Effective Ways To Make The Holiday Season Less Stressful

The winter holidays should bring warmth and joy to everyone who celebrates them. Unfortunately, in today’s busy world, this season often feels more like an expensive, stressful balancing act than anything resembling holiday cheer. While you can’t always change the way holidays are celebrated where you live, there are many ways to cope with and minimize holiday stress.

To cope with holiday stress, it's essential to take time for self-care, maintain an exercise routine, and connect with nature. Celebrate the positives you experienced in the year, and don’t be afraid to miss a few holiday parties. Make your holiday parties simpler by consolidating and streamlining your gift-giving. Remember to prioritize sleep, and consider a holiday getaway to escape the stress of this season.

Holidays should be joyful, but life so often spirals out of control at this time of year. If you are already experiencing anxiety about this upcoming season, then it’s time to change how you approach this festive period. Keep reading to learn all the best ways to effectively make the holiday season less stressful and more enjoyable for you and your loved ones.

14 Great Ways To Minimize Stress This Holiday Season

1. Simplify Gift Giving

Giving a gift should bring you as much joy as it brings the person receiving it. Nowadays, gift giving can feel more like an irritating obligation than a token of appreciation. This holiday season, try to streamline and consolidate your gift giving. 

Giving fewer, yet more meaningful gifts, will be more impactful and make your life less stressful. Don’t be afraid to say no to a few Secret Santa groups, so you can focus your energy (and money) on giving a few special gifts to the people you cherish most. Giving fewer gifts also offers a rare opportunity to save money during the holidays. 

2. Take The Less Is More Approach To Decorating

Decorating your house for the holidays can be fun for the whole family. However, this fun project can become stressful when you take on more than you can handle. 

When elaborate light displays, homemade garlands, and endless DIY holiday decorations start to feel more like work than play, consider simplifying things. Keeping decorations simple not only makes your holiday season less stressful, but it can also make your home look less cluttered.

3. Don’t Be Afraid To Say No To An Invitation

Often, what makes the holidays so stressful is the overwhelming number of obligations you accumulate. If you have run out of room in your December calendar, you are not alone. While holiday parties are fun, if you are running yourself ragged, it’s time to start picking and choosing the parties you attend.

Instead of attending every holiday party and gathering, choose the ones that are most important to you and the ones you know you’ll enjoy the most. 

4. Budget