Enjoying the Holidays

Holiday Stress Tips

By Shawn Bakker

The holiday season puts many constraints on our time, often overwhelming those of us who are not professional time managers. This can leave us feeling hurried and stressed. Every year we provide tips to help you manage the busyness of the season, and this year is no exception.

1. Practice a relaxation response - Close your eyes. Imagine yourself in a peaceful setting. Breathe slowly and deeply for ten minutes.

2. Learn to laugh at yourself - In a short time you’ll look back at your current worries and be amused that you have taken them so seriously.

3. Put things into perspective - Once a concern reaches the point that it becomes a worry, you are almost certainly picturing the problem as more monumental than it really is.

4. Take your vacation - You might think you’re serving yourself and your company well by working 12-hour days and 52-week years.  You’re not. You can accomplish a lot more, keep yourself healthier, and reduce stress at home by curing your workaholism.

5. Cultivate close friends and confidants - Problems and pressures become smaller when you share them with others.

6. Plan and organize your work more efficiently.

7. Maintain a healthy body - Exercise at least three times a week. Eat a well balanced diet. Don’t skip meals and don’t pig out. Get enough rest. Reduce your use of tobacco, caffeine, and alcohol. Have a physical exam at least every other year.

8. Develop effective assertiveness skills - Learn to say “no” when you are becoming overburdened.

9. Assess your priorities - What’s really important to you? Do the issues making you frustrated, angry, or sick truly warrant such a response?

10. Develop interests outside of work - Build a satisfying life away from work. Immerse yourself in a project or hobby at the end of a difficult day or week. Take up outdoor winter activities like skating or cross country skiing.
    

11. Stop to smell the roses - Talk to children. Listen to music. Study a painting at the museum. Stroll through a bookstore. Watch a movie. Spend time at home with nothing to do.
    

12. Simplify your life - Buy fewer gadgets and household items that require batteries or need to be plugged in. Reduce your social and professional commitments to the bare essentials. Eat and dress more simply. Set a holiday budget and stick to it. Adopt the attitude that less is more.
    

Read our other Holiday Stress article: Type and Stress