Mental Health Holiday Gift Guide! Ideas to Show You Care
This holiday season, give the gift of mental health and emotional well-being. If somebody you love is currently struggling with stress, sadness, worry, or negative self image (hint - most of us are!) check out these gift ideas.
While these items can aid your friends and family in maintaining positive habits, accessing meaningful coping skills, and leveling up their self care, it is important to remember that no item alone will solve a mental health issue. Shop mindfully and intentionally!
Customized Journal
If you know me, you know I love journaling. It has been the single most meaningful coping skill for me on my own mental health journey, and I find it to be an extremely healing and insightful practice for most of my clients as well (even the ones who are initially resistant to it!)
My favorite journal brand is Papier. These journals and notebooks are high quality, affordable, and beautiful. Papier offers gratitude journals, wellness journals, sleep journals, goal-setting journals, and blank journals. You can also personalize them with your loved one’s name and favorite color scheme for a reasonable price.
Tip: Add on a really great pen for an elevated journaling experience. :)
2. Subscription to a Guided Meditation App
I’m sure you are already familiar with the many benefits of meditation—reduced stress, higher self esteem, improved physical health, and more. Although it is possible to have a successful meditation practice without a paid subscription, apps like Calm and Headspace make daily meditation easy. These apps offer thousands of guided meditations and motivate you to stick to the habit.
This is the kind of gift that a lot of people may be unwilling to pay for themselves (since you can technically meditate without an app) but it’s something that could go a really long way in improving anxiety, depression, stress, and other mental health concerns.
3. Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff
If I had to choose my favorite self-help book, it would most likely be Self Compassion by Kristin Neff. This book changed my life! If you or somebody you love is currently struggling with perfectionism, chronic self-criticism, overthinking, and/or low self-esteem, I highly recommend this book. Neff walks you through her own story while also sharing practical research and helpful tools for treating ourselves with kindness and rewiring the self-critical parts of our brain.
Another one of my favorites is The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. Based in ancient Toltec wisdom, this is a quick & easy read that has meaningful advice for EVERYONE on how to experience freedom, happiness, and love in our day-to-day lives.
4. A handwritten love letter!
I might be biased since I’m a words-of-affirmation girl, but in my opinion, nothing tops a handwritten letter. A meaningful letter conveys so much more than a store-bought object, lasts a lifetime, and it’s FREE! I also love the idea of always having a piece of my loved ones with me via their handwriting.
Sit down and take some intentional time to write your thoughts. For many, doing something like this can feel very vulnerable. A lot people also don’t know where to start when writing their loved one a letter, so here are some ideas:
Write everything you love and admire about your loved one
Tell them why you are proud of them
Write about some of your favorite memories with them
Share about the moment you knew that they were special to you
Explain how much gratitude you feel for them and why
Bonus points if you put it in a fun envelope and send it via snail mail! Guaranteed to make somebody’s day. You might find that writing a letter like this makes your day too. :)
5. Gua Sha Tool
Gua sha tools are very trendy right now, but they are actually part of a centuries-old Traditional Chinese Medical practice. Gua sha tools are designed to help you massage your face and other parts of your body to increase energy, flow, and balance across the body, effectively reducing stress.
Not only does gua sha feel like a luxurious self care experience, it also promotes mindfulness and emotional regulation. Gua sha has been shown to relieve tension in the face, head, shoulders, legs, and back. We often don’t realize how much anxiety, tension, and trauma we store in our body until we release it.
Breaking up the fascia in our face and throughout our body is a powerful somatic technique that has countless mental health benefits. Some research suggests that using a gua sha tool regularly can improve symptoms of anxiety and depression.
It is also possible to use a gua sha tool for vagus nerve stimulation, which can be extremely helpful in regulating the nervous system and recovering from trauma. Read more here to learn more about the countless benefits of this ancient practice.