Make this Holiday Season your Best One Yet: How to Beat Holiday Stress in Pandemic Times

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, kicking off what many people experience as holiday stress. I often find myself dreading massive amounts of food, lack of opportunity to exercise, excess alcohol and snacks, interrupted sleep patterns, zero privacy, and uncomfortable interactions about controversial topics. It seems that this year, with COVID-19 pandemic still lurking, there is a whole new set of challenges to deal with. A whole new layer of stress around getting together with extended family, perhaps for the first time in 2 years. The questions that come up are endless. Do we get together indoors or outdoors? Should we wear masks? Should we ask about vaccination status? Should we hug or not? Should we watch football together? What should we do about snacks, should we have people reach into a common bowl? What about alcohol? When we sit down to eat, should we use paper and plastic? Should we deliberately steer the conversation away from politics? And the list goes on and on...

How can we navigate these stressors and make this holiday season our best one yet? Where would we even start?

Step 1: Create a positive mindset

Make a list of 3-5 things that you absolutely LOVE about holiday gatherings. Start each sentence with What I love about the holidays is…

Here are a couple of examples of my own:

1) What I love about the holidays is the opportunity to cook outside the box. Make dishes in the holiday spirit with a twist, like steamed green beans with a carrot ginger sauce, or mashed sweet potatoes with caramelized onions, etc.

2) What I love about the holidays is that they allow me to be creative about how to keep up my workout routine. I often find myself turning nature into my gym. I go for a hike, or a run. Moving my body and being outside – A double whammy of for stress reduction!

Step 2: Engage in self-care

Between now and the family gathering engage in at least ONE self-care activity that reduces stress levels DAILY. What curbs my stress are activities like moving my body whichever way I can (walking, yoga, running, swimming…), eating veggies and fruits every meal, sleeping 7-8 hours per night, and minimizing use of social media before going to bed.

Step 3: Be specific about what's causing your stress

Make a list of the top 5 issues that are stressing you out about the upcoming holiday gathering. Rank them in order of importance, so you can identify your boundaries and which things are off limits. For example, my top priority for this holiday season is to gather outdoors. I realize weather may get in the way, so if we must be indoors, I’d like the number of people to not exceed 10.

Step 4: Share your stress list with the people with whom you intend to spend the holiday

If you’re the host, sharing your list will give others a chance to understand the ground rules and decide whether they want to attend. If you’re the guest, it’ll give you a chance to politely opt out if lines are crossed.

Step 5: Anticipate your responses to real-time stressors

Take 20 minutes to brainstorm with a trusted friend, or just with yourself, responses that you might have if anything on your stress list occurred in real-time, despite the expectation that they wouldn’t. Don’t evaluate your suggestions as you’re coming up with them. This will kill your creativity. Give yourself the freedom to imagine any type of response. Of the many weird and impractical ideas that you may come up with, one or two will make sense.

For example, if I arrived at the holiday gathering to discover that there were 25 people instead of 10, I would:

· Leave instantly without an explanation

· Yell at the host “but you promised there would be less people”

· Tell the host politely that the room is too crowded for me and as much as I’d love to

spend time with them, I feel too uncomfortable. Then leave

· Grab a chair and sit with my back to others the entire night in protest

· Grab a chair and put it outdoors and spend the entire time there

· Ask the host if they can open all windows and find a seat near one

· Etc., etc., etc….

Step 6: Prepare for uncomfortable interactions

Practice what is referred to in Shirzad Chamine’s book Positive Intelligence (2012, Greenleaf Book Group Press) as the YES/AND game (see Chapter 6). In this game, no matter how much you disagree with the other person, always assume they are 10% right. The objective is to try to stay focused on that 10% by starting your sentence with What I love about what you’re saying is… and then add your opinion by saying AND.

For example, a response to a sentence like “I think the pandemic is pretty much behind us,” could be “What I love about what you’re saying is how eager you are to return to normal life, AND I also think that we should consider the numbers before making that determination.” This phrasing makes room for disagreement with less frustration or anger. This exercise is easier said than done, so I suggest you try it with a trusted friend before the actual holiday gathering takes place.

How are you going about reducing your holiday stress this year? Do you have tips to add? I invite you to explore my suggestions and see if any of them offer a path to beating holiday stress. Please share your insights! Hopefully, with these tools in hand this holiday season can become your best one yet!

Love,

Dalia