by Debra | Dec 4, 2018 | Peace, stress
As the holiday season approaches, your stress level will probably rise. In addition to your typical schedule of work, home and kids, you’ve got more shopping to do, menus to plan, and food to prepare. Oh yayyyy! The good news is, even with all the extra activities and preparations, you can still reduce your holiday stress. Here are some proven strategies to help you decrease your stress. Some of these may even be so effective that you’ll choose to use them all year long, not just during the holidays! 1. Acknowledge that everything doesn’t need to be perfect. The commercials and movies on television during the holidays really miss the mark when it comes to realistic portrayals of family holidays. Whose life really looks like that? For me it’s about creating an experience and memories and that includes setting the scene. From that perspective I want it to be perfect. So I have to let go of that sometimes, especially the year we unboxed the tree only to find that mice had devoured it! Try to accept that you can in fact enjoy some beautiful holiday get-togethers regardless of whether something is spilled or you’re having trouble locating your favorite dinner napkins. Furthermore, most people will hardly notice if the pies were baked a little too long or you forgot the cranberry sauce. 2. Start holiday planning and preparations earlier. Can you imagine how much less stressed you’d feel if you had all your gift shopping and wrapping done in October? I’ll be totally transparent here and say I haven’t quite mastered this one. While I often have started...
