Managing Holiday Stress

It’s the end of the year. Family obligations pile up. Stuff to buy, pressure to impress. Messaging to finish strong, to have accomplished something to put on your social media retrospective. Your weekends packed with events. Kids out of school but you still have to work. Realizing the budget can’t stretch as far this year. That senioritis feeling like you just want to be done and take the rest of the year off but you can’t.

The neurobiology of stress

Stress, in its most technical of definitions, refers to the ways we interact with our environment to manage what’s happening, cope with problems, and keep ourselves alive. It’s not inherently a negative thing. Stress is reactive and adaptive. That last part is important. I am a firm believer that every part of us is adaptive and purposeful, which means that it’s trying to do something helpful even if our experience of it isn’t helpful. Stress is a monitoring system that lets us know how we’re handling life. (You can probably see now why most of us experience stress as a negative thing— when was the last time you felt like you were handling life effectively?)

Your physiological stress response is designed to help you deal with the problems that your monitoring system has discovered. These problems can be physical, social, or environmental. And your personal history and narratives around each stressor can magnify or minimize your reaction to it. That’s important too. The way you perceive stress based on your experiences really strongly affects how you feel the current stress and how resilient you are to recover from the stress.

Recovery is important. When we don’t fully recover from each stressor, chronic stress builds in our system and creates a “new normal” in which our baseline adjusts to the new higher stress level. Chronic stress is associated with mental and physical health disorders from depression and anxiety to heart disease and diabetes.

The ideal stress cycle is that our system identifies a stressor in the environment, we are alerted to the stress, we deal with the stress and resolve it, and the stress response returns us to normal functioning.

Anticipatory stress

The first kind of stress we often feel around the holidays is anticipatory stress. Whether it’s the holiday season in general, particular people who are stressful, or certain places and events you associate with stress, the narratives and expectations we create around this time of year can lead to stress before anything has even happened.

Think of your own narratives you hold and memories of past holiday seasons. Notice where your story assumes and expects stress to be. And notice the effects on your system of thinking about those memories and expectations.

Importantly, it’s very difficult to resolve anticipatory stress because we can’t solve the problem our system is trying to alert us to. This is one of the ways our more advanced neurobiology sets us apart from animals. We are able to imagine the future, plan ahead, and anticipate all the things that can possibly go wrong or hurt us. But this kind of stress is also unhelpful precisely because we can’t do anything about it right now. The only way to resolve anticipatory stress is to let it go or make a change. If a person or event is so stressful for you that it ruins your holiday season, what changes would you need to make so your future feels workable? (Hint: this is a great thing to talk through with a therapist who can help you identify options)

Financial stress

Let’s be real. It’s not cheap to get through this time of year. Presents, parties, sales, and events all have their own social obligations. And yeah, you could opt out of spending money and going places, but that’s socially isolating.

And in this current economy, it’s harder to budget. Even a modest weekly amount for going out is quickly eaten up with the cost of food, drinks, and small gifts for the party host.

The reason financial stress feels so huge is because our systems interpret it (rightly) as an existential threat. Money is necessary to do pretty much everything in our economy, and not having enough puts you at risk.

Financial stress can make you really not want to look at your bank accounts, but this is one area where facing the facts is very important. Money has a lot of psychological power. Our money stories are often inherited from our families, and our beliefs about money shape the way we interact with it. For these reasons, I strongly suggest that you work with a therapist around any deep seated money issues. It can take a lot of work to break generational ties.

But often, even without enduring money issues, the additional financial burdens during this time of year can create stress. Even if we’ve saved up and aren’t in immediate financial hardship, seeing a credit card bill that’s bigger than usual or getting the sticker shock from the receipt for family gifts can feel stressful.

In those sorts of situations, mindfulness can help. Remind yourself that you budgeted for these expenses. The numbers are larger than usual, but that’s okay. Spending this money now even though it’s a lot is part of your goal of creating the kind of holiday season you want.

Time stress

During this time of year, your calendar can fill up fast. And your job might be busier than ever as you prepare for the end of the calendar year. You have to make sure you’ve spent all your FSA money or you lose it. You have a whole list of things to do, and time is running out. It feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week to fit it all in without feeling overwhelmed.

It sounds backwards when you’re so busy, but the first step is to slow down. When we’re frantic and rushing, we often end up wasting more time than if we’d taken care and gone more slowly. Take a breath and wait until you feel calm. Then take another look at all the things you need to do. See what can be batched or delegated. Decide what can be cut if you genuinely run out of time.

Make these errands, to-dos, and obligations something fun. This is as easy (and as difficult) as changing your mindset. Shopping for the kids during the holiday rush can be a treat if you go about it with the right intentions. Your list can turn into opportunities for self care and joy.

Time stress is a lot about perception. It feels like the days are shorter when it gets dark earlier. And when we feel rushed, a task that takes an hour can expand emotionally into taking up more time with worry than it takes to complete. Writing down your plan and budgeting your time can help you see how much time you actually need to get everything done.

Stressful family relationships

Every family has that one person (or several people…) who make holiday gatherings more stressful than they need to be. The complainers, the politically fringe ones, the unnecessary advice givers, the one who’s on a weird spiritual journey you have to hear about, the one who makes comments about everyone’s weight and food choices. Or maybe for you it’s the relative who sexually assaulted you for years while your family didn’t protect you. Or the parent who was absent your whole childhood and suddenly wants a relationship now that you are an adult.

And the thing about family is that we get drawn into old patterns of behavior so much more easily when we’re interacting with them. It can feel like you’ve grown so much and made so much progress in every area of your life and then your mom makes a comment in that particular tone that gets under your skin like nothing else and you react like you’re fourteen again. Give yourself lots of grace here. Maintaining emotional detachment from family is incredibly difficult.

So to the extent you can, plan ahead. Know how long you want to stay at a party with the relative you can’t stand. Decide beforehand that you’ll walk away from the conversation if your aunt comments on your weight. Let people know you’re not doing gifts for the extended family this year and you don’t expect anything from them either. Tell your dad that you don’t plan to come to the party if your cousin and her family are going to be there. Yes, even if it makes Grandma sad. You can send her a card or call her later.

You know your own situation best. Maybe you’re not in a position to be able to walk away or choose not to go to stressful events. But mindfulness teaches us that we always have control of where we put our attention. You may have family obligations that keep you in your seat while you get a lecture on your body, your career, or your choices. But you don’t have to take those comments to heart. Easier said than done, I know. Practice is still valuable even if you’re not able to perfectly keep your emotional distance.

Need more help with stress?

Therapy can help. Even if you have one or two sessions to help you get through the holidays, there are so many techniques out there to help you manage your stress. And with one on one therapy, you can get an individualized set of skills to help you with your unique situation.