4 Ways to Minimize Holiday Stress

Looks like my post yesterday generated some traffic, even if not all my visitors left comments. (That's usually the case.) I'm glad that it seemed to resonate with a few of you.

As a result of this revelation I myself had, I thought I'd create a stress-busting guide for this year.

I wrote this article originally for Choose Now Ministries, which focuses on parents of teens. But parents of any age child will benefit from these 4 stress-reducing strategies. We have to remember that our children definitely pick up on our stress levels. It's like they get it through osmosis.

So here are my suggestions:

1) Get practical.

We all have one or two areas that we stress over more than others. More than likely, our anxieties revolve around financial, health-related, or interpersonal concerns. Maybe we can’t be in the same room with our mother, or we just don’t have enough money to do gifts like we have in the past. Whatever it is, verbalize it to someone else. Doing this objectifies it and makes it a force that you can reckon with.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Let's Analyze

Anything else that you do in particular to de-stress during the holidays? Please share with me!

Why Are Holidays So Hard?

Around this time of year, we all seem to get a little more stressed out than usual. I heard the best explanation of why this might be this past week at a training, and I wanted to share it with my readers.

1) We don't live as close to the earth. 

Image by marin @ freedigitalphotos.net

We didn't have electricity, so people basically followed the sun's pattern. Early to bed, early to rise. There was no Daylight Savings Time. People hibernated in the winter out of necessity. The climate, the environment tells us to "stay inside!" It's darker sooner, colder, wetter...all good reasons to stay inside.

Now, we have the hustle and bustle of the holidays that goes against this ingrained animal instinct to withdraw, snuggle up by the fire, and sleep. We have parties to attend, gifts to buy, dinners to cook, presents to wrap, places to go, people to see. It's counterintuitive to many, which explains why people can get so dysregulated during the holidays, even those who don't get into the Christmas spirit.

2) The entire holiday season has a "be of good cheer" motto. 

 Just look at the titles of well-known Christmas songs: Happy Holidays; We Wish You a Merry Christmas; Holly, Jolly Christmas; The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Many people simply are not happy during the holidays, for a variety of reasons, all of which are normal. Maybe they live far away from relatives, or they lost someone during the holidays that makes enduring them very difficult. So when the entire world is telling you to be happy, merry, and jolly, this can bring your fairly normal, seasonal-affective-type depression into stark contrast with the lights and festivities and music.

I'm sure there are other reasons, some more individualistic than these, but this was eye-opening for me, and I hope it is to you as well. Come back Wednesday, as I'll have some steps to minimize holiday stress that I want to share.

Let's Analyze

Do you have any other ideas on why the holidays can be such a hardship for some?

When Families Feud: Effects of Stress

Have you ever looked around your house and wondered, "How did it get this dirty?" My husband and I had this experience last Saturday.

Problem is, no one wants to admit having been the one to start piling the dishes up, or having left a plate on the table or not told our daughter that she really should throw most of her toys in the trash because they are actual trash. (What is it with kids and trash they think are "treasures?")

Anyway...this brought about a little fight disagreement between my husband and me. We exchanged some heated words (proud to say there was no cursing) about whose fault most of the mess was. We usually just point our fingers at our oblivious daughter, sigh, and go into a cleaning session that makes Martha Stewart look bad.

This past Saturday, though, was different.

Why?

Because our family unit is under a bit of stress.

Stress makes even little arguments balloon out of proportion. My husband has started a new job as a youth minister (part of the reason for the no cursing). If you didn't know it, youth ministers have weird hours. I don't think they have an actual "schedule," you know, like normal working folk. It's more of a vague, ambiguous "I don't know when I'll be home" kind of thing.

Bottom line: Our family system reacted differently (heated words) because one family member (my husband) had changed the status quo.

Systems operate that way. Any good Marriage and Family Therapist will tell you that. This is a great example from my own life to illustrate my point.

Family members have to shift to account for a change in another family member. Readjust, if you will. It's the readjustment that sometimes brings a family into therapy, but in contrast, it can be the status quo that needs to be readjusted that brings a family in. Either way, the system changes.

My husband and I are fine, by the way. We both recognize (and more importantly, talk about) the changes in our life and how this affects our reactions to each other. We're hunkering down for this transitional period....and we're going to ride it out on top of the wave.

Let's Analyze: Summer breaks are around the corner (or already here) for most of us...and this is a huge stressor for families because schedules change, as do expectations and responsibilities. Any shifts going on in your family at this time?

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