Coping with Stress During The Holidays
As the holiday season rolls around every time of year, many people begin experiencing the stressful impacts the season brings. You are not alone. It is not uncommon to feel overwhelmed especially during the holiday season.
It may be the too-expensive piling gift list or the turkey that needs to be perfectly seasoned before going into the oven. Perhaps it's the unruly in-laws who tend to notice that speck of dust on the tallest shelf of your bookcase. According to the social worker and advisory board member of Men's Health Network, Alphonso Gibbs, “for some, the holidays bring hurt caused by factors such as the weather, separation, death, stress, unrealistic expectations, hyper sentimentality, guilt or overspending, and holiday depression, called the holiday blues.” It’s not easy—that overflowing pressure that comes with this time of year. But luckily, there are ways to cope as that pressure begins to grow.
Ways to Manage Your Stress:
Let's get to the basics. Exercise. Communicate. Meditate. Truthfully, it isn't as simple as those three words, but with a bit of tweaking to your upcoming schedule, you may find communication, exercising, and meditation to be just what you need. It's the inevitable truth that stopping stress feels nearly impossible, but how you manage it can ease the symptoms.
Exercise & Communicate. Gibbs emphasizes the importance of acknowledging that you are hurting. Be open and honest with your family and friends, do not feel guilty about getting the help you may need. Invest yourself in an exercise program to help elevate your mood such as Pilates.
Comparatively to Pilates and other forms of exercise, meditation has an important role in alleviating stress. Meditating increases plasma melatonin levels which can improve the quality of sleep you get at night. Quality sleep can be a hard thing to come by when feeling high levels of stress. So not only is meditation a useful tool for a good night’s sleep, but it is also a calming technique that can be used during the day.
If you have never tried meditation before, try downloading the “Calm” app, or find beginners meditation lessons online such as: https://www.mindful.org/how-to-meditate/
A Fun Way to Alleviate Stress:
Pets! That’s right. Your fuzzy, squishy, friendly little creature you call a pet can help alleviate your stress. Finally, cat people and dog people can unite…and perhaps guinea pig or other pet people, lizard people? You unite, too!
News in Health claims, “interacting with animals has been shown to decrease levels of cortisol (a stress-related hormone) and lower blood pressure. Other studies have found that animals can reduce loneliness, increase feelings of social support, and boost your mood.”
Whether you choose to cuddle your fluffy friend, try out a new workout plan, meditate, or learn to communicate your stress openly, you may find that it decreases your stress. Not every strategy works for every person. Try different things, learn what makes you stressed specifically and nail down a plan to help alleviate it using the suggested techniques. So, when your in-laws find that speck of dust, when money is tight, or when the ham doesn't cook quite right, take a deep breath and do what is best for your mind and your body this holiday season. Snuggle your pet, go on a walk, learn meditation, try Pilates, communicate your feelings and struggles.
References
Gibbs Jr., Alphonso. (2018, December 27). Avoiding the holiday blues. New York Amsterdam News, 109(52), 26.
Harrison, Wein (Ph.D.) (Ed.). (2020, April 6). The power of pets. National Institutes of Health. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/
Santhanam, P., Preetha, S., & Devi, R. G. (2018). Role of meditation in reducing stress. Drug Invention Today, 10(11), 2264–2266.