Dealing With Holiday Stress

Trying to find parking, long lines in traffic--- long lines and crowded stores! There’s hardly enough time to do everything on our holiday lists. No wonder our stress levels elevate a bit during the holiday season.

Barbara Braun, Primary Therapist with Willowbrooke at Tanner says, “What happens is, in normal times everyone is working very hard and going to school and sometimes there can be stress to begin with.” She says when you throw in the holiday responsibilities; we tend to ignore our basic needs. “So, getting enough sleep, eating nutritious food, taking breaks, doing the basic healthcare things… basic healthcare gets lost in the shuffle,” she says. “A lot of times people just break down. They get exhausted.”

Braun says key for everybody in helping alleviate stress and fighting the blues over the holiday season is to plan ahead and have realistic expectations of the holiday experience. “A lot of times we put so much emphasis on one day and so much emphasis on all the commercialization that we forget the other parts of the holiday and that it is just one holiday,” she says. “We get so geared up. The advertisements have been playing since Halloween. So we’ve been programmed in a lot of ways, plus there is such an emphasis on buying and selling because of the economy.”

Braun encourages families who have experienced a loss or lowering in finances during the year, to as a family discuss what is most important to each member and to put an emphasis on the things the family has, rather than does not.