Holiday Stress

Stress can ruin your holidays and hurt your health. The holidays come with a never ending list of demands - shopping, decorating, parties, family visits, cooking, baking, cleaning - just to name a few. Add to that a packed schedule with extra activities, more responsibilities and higher expectations and you have a recipe for fatigue, frustration and stress. This year can be different, though, if you try a combination of cutting back on activities, taking shortcuts and adjusting your own expectations. So with a few practical tips, you may be able to minimize the stress that accompanies this holiday season and actually enjoy yourself to the fullest without maxing out your energy, schedule and credit cards.

Think about what has made this season so stressful in the past and make a plan this year. You can make specific plans to better handle these situations so that you'll be less stressed when you face them this time around.

You can say no and cut out unnecessary activities. Really enjoying the things that you do end up doing is what will make the holiday something you'll want to remember and help to reduce your stress.

Everyone has certain expectations about what makes this season special. The good thing is that most of the activities we associate with this time of year are fun. However, it's easy to become so overwhelmed by all this activity that we become too busy to actually enjoy what we're doing. For those activities that are important enough that you'd really miss them if you didn't include them in your celebrations - cards, baking, wrapping, decorating, entertaining - there are ways to cut corners or otherwise simplify the experience without sacrificing what makes these activities fun. Simplifying frees up your energy so you can do more, or enjoy more of what you're doing.

Taking care of yourself is crucial to avoid stress. Be sure to make the time to eat a healthy diet, keep regular sleeping hours and continue to exercise; because these are all strategies for committing to better physical health and well-being. If you don't take care of yourself, how will you manage to take care of anything else?

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