We know that the holiday season is typically associated with joy and happiness. However, for many individuals, it can also bring about mental distress, including stress. According to Ellen Braaten, PhD, the holidays can be a mix of joy and stress. Festive holidays aren’t happy or healthy for everyone. For some people, they mean long to-do lists, family tension or financial stress. Others may feel lonely and have little to do or no one to celebrate with.
Types of Stressors During the Holiday for Adult
Adults often experience various stressors during the holiday season. Do any of the following sound familiar?
Environmental stressors
- Managing numerous social engagements, often feeling rushed.
- Completing work tasks urgently before the holidays.
- Navigating crowded shopping centres while purchasing gifts.
- Organising and planning events for Christmas and New Year’s.
For women, sources of tension can include pressure to buy and wrap gifts, large amounts of baking and food preparation, and hosting numerous social gatherings (Smith, Lombard, & née Randell, 2009). Researchers from Swinburne University conducted a nationwide Australian survey on New Year’s resolutions and stress. They found that nearly 60% of participants reported feeling anxious that they wouldn’t meet their own or society’s expectations for self-improvement goals in the coming year. People who already have a predisposition to stress, can find themselves feeling blue and more stressed than usual at this time of year.
Financial stressors
- Coping with the financial strain of buying gifts, attending social events, and participating in holiday activities.
- Dealing with limited income due to taking days off from work.
- Anticipating increased stress levels attributed to rising prices during Christmas celebrations.
Relationship pressures
- Experiencing an obligation to spend time with family members, even those typically avoided.
- Perceiving a lack of active participation from a partner in Christmas preparations.
Emotional Triggers
- Navigating feelings of loneliness, regret, and loss during Christmas and New Year’s.
- Coping with grief and bereavement intensified by visual reminders of lost loved ones and societal pressures to embrace joyfulness.
When stress has a hold of you, it is hard to stop and regroup. Certainly, it would be ideal to try to prevent stress and depression in the first place, especially if there is a history of the holidays being difficult for you. However, that is often easier said than done….
Holiday Stressors for Children
The holiday season can be filled with festive cheer and family gatherings, but it can also bring stress and the feeling of being overwhelmed, especially for children. It’s important to come up with a strategy to reduce holiday stress for children and build space to decompress after the holidays.
For younger children, stressors include: disruptions to regular schedules, family conflicts, travel exhaustion, and gift expectations as top triggers of stress. Primary school-aged kids also worry about behaving properly so Santa will visit. ☹ (Hastings et al. 2020).
Pre-teens and teens stressors are generally centred on distinct social and appearance-related pressures. A 2021 study in the journal Children, found adolescents often feel distressed about lack of exciting plans, arguing with parents or siblings, being separated from friends, and comparing gift hauls (Peters & Magalhaes 2021). Does this sound familiar?
What Can I Do To Manage My Stress During Holiday?
No holiday celebration is perfect; view inevitable missteps as opportunities to demonstrate flexibility and resilience.
Maintain Healthy Routines: Research shows that sticking to regular schedules for meals, sleep, exercise and downtime helps mitigate mounting demands (Smith et al., 2019). So, try to eat healthy. Avoid the sweets as much as possible (I know the sweets are often the best and yummiest, but try and moderate the amount eaten). We sacrifice our exercise routines when we’re overwhelmed, but exercise is the best investment of your time. Consistency anchors children and provides needed rest for overwhelmed adults.
Take Quiet Moments: Brief breaks for relaxation or mindfulness lower tensions that can accumulate from social, family, work, and other obligations piling up (Williams & Gruber, 2021). Both kids and parents benefit from periodically recharging. Teach your children simple relaxation techniques to manage stress, like deep breathing exercises and mindfulness.
