Stress and Anxiety Over The Holiday Season
As the holidays grow near, you’re likely hoping this year is the best yet. Or, at least it’s a year marked with joy, excitement and hopefully lost of rest! That’s what the holidays are supposed to bring, aren’t they? Stress and anxiety over the holiday season is familiar to many. Some stress is normal. Some anxiety might be okay.
Reducing your stress and anxiety over the holidays is possible!
Sometimes just noticing and acknowledging how you feel can be huge! When you notice that you’re criticizing yourself for these unwanted feelings, that’s when things feel pretty icky. Can you give yourself a little permission to feel that stress? It won’t overtake you. Sometimes acknowledging can be relieving in and of itself.
When you acknowledge your struggle, you disempower it. 
It’s so natural and common to be anxious and feel stress in anticipation of the holidays. Acknowledging and accepting these emotions doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you’re human. If you can give yourself permission to feel some of these uncomfortable parts, you might experience a little relief. You might notice you can empathize with others feeling similarly.
Logistically, here are a few suggestions to help reduce that anxiety and stress.
- Be compassionate with yourself. Most individuals are excellent at extending compassion to others, but stay critical towards themselves. Can I encourage you into a new thought? Compassion might look like simplifying hosting, menus, gift giving or card sending. It might look like hiring a sitter rather than taking the kids with you to the mall. Compassion might be taking a day off of work to just rest because the month is just plain nuts! Compassion isn’t always warm and fuzzy…sometimes it’s a logistical practice.
- Does some of your anxiety revolve around spending and budgets? You don’t want to miss out on gifting all those important people in your life, but that can get expensive! That’s stressful. You can take a couple of angles on this.
- Decide on how many people you want to gift. If your kids have several teachers, you have many co-workers, and your extended family is many members deep, this is hard. Maybe as your kiddo which teacher(s) they spend the most time with. Perhaps you gift just your closest coworker. Maybe your family would be open to drawing names?
- Alternatively, set a budget. This might mean getting creative like some home-gifts (think baking or creating a gift basket of teas, etc).
- Experience over “things”! Can you take a coworker for coffee rather than gift them? Can you have a few friends over and make a charcuterie in your home?
- Slow down. Sometimes the pace of the season can leave you unwell. Your body knows and it will keep score. If you want to reduce anxiety, you need to practice boundaries and self-care. You might need to say no to something for the sake of your health. Where can you say no? Where do you want to say yes?
- Communicating with loved ones. It’s common for people to hold in the hard stuff…until it becomes too much. One suggestion here, is to communicate what’s going on with you. What would it be like to share with your spouse that you’re feeling overwhelmed by how much is expected of you in the coming weeks. Maybe this gives them an opportunity to support you. Share with your boss that your workload seems unrealistic if that’s how you feel. Can you shift some deadlines or share some of the load? Anytime you get what’s inside (thoughts and feelings) outside (through conversation, journaling for example) you relieve yourself of holding it in!
The holiday season can bring expected and unexpected emotions.
You might not know a different way to do it other than full of stress and anxiety. I want to encourage you that you do have some agency. It can feel so hard to shift old or unhelpful patterns, and this is a space where counselling can support you. Whether you’re looking for online or in-person counselling, I invite you to reach out. Let’s book an appointment and together, navigate the season well.
