With bright decorations, gifts, traditions, and quality time with loved ones, the holiday season is designed to keep our reward system activated. All these festivities ensure our brain rewards us with hit after hit of dopamine.
The holiday season is full of experiences we look forward to all year. It is a time that can bring joy, excitement, and even stress. Regardless of what the holidays have in store, our brain’s reward system is bound to be working overtime. And that means we might experience a steady influx of dopamine-induced holiday highs.
Dopamine is a feel-good hormone released anytime we engage in a pleasurable activity, such as eating a favorite food, spending time with a loved one or receiving and giving gifts. These are activities most of us do in abundance during the holiday season. Even the anticipation of doing these activities can cause our brain to release a hit of dopamine.
Imagine you are headed to a holiday family gathering that will feature traditional festive foods and a gift exchange. You walk in and familiar holiday decorations are on display giving you a wave of nostalgia. Your aunt greets you with a warm, welcoming hug. Eventually, you sit down for dinner, and foods you only eat around the holidays are laid out before you. These dishes are special, prepared once a year, and you look forward to eating them every winter. After dinner, the family gathers for a gift exchange where you get to anticipate opening a gift and watching someone open the gift you brought.
All these things – decorations, nostalgia, foods, quality family time, gifts (giving and receiving), and anticipation – alert your brain to release dopamine. This scenario involves just one potential gathering during the holiday season, but the whole season is packed with these experiences.
The great thing about dopamine is that it makes us feel good, but too much of a good thing can lead to unintended consequences. When it comes to too much dopamine, we can start to need more dopamine to get the ‘feel-good’ effects. This can leave us seeking out experiences that will give us more dopamine.
If we end up chasing dopamine hits during the holidays we could find ourselves overextending – committed to too many festivities and spending money that we normally wouldn’t spend. It’s important to set boundaries for ourselves around the holidays so we can prioritize rest and relaxation, engage in activities that are meaningful and bring joy, and stick to our budgets.
It is also important that we manage our expectations for the holidays. The dopamine hits we get from planning and buying things can build something up, causing your brain to set very high expectations about the outcome. Often, those expectations end up not matching reality and when that happens, we can experience disappointment and emotional lows. We can help prevent this let down by managing our expectations and focusing on being present and enjoying the planning and shopping – those things themselves can be enjoyable and rewarding.
The holidays are a unique time we only get to experience once each year. Understanding how dopamine affects our brains during the holidays can help us navigate the season more mindfully, allowing us to enjoy the holidays while maintaining our emotional well-being
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