Lack of time, lack of money and the pressure to give or get gifts are three of the major stressors during the holiday season, according to the American Psychological Association.
Reports show people feel stress on the job, like trying to balance all the responsibilities of work, family and the holidays. Other stressors include returning to work after the holidays with a heavier workload, gift giving, and attending holiday events.
Personal stress may come from travel plans, spending more time with family members, and finances, like spending more money than you should.
While stress during the holidays is common, it does not have to be. You can prepare for and manage stress by following steps like the ones listed below.
Understand Stress
Many people see holiday stress as an entity, like an evil being creating to make you feel miserable. Stress is a process that gives you complete control over how you respond to it.
The process of stress starts with a stressor, or an event, action, person or place. When you encounter one of these stressors, you start the second stage of the process, called appraisal.
Appraisal is when you analyze the person, place, thing, or event. At this moment you can appraise it as dangerous or threatening, or you can appraise it as non-threatening or harmless.
Once you make an appraisal, the final stage happens, your reaction to the event, person, place or thing.
If you can slow down the process of stress long enough to make the correct appraisal, you can avoid a lot of unnecessary stress during the holidays.
Here are the steps in an easy format to help you work through holiday stress:
A potential stressor appears
STOP and think before reacting
Appraise the potential stressor
Is it life-threatening? Is it dangerous?
If yes- react to protect yourself, get help, react in order to save yourself
If no, take time to think about your reaction. Stay calm. Then follow through with your reaction
Stay Organized
Too often we feel stressed and as if we do not have enough time because we are disorganized. If you use your organizational skills during the holidays, you can see a reduction in stress. You are no longer trying to sort tasks in your mind, which can feel overwhelming.
Instead, you know exactly when you are going to complete everything that needs to be done during the holidays.
Get a calendar that has spaces for every hour of the day. Give all your responsibilities a place, in a specific time slot. For example, from 7:30 am to 8:00 am you are driving to work. From 8:00 am to noon you are working. From noon to 1 pm you are eating and mailing Christmas cards to family. From 1 pm to 5 pm you are working again. From 5 pm to 6 pm you go home and fix supper. At 6 pm you are ordering or wrapping gifts. And so on.
Scheduling your duties on a calendar means you do not have to hold on to your to-do list in you mind, making it easier to manage stress during the holidays.
Set a Holiday Budget
Setting a holiday budget and sticking to it is key to having less stress during the holidays. Setting a budget is much more than just saying, “I have $200 to spend.”
Setting a budget means to assign every bit of the $200 to a specific place. Write down on paper where every cent will go. This will prevent you from overspending, which can create even more stress.
More gifts do not equal more happiness so do not feel like you must give everyone a gift, or multiple gifts. Some of the best gifts are not things, but acts of love, which are free.
Find Ways to Laugh
The holiday season is supposed to be joyful and give you a positive spirit. One way to allow this to happen is to laugh. Have you ever tried to be stressed out when you are laughing? It is impossible.
Laughter releases chemicals in the brain that cause you to feel happy. The more you laugh, the more these chemicals are released.
This holiday season make it your mission to find multiple ways every day to laugh. Listen to the comedy station on the radio or television. Tell jokes with you co-workers. Visit a comedy club. Binge watch funny shows. Read a joke an hour from a joke book.
Laughter feels good and is a great way to manage stress.
Take Care of Yourself
It is common during the holidays to focus on making everyone else happy. So much that you forget to take care of your own needs, mentally and physically. When you stop self-care, it is easier to view everything as a stressor.
Instead of reducing self-care practices, double them this season. Self-care tools include getting a massage, finding time to exercise, or spending time with friends. You may also want to meet with a counselor once or twice a week through the holidays.
Counselors have many ways to help you manage stress now and after the holidays.
Self-care also means improving limits and boundaries.
Obey Limits and Boundaries
Allowing others to infringe on parts of your life does not mean you are a better person. It means you are a more stressed out person. The ones who dumped on you are not feeling near as stressed as you are during the holidays.
Knowing your limits and setting boundaries based on those limits is essential in managing stress. All areas of your life have limits, including the amount of time you can spend at work, the amount of time you can spend with in-laws and even the amount of time you can go without taking care of yourself.
Boundaries protect these limits from being violated. Boundaries help you avoid taking on too much during the holidays. They help protect your time, your finances, and anything else valuable in your life.
In conclusion, stress can be managed during the holidays. With preparation and support, you can have the best holiday season yet.