Transform Your Holiday Stress: A Mindset Shift for a Season of Joy

With Thanksgiving this week, the holiday season is officially upon us!

For many its a time for celebration, parties, some time off of work, food, travel, and family gatherings.
For many more its a time of stress, anxiety, pressure and frustration.

Oddly enough, the things people look forward to the most this time of year are the exact things they fear and worry over.

The Problem:
The American Psychiatric Association estimate that 31% of Americans are more stressed this holiday season compared to last year. This is a 9% increase from 2021.

Most of that stress comes from financial concerns regarding affording gifts and meals. Other concerns are traveling and discussing Covid and politics.

Overlooked factors for many are high or unrealistic expectations. Many put such a large emphasis on dinners, gifts, experiences that they become the cause of major stress. These things take a lot of planning and prep, and even if they go well, there is a level of exhaustion and stress that follows.

People who have experienced loss or change the past year often have a difficult time navigating this time of year. For them, its a reminder of that loss and that comes with grieving all over again.

How Most People Handle Stress:
Most people deal with holiday stress the same way they deal with other day-to-day stress.

-Bury themselves in work
-Attach to social media
-Overeating
-Alcohol
-Drugs

This, of course, usually makes things worse. Much of what these things accomplish is a short spike in dopamine. Basically, they are seeking anything to feel good. Anything to distract themselves from what the believe to be the source of their frustration. Its how they cope.

You can see why this doesn't work.

Bury in work=Distance from family
Attach to social media=Comparison and self-critical
Overeating=Discomfort, bloating, low energy
Alcohol/drugs=Hung over, bloating, low energy, no motivation

These short term spikes come with some major fall out and its a vicious cycle. 

Stress>cope>feel like crap> stress> cope> feel like crap> repeat.

But what if this year could be different?

What if you didn't have to rely on these things to distract you from the holiday stress?

Yes, it is possible. But it'll start with you and your mindset around these things.

Lets further identify what we are dealing with here.

Stress: is a natural and normal response to challenging situations or demands, often referred to as stressors. It is the body's way of reacting to a perceived threat or pressure, whether real or imagined. Stress can manifest in various ways, both physically and mentally, and it can have both short-term and long-term effects on an individual's well-being.

So now that we have defined what stress is, lets further deconstruct.

Acute stress: Short term stress in response to immediate challenges or pressure. Once stressor is removed, stress usually leaves with it.

When we don't properly manage these acute stressors we find ourselves dealing with...

Chronic stress. Ongoing, long term exposure to stressors. This creates negative physical and mental symptoms that if not handled over time, can have serious negative effects on overall health.

Physical symptoms of each include headache, loss of appetite, increase in appetite, loss of sleep, fatigue.

Mental and emotional symptoms include 

• Anxiety, irritability, sadness, and feelings of overwhelm.

• Difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness, and racing thoughts.

• Changes in eating or sleeping patterns, social withdrawal, or increased use of substances like alcohol or tobacco.

How to Manage Stress:

Its important to realize that in large part, stress is a survival response to danger or threat to our existence on an emotional or physical level. The problem here is that for 99% of us, our physical survival isn't at risk. So our stress is created in our mind through perception and relationships with our outside or internal world.

For this reason I wont be giving you workouts to try, breathwork exercises. I want you to be able to truly transform your relationship to your stress.

Here are a few things that have helped me and my clients.

1. Change the relationship, remove the "danger",  remove the stress.

In short, managing stress comes with assigning new meaning to what these "stressors" mean to you. 

I realize this may sound a little esoteric and incomplete, however, lets take exercise as a way to cope.

Many would say this a preferential way to handle stress compared to alcohol, and I wouldn't argue that point. You reap many more rewards from a heavy weight lifting session than a night of binge drinking.

But lets say you go for a run because you are stressed out about money and gifts. The run will manage the symptoms of stress without getting rid of what caused it. Which is your relationship to getting the perfect gift or having enough money to buy it. Instead you must change what money and gift giving means to you. Set a new expectation within your family, let it come from a real and genuine place. Not fear, shame or guilt. 

2. Journal

Lets say you are stressed out about all the family gatherings you have coming up. You have to bring side dishes, gifts, and commute 1-2 hours back and forth. You are becoming bitter trying to figure it all out and you keep reminding yourself that once its all done with, you can relax.

Sound familiar?

Sit down, get out a pen and notebook and write down all of the reasons that doing these things will be worth it and make it your priority to find all the reason to be grateful for this instead of being bothered by it. Further, write down all of the things you are grateful for and why. The why is key as it gives real energy and emotion to gratitude. When in truly genuine gratitude, it is impossible to feel anything else.

Can it really be that simple? Of course it can! After all, you are the one who has decided it has to be stressful. Why not transform that into gratitude.

3. Time Management

I took acting classes for years in Chicago to become a better communicator, and to break out of my shell. My acting coach taught me that "with preparation we relieve anxiety."

I never forgot that advice and have since used it in every area of my life that brought about some sort of stress.

Sitting down and mapping out your day, week and month can be an incredibly therapeutic and productive tool in relieving stress this time of year. Instead of worrying about how everything is going to get done, take some time and write out what needs to get done and then deconstruct this into daily actions, and then further schedule them into time blocks in your day. Seeing it in front of you instead of worrying about it in your head is so important. I recorded a video that breaks down how to do this, and you can view that HERE.

Transforming what these experiences mean to us is the key to transforming our stress.

There are three books that I recommend to people who are looking to create better relationships themselves, others and minimize stress. The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, Letting Go by Dr. David Hawkins and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

4. Play Out Worst Case Scenario.

Stoic philosopher Seneca once said, "we suffer more in imagination that reality."

In the TV series "This is Us" the characters Beth and Randall would go back and forth and play out the worst case scenario on a given problem. They'd take turns unraveling step by step the domino effect that each decision would have and examine the worst possible outcome. They wouldn't stop until it became as bad as they could imagine. The genius behind this idea is that it helps you deconstruct the worst possible outcome, only to see that with even the worst case scenario, they would be ok. Their family would be ok and life would move on and be ok. This can be a valuable tool during stressful times to keep perspective and zoom out on not just what's most important but to realize that you can handle hard stuff and be ok. Check out a clip of them playing HERE.

5. Exposure to Adaptive Stressors.

Another way to becomes resistant to stress is to expose yourself to more stress.

But not just any kind, adaptive stress. These are things like exercise, sauna, cold plunge, breathwork, etc.

These things stress the body in a way that forces the body to meet the demands, adapt to them and then overcome them. This raises our threshold for what you can tolerate not just physically but mentally and emotionally as well. In fact, there are plenty of studies that show people who exercise and partake in adaptive stress techniques are more resilient to environmental stressors.

So if you are already exercising, eating well and moving your body on a regular basis, then continuing to prioritize these are going to be key as well.

If you are not, then its worth implementing one or multiple of these to help reduce stress.

Hope this is useful to you and I hope you have a great week!

If you have question or would like to dive deeper into this work over the next few months, I have limited space for new clients at this time where we can work together on implementing these techniques and more to ensure a happier, healthier and less stressed lifestyle.