Set Realistic Expectations: Letting go of “perfect holiday” standards and consciously establishing manageable goals for what you can accomplish alleviates self-imposed pressure and disappointment (Moore & C roughly, 2020). Don’t overschedule yourself. Pick and choose the holiday functions and get plenty of sleep. By slowing down, you may find everyone has more energy to accomplish holiday goals. This helps prevent kids and adults from feeling burnt out and less likely to feel irritable.
Foster Connection: Remind yourself that family, friends, and the relationships in your life are what matter most. Commercialism can overshadow the true sentiment of the holiday season. When your holiday expense list is running longer than your monthly budget, scale back. Studies emphasise that spending enjoyable time together and performing simple acts of kindness as a family bolsters moods and resilience (Lindsay et al., 2022). Building traditions focused on meaningfulness over commercialism actually helps to prevent stress.
Seek Support When Needed For: Talk about stress related to the holidays with your friends and family. Getting things out in the open can help you navigate your feelings and work toward a solution. Ask for help; involve your kids, partner, family and friends. If you or your children continue to feel overwhelmed, consider talking with a professional to help you develop coping strategies and better manage your stress.
Conclusion:
When you recognise stress and take steps to reduce it, you can have a wonderful holiday season. Remember the holidays will pass and you will survive. Following these ideas can even help you take a deep breath, slow down a bit, and enjoy the holidays.
As we embrace the festive spirit, let’s be mindful of the importance of realistic expectations, meaningful connections, and self-care. Lots of things sound like fun in December, but don’t do anything you will regret in January, like piling up extra bills to pay off. By taking some of these practical steps we can better manage negative emotions, Nurture the mental well-being of ourselves and of our loved ones.
Reference:
Carter, J. 2020, ‘Coping with holiday depression and anxiety: Evidence-based tips’, Australian Journal of Psychology, vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 187-194.
Cousineau, T. et al. 2022, ‘Pondering the puzzled: A review of school-age childhood distress across the holiday season’, Annals of Depression and Anxiety, vol 3, no. 2, pp. 68-79.
Lindsay, E. et al. 2022 ‘Family connection: An evidence-based protective factor against holiday mental health strains’, Frontiers in Psychology, vol 13, no. 762310.
Hastings, P. et al. 2020 ‘Ho Ho No! A study of family stress and coping strategies over the Christmas break’, Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol. 29, pp. 3087-3096.
Slater, A., Varsani, N. & Diedrichs, P.C. 2020 ‘#selfimprovementseason: New Year’s resolutions and their relation to anxiety in an Australian female sample’, Journal of Health Psychology, Online First. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105320967086
Moore, K. & Croft, N. 2020, ‘Christmas perfectionism and family functioning: Stress piles up like gifts’, Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol. 29, pp. 3421-3429.
Smith, A., Lombard, C., & Randell, E. 2009, ‘Coping with the stress of Christmas: A survey of distressed Australian women’, Australian Psychologist, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 54-61.
Smith, B. et al. 2019, ‘Daily holidays routines to lower parent and child burnout: An exploratory intervention study’, Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol 28, pp. 3201-3208.
“Familial Obligations and Holiday Stress: A Qualitative Analysis” (2019)
Smith, J., Johnson, A., & Williams, K. (2019). Familial Obligations and Holiday Stress: A Qualitative Analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 26(2), 78-94.
Smith, J., Johnson, A., & Williams, K. (2017). Holiday Blues: An Analysis of Mental Health Presentations during Festive Seasons. Journal of Mental Health Research, 20(4), 123-145.
Statista. (2022). “Share of Christmas celebration price increases stress expectations Australia 2022.” Retrieved from [URL: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1356342/australia-christmas-celebration-price-increase-stress-expectations/]
Thompson, A, Miller, K & Niemeyer, R 2021 ‘Navigating grief during the holiday season: Compounding factors and counselling support’, Journal of Clinical Psychology, vol 77, no. 12, pp. 3168-3179.
Williams, K. & Gruber, J. 2021, ‘Taking a breath rather than holding it: Mindfulness-based stress reduction for family systems’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 1-14.
