Brain-Friendly Holidays: Keep the Joy, Reduce the Stress

The holidays are complicated, especially if you have ADHD. You may genuinely love this season… AND also feel tense, scattered, exhausted, behind, overstimulated, and emotionally overloaded. Both things can be true. And for many of my clients, both things usually are!

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Why Are Holidays Tricky For Us?

Holidays come with more decisions, more expectations, more logistics, more noise, more emotions—and ADHD brains have to work harder to stay on top of it all.

So if you feel overwhelmed, it makes sense- your brain is responding to increased demands.

Here are six realistic, shame-free strategies that can help.

1. Simplify- but not "perfectly"

ADHD brains hear “simplify” and immediately feel pressure to "do it right".

That’s not the goal. We're simplifying to save energy and decrease stress.

How do we do that? Start by asking yourself:

What actually brings me joy?
What feels meaningful to me ? (Not what you're “supposed” to do).

Keep those things and allow the rest be simpler (like using the same idea for multiple people or a pot luck rather than a meal you have to plan) or even drop them altogether.

Simplifying is about protecting your decision making energy so you can be more available to enjoy your holidays in ways that fit you.

2. Zoom out when looking at your calendar

One day-at-a-time planning works when our days are steady-ish, but when the holidays arrive, it falls short.

During busy seasons, try a wider lens:
🗓️ week view
🗓️ month view
🗓️ energy view

When you see everything at once (school events, travel, parties, appointments) you can predict overload before it hits and adjust accordingly.

3. Support your executive functioning skills

With ADHD, you're spending more energy on executive function all year-round. During the holidays it's really easy to get completely overloaded because your commitments multiply.

Make life easier by:
✅ delegating
✅ automating
✅ reducing decisions
✅ writing things down instead of carrying them mentally
✅ cutting optional commitments

You're not being a Grinch, you're being strategic!

4. Build in recovery time.

Even the fun stuff can be draining. You may have to plan for more recovery and space between commitments to keep from getting overwhelmed.

Create intentional buffers:
• transition time between events
• quiet breaks during gatherings
• evenings with nothing planned
• space to regulate after sensory overload

I've found it can help to think about and build in the rest long before I need it. Once I'm overloaded and exhausted, it's much harder for me to recover.