top us into

having all kinds of symptoms, and let's get to the bottom of how to manage that. Now, of course,

when we're talking about anything anxiety related, you know here at your anxiety toolkit,

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