The holidays can be both fun and stressful for many people, evoking a range of mixed emotions. The fun parts of the holiday season include nostalgia, a love for the holidays, spending time with family, gift-giving, indulging in fun treats, taking breaks from work, engaging in enjoyable activities, and more. But with this fun can come a lot of stress. Some of this stress can include traveling, financial stressors, pressure to meet expectations, family stress, feelings of loneliness, planning, gift-giving, and more. Our work can also be impacted by the holidays; depending on the industry you work in, it may be slower at work or busier at work. It can be hard to keep a consistent schedule or routine during the holidays. So how can we manage our stress around the holidays so we can focus more on the positives that the holidays bring?
First, managing your expectations for yourself can bring a lot of relief. The holidays can come with a lot of expectations on gift giving, time spent with others, etc. These expectations can cause pressure on ourselves and others, which can increase stress. Maybe an expectation for yourself was that you exercise three times a week. During the holiday, this may be an unrealistic expectation due to traveling or having a lot of plans. So the option could be to only try to exercise once that week or get back into your exercise routine after the holidays! Another expectation could be the number of gifts you wanted to buy for someone. Maybe you wanted to buy your partner five gifts, but maybe five gifts would cause a lot of financial stress, and three gifts would be more realistic.
Another way to manage stress could be getting creative with gift-giving to lessen financial stress. People spend a lot of money on gifts or on buying the most expensive things, when gift-giving could also be handmade or thrifted gifts. Handmade gifts can be a cheaper alternative to buying all your gifts. Giving someone handmade gifts can feel more thoughtful to the person receiving the gift, too. Thrifted gifts can be a good, cheaper alternative to gifts. You can use your creativity with thrifted gifts too, and searching the thrift store for a gift can be fun!
Feelings of loneliness can be a big trigger for people during the holidays. Ways to combat loneliness during the holidays can be if spending time with family is not an option, identifying friends to spend time with. If spending time with friends or family is not an option identifying fun activities that you can do by yourself. An example would be finding a restaurant you enjoy or spending time at a coffee shop you enjoy. Spending time with pets can be fulfilling too; an option could also be celebrating the holidays with your pets and making an event out of that!
Identifying what emotions come up around the holidays can help create a game plan to cope with holiday stress. Once you identify the emotion reminding yourself of what you typically do to cope with that emotion. If you’re anxious and going on a walk helps you cope, then make sure to block out time to do that activity. Reminding yourself to engage in mindfulness activities can be helpful. An example of a mindfulness activity could be meditation. If you’re feeling lonely than reaching out to social supports and expressing to them how you feel can be helpful and a good way to cope. Sometimes, even setting goals for the new year can help with giving you something to look forward to! The first step to managing holiday stress is to identify the stressor. Once you identify the stressor, then identifying next steps to cope with that stressor. Whether that next step is to meditate, get creative with your gifts, reach out to friends, give yourself alone time, or more. Try to get creative with your solutions and focus on identifying your needs and what needs need to be met.