Sugar, Excitement, and Regulation: A Holiday Trifecta - Part 2

Because the plot twists don’t stop after candy canes and cousins.

Parties, cookies, cousins, candy canes — it’s all fun until the sparkle turns into static. The tricky part? Sugar and excitement don’t just add to the holiday energy — they multiply it. Fast.
The brain isn’t built for back-to-back bursts of sugar highs, laughter fits, and emotional fireworks. It does its best, burns through its regulation fuel, and suddenly the happy chaos becomes… just chaos.

The truth? What looks like fun overload is really the nervous system saying, “That was great — but I’m out of battery.”

Sugar highs come with fine print — and it’s called “the crash.”

✨ One thing to remember

When sugar and excitement collide, the nervous system doesn’t just get “amped up” — it also burns through regulation fuel faster.

Think of the nervous system like a battery:
Sugar = quick, sparkly energy
Excitement = emotional intensity
Holiday environments = sensory overload

Put all three together and suddenly your person goes from 90% battery to 9% in what feels like two minutes.

And once the battery drops low, you don’t see “misbehaviour.”
You see fatigue, frustration, prickly edges, clinginess, tears, silliness, or shutdown.

The crash isn’t personal.
It’s physiological.

Especially for neurodiverse individuals or those with FASD, that fuel drains even faster because their nervous system is already working overtime to make sense of sound, light, smell, transitions, surprises, conversations — all of it.

✨ One thing to release

Release the idea that regulation “should recover quickly” once the excitement ends or the sugar wears off.

It doesn’t.

Once the nervous system is taxed, it can take hours to re-regulate — sometimes the rest of the day.

Slow recoveries aren’t a sign of a problem.
They’re a sign of a system doing its best to stabilize.

(And no, you didn’t “ruin the day,” “overdo it,” or “let them have too much.” Holidays are simply… a lot.)

✨ One thing that may help today

Try a Slow-Down Sandwich.

Not a food sandwich — a routine sandwich:

Calm → Fun → Calm

Examples:
• Quiet play → decorating → cozy movie time
• Low lights + soft music → cookie baking → a warm bath
• Weighted lap pad → gingerbread house → quiet colouring
• A walk outside → holiday event → dim lights + downtime

This predictable rhythm lets the nervous system “reset” before and after the stimulating thing — instead of freefalling into a crash.

A Slow-Down Sandwich gives the day smoother edges… and gives everyone a gentler way through the sparkle.