How to make your holidays less stressful

I know we just entered pumpkin spice latte season, but now is the right time to consider how you can make the holiday season an actual time of rest. Maybe you’re burned out and feel desperate to take a break, but it’s not feasible to do a long one. If so, as the holiday season is a time when many companies slow down, it’s a great opportunity for you to maximize company wide breaks in order to give yourself respite.

That being said, the holiday season brings its own nuanced stressors outside of work. Even though you have the time off, you may be just as stressed out with the flurry of activities and expectations. So how can you set yourself up now to actually have a holiday season where you experience rest, reflection and meaningful connection?

 

Reflect on how you feel about the season

The “most wonderful time of the year” brings a mix of togetherness and celebration as well as financial and relational pressures. If you typically experience high levels of stress and uncomfortable emotions during this time of year, what is the source of those? This list is not comprehensive, but the following are common sources of holiday distress:

  • Pressure to host when you don’t want to or not feeling like you have support in hosting

  • Feeling overwhelmed by time with family, certain family members or navigating family conflict

  • Feeling pressure to spend large amounts of money on gifts or travel or to uphold traditions that you don’t resonate with

  • Feeling grief around the holidays because it brings memories of a loved one that you’ve lost

By getting specific on what brings you discomfort, you can identify your options to support yourself and / or reduce the stress.

 

Form a plan

Once you’ve identified what it is that typically stresses you out, how can you plan, so that you can reduce the stress? Some ideas include:

  • Communicate that you won’t be hosting this year or enlist others to help you

  • Create and stick to a realistic budget and reflect on how you can give gifts in a way that feels meaningful, nourishing and financially sustainable. 

  • Don’t visit your family or apply boundaries to the interactions. I know this one is controversial, but you don’t have to visit your family for the holidays. You may feel like you should or there may be expectations to do so, but it’s important that you own your agency in the decision. If you do want to spend time with family in a way that feels good, what shifts can you make to support that? Perhaps you shorten the time you spend with them. Maybe instead of staying at your parents’ or in-laws, you stay at a hotel, so that you have a separate space to return to. Maybe you explore visiting during a different time of year. To navigate potentially heated discussions at the dinner table, Priya Parker, author of “The Art of Gathering,” offers the idea of banning opinions and instead inviting people to share stories with themes such as “a time where I changed my mind.”

  • Let go of family traditions that don’t resonate. We can all feel the pressure to do certain rituals because we’ve always done them or that’s just what you do during this season. If those traditions add more pressure though, what’s the point? What would it look like to co-create traditions with your loved ones that feel enriching?

  • If the season brings up grief of a loved one’s passing, plan to connect with people who feel comforting and/or create a simple ritual in which you can remember them. If you had a complicated relationship with the person who is gone, give yourself permission to feel the spectrum of emotions, journal and confide in someone you trust about the feelings it brings up.

Formulating a plan now for how to deal with holiday stressors will help you feel more equipped to handle them or avoid them altogether.

 

Create intentional time and space to rest

If you’re dealing with burnout from your job, you need meaningful rest, and you may also want time to figure out your next step in order to heal burnout. 

  • Even if you’re not sure what you or your family will be doing, start by requesting any extra days off now, so that it’s already in the work calendar. 

  • Mark in your personal calendar days and times that you can have to yourself. If you have a partner, kids or other relational commitments, how can you work together or with your broader community to create this space for yourself? Your first thought might be “I can’t take that time.” I can appreciate that it’s difficult or feels uncomfortable to prioritize yourself, but what’s the cost if you don’t do so?

  • Brainstorm a list of activities that feel nourishing for you. It’s okay if the primary activity is sleep! It can be hard to do much else if you’re feeling depleted.

 

It’s easy to get caught up in societal norms around the holiday season and feel like “this is just the way it is,” but that perspective is disempowering. You can make different choices in order to craft moments of pause, rejuvenation, fun and connection. It may feel overwhelming to figure this out on top of burnout from your work. If so, consider just one change you can make this holiday season in service of your rest. Rooting for you to find what you need even if it’s one small step at a time.

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