Dealing with Holiday Stress

The holiday times are supposed to be happy times, correct? Sometimes, there are other emotions swirling around … loneliness, grief, anxiety, and good ol’ American consumerism, when money or time is tight, where do you sacrifice and where do you relax a bit? So much … it is easy to see why you might feel a bit of overwhelm. Overwhelm can paralyze us into not doing anything at all (well, at least this is what happens to me). 

I have found the following coping strategies can help me. If you have one you would like to share, I am gifting a bath salt this month to people who comment on the blog!

1.) take a bath, the happiness soak is my go-to when I am in a funky mood. 

2.) make sure you are getting enough sleep (mmm, we wrote about that last month), sleep is essential to having your body and mind function optimally.

3.) meditation or mindfulness practice (quiets the monkey mind) … an easy to follow mindfulness practice is while you are brushing your teeth. Just think about brushing the teeth. Two minutes of your day, think about what you are doing while you are doing it (when you start your mental to-do list, bring the mind back to brushing). 

4.) upbeat music … i love love love holiday music, but some of it is not so joyful or triumphant, put one some dance music and move your body for 10 minutes, shake off the blues, literally.

5.) keep the holiday traditions you love, let go of ones you don’t. I recently acquired custody of my mom’s cat. I do love a Christmas Tree, but the cat sees those decorations, as some sort of challenge, and she pulled the tree over last year, so this year, no tree, just some different decorations, for example on the mantle, where she can not reach. 

5.) make a small ritual everyday, honoring where you are today. I like to keep my coffee time fairly quiet or with soft music/chanting. I wait until I get into the office to turn things up, after coffee and my early morning walk with Minnie.

6.) reach out to friends or family. It can be hard to say, “hey I need help”, but you could say something like “I heard XYZ song on the radio today, and it made me think of you” great conversation starter.

7.) eat reasonable. Just because you can, does not mean you need to eat the whole thing. Get plenty of fruits and vegetables, eat the rainbow as best you can. 

8.) limit alcohol or other “medications”. Self medicating with alcohol or other substances is a short sighted solution. By all means, toast the new year, your successes of this year, old friends, new friends, but stumbling drunk is not a good look on anyone.

9.) take a deep breath. Yep, practice your yoga off the mat, someone cut you in line, smile and breathe. 

10.) resist the temptation to watch too many sappy Christmas movies. Remember they are movies, life doesn’t always tie itself into a nice neat package. The bumps and twists and turns along the way are what make life … fun!!

We make it a practice to gather between Christmas and New Year and talk about our successes from the current year, and make a list of our BIG HAIRY GOALS for the next year, both in business and personally. I also choose one little word for each year. 2022’s word was purpose. Still noodling on 2023’s word. It usually shows up sometime in December.