13 days until Halloween 🎃
42 days until Thanksgiving 🦃
68 days until Christmas🎄
Holidays come with joy, celebration, sometimes tears, and sadly many times a lot of stress. If you didn’t join us live Sunday you can watch on demand here and find out how to take make more merry this year!
7 Tip to Conquer Stress
- Breathe it out. Remember when we talked about blowing out a candle? Stop. Take a breathe. Close your eyes. Pretend you are blowing out a candle. The stresser may not be gone when you open your eyes, but it may not feel quite as big either.
- Get a hit of nature. Let’s face it, chirping birds and fresh air makes everything look a little different. Even if you can’t go for a hike just taking a quick trip to the mailbox and back on a pretty day can lighten the perceived load.
- Use your tools. Is this your annual holiday party? A situation you’ve been in before? Think back to a time when you handled it well and with less stress and use those tools again! Maybe you called a friend. Perhaps you made a menu and had everyone else bring something. You could even get everyone’s buy in on using paper products this year so you can enjoy each other more and the cleanup less!
- Think again. If stress tends to send you into the arms of food, think again. Will that cookie really make you feel better or are you inadvertently setting yourself up for a new stress when you face your tracker for the day or worse the scale.
- Give yourself a break. Most of our holiday stress is self induced. I remember years ago when moms were duking it out (almost literally) for the coveted 1990’s something Tickle Me Elmo. I mean fist fights, standing in long lines… let’s face it no toddler was demanding that mom or dad come home with this for under the tree, that stress was all on the parent who decided they had to have it. You don’t have to do it all, your family will survive if you ask for help. Grandmas coveted hand wash only china is pretty, but if it keeps you from enjoying your time together let’s leave it on display in a cabinet or just choose a piece or two. Ok?
- Reach out. You have a cell phone. You can set up group messaging or a phone tree. You can ask for help. Most people don’t help because they either don’t know what you need or you’ve never let them before. You might be stealing their blessing… let them help.
- Set goals. I have a friend who sets up a themed tree in every room. I’m not kidding. I think even the laundry room has one. I know for sure the cat has a special tree. As much as she loves this tradition she also knows how quickly she gets overwhelmed, so she sets goals and paces herself. She doesn’t wait until two weeks before Christmas and try to get it all done in a weekend. Nope, she starts with the small ones and does one or two a weekend until it’s time for the big guy… the one everyone will use for presents and gather around. She doesn’t make a big production out of it and say “everyone look at me… this stresses me out so I’m making a big GANT chart you all need to follow”. Nope, she just sets aside a little time each week and says “hey don’t plan anything for me on X day, I’m setting up the cat tree that day”. She gets her beloved trees up, no one in her family has to suffer her stress, everyone is happy. Set goals, everyone including you will be happy you did.
