Holidays can be a stressful and difficult time for many individual and families. Family traditions and gatherings bring about excitement and joy for many individuals. But for some, the holidays bring extra stress and exhaustion. ScottCounseling recognizes child psychology author, Christopher Williams, for supplying the reader with some helpful holiday “stress-release” tips.
Sleigh bells are jingling, tree lights are twinkling and shoppers are crowding into the stores. Warm greetings are given, carolers are singing and families are gathering once more. Once again it is the Christmas season. For many it is the best of times; a time to anticipate celebration, tradition, and holiday cheer. But for others, it is the worst of times as the added stress of the holidays strips away any sense of joy or hopes for more than just managing to survive the demands of the month.
- Welcome to one of the highest stress periods of the year. We greet this season with visions of our childhood ideals dancing in our heads. A collection of “Kodak moments” form our expectations for bountiful feasts, warm hearted sharing with family and friends, and peace on earth for all. Visions of Christmas cards all mailed, gifts purchased, cookies baked, and concerts attended fill our heads. Thoughts of cheery “Merry Christmas” wishes to strangers, extra time spent with our children, spouses, friends and relatives, and some self-indulgence for ourselves in the joys of the season warm our hearts. With these images forming our plan for pursuing the perfect holidays, we greet the season with high hopes.
- Unfortunately, the reality of our lives often follows a different script. The best laid plans are overturned by a child who finally remembers he needs to take twelve dozen cookies to school in the morning along with the Christmas play costume he also forgot to mention. Friends all choose the same night for dinner parties, and the choice becomes whose feelings to hurt. The checkbook shows empty way too soon, the work load intensifies in a rush to get too many projects done before the end of the year, and the hours slip away in a blur.
- The sheer number of demands made on us through the holiday season is more than enough to keep most of us at the edge of our stress threshold. Our stress threshold is that uniquely individual point when we become overstressed and exceed our coping capabilities.
- When we look at stress as the dynamic tension between these external events, demands, and relationships and the hopes, expectations, and desires for an idealized perfect holiday season coming out of our internal learning; it is easy to see how the season feels so stressful. The realities of the way the days unfold continuously threaten our expectations for everything to be perfect. The message we hear somewhere deep inside is that if we were good enough it would be perfect. Suddenly every little event over which we have no control, is threatening our sense of self and controlling how we feel.
- The stress response is engaged over and over again with no opportunity for rest. Warm feelings toward our fellow shoppers quickly shift from well wishing to just wishing they would go somewhere else as we battle for parking spaces and places in line. The anticipation of holiday cheer with friends and family is replaced by angry tension. And credit cards hit their limits in the effort to redeem the perfect holiday season with more expensive gifts.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can employ various strategies to help us better handle the pressures of holiday stress. Here are six relatively easy things we can do.
- Take a break from the Superhuman Syndrome. Many of us believe we can do it all and please everyone. We take on the full responsibility for making the holidays perfect for everyone, and believe we can control enough of life to make it happen. For folks like me, at least, we think that if we can be the best of all things to all people, then we will be loved and accepted. And when we fail, we believe it is our own fault for just not being good enough. The truth is that there is only so much we can do, and there is only so much stress we can handle before we become overstressed. Another truth is that it really doesn’t matter as much as we think it does to the people who love us. The people who love and accept us already will continue to do so no matter how much we get done or how perfect we make the holidays. And the ones who don’t, well, either way they still won’t. One other thing to keep in mind is that every person’s idealized expectations for what constitutes a perfect holiday season is different. So we might as well give ourselves a break from these superhuman expectations. Doing so reduces the power some of these external events have to spoil our mood and enables us to enjoy the season a little more. In giving ourselves a break, we can then give ourselves permission to relax during the holidays. We no longer have to spend every moment trying to make the holidays better for everybody else.
- Get enough sleep. This is one of the most overlooked secrets for coping with stress. Getting the sleep we need plays a key role in the amount of stress we can handle through the day before becoming overstressed. It is during sleep that our brain sorts through information taken in through the day, and works toward resolving emotional issues that have come up. We have also discovered that getting as little as an hour less than we need affects how we function through the day, creating situations that contribute significantly to our stress load. Unfortunately, sleep is one of the things we think we can sacrifice through the holidays. Then we blame the mid-day fatigue and crankiness, the forgetfulness, the inability to find things or to get organized, and the inability to get things done or make sense of what people are saying on the stress of the season. It is just the cost of not getting enough sleep.
- Get organized. This is best done early in the season. We can start by identifying the things we want to do and the things we need to do. Then we can prioritize our list; identifying what is most important to us and what can be sacrificed. Then we can organize our time and finances with those priorities in mind.
- Build a stress list. Something I’ve found helpful is making a list of the specific stressors that are getting to me. Stressors, which are uniquely perceived by each of us, are those people, events, or situations that make demands on us triggering our stress response. This is our opportunity to pay attention to what it is that triggers our automatic response to fight or flee, and simply naming them reduces the power they hold over us. It is also an opportunity to look behind our initial reactions to see what it is within our “programming” that is causing us to react negatively to these stressors. The more we understand our reactions to the people and events that cause us stress, the more creative and productive our reactions become. By identifying the people and events causing us the most stress, we are able to reduce the stress we feel.
- Participate. Loneliness is a major source of stress for many of us. Sitting alone leaves us feeling sad, frustrated and angry with ourselves. This is a difficult time of year for friendships. It is a time when our expectations for good times with friends is higher than normal, and a time when people have very little time for friends. Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves, this is a good time of year to invite people over or meet them for coffee at the bookstore. It is a good time to get involved in a church, or to offer our services to neighborhood or volunteer organizations. And even if we are not doing things with friends or family, it is good just to be out in the world circulating with people, going shopping, going to concerts, or going out for dinner.
- Pay attention to communication. Actually listening to what others are saying and saying what we mean is tricky enough throughout the rest of the year. It is even worse during the holiday season when our attention is distracted, our minds busier than an air traffic controller in a Chicago snowstorm, and our stress levels so overwhelming that we don’t even care. Nevertheless, miscommunication creates many of the stress crises that we find ourselves facing. We can help ourselves avoid some of those time and energy consuming crises by taking a little extra time to listen closely and communicated clearly. We want to make sure we understand what others are saying to us and then say what we mean as clearly as we can.
