Holiday Stress

We know this time of year can be stressful for some people. Here are some tools we hope you’ll find helpful if you find yourself feeling stressed this holiday season.

According to a poll by the American Psychiatric Association (December 2021), Americans are five times more likely to say their level of stress increases rather than decreases (41% to 7%) during the holidays.

Despite the enjoyment the holidays can bring, it can also come with stress to meet expectations. Often this is a stressful time for parents and kids too, however there are ways to identify your stress levels and apply tools to lower it.

The first step is to recognize what your stress triggers are, and for parents, the lack of routine and added holiday responsibilities may become overwhelming.

• A useful strategy might be to consider either adjusting what you can control or making time every day (even if it’s 5-10 minutes) for stress-reducing activities such as exercise, music, scheduling alone time, meditation, etc. to reduce your feelings of stress.

Here are 6 additional tools to reduce holiday stress:

1. Identify what is stressing you out. Acknowledge your emotions and use your tools (i.e., journaling, deep breathing, meditation, time outs) to regulate your feelings so that you can communicate your needs in a healthy way.

2. Set a budget. Look at your finances and decide what you are comfortable spending. It can be helpful to make a gift list with a spending limit and stick to it.

3. Say “No”, it’s ok not to do everything, especially if you feel overwhelmed. Give yourself permission to say “no”, you’ll end up feeling better than if you overcommitted yourself.

4. In-laws or out-laws? Strategize how you’ll interact and communicate with them and if you have a partner, make sure they’re on the same page. Discuss and agree on how much time you wish to spend with family and what conversations might be off limits. Have a signal (i.e., hand gesture, wink, or a touch on the shoulder) that let’s your partner know to change subject, or that you’re ready to go.

5. Everyone has different opinions ranging from politics, parenting, religious views etc. and their perspective might not match yours. When you start to feel stress in these situations you have the option of taking your own personal timeout away from the conversation or agree to disagree and change the subject. Identify when your body is signaling “stress!” and utilize a tool for calming yourself.

6. Gratitude goes a long way. When we practice gratitude for the people in our life and all we have, it can make us feel more optimistic and happier. It refocuses our thinking to more positive thoughts about our family members at those times when we might feel stress by them. Writing down what we are grateful for once a week, can make a big difference in our life.

Interested in learning more? Find our Classes page, including Managing Your Stress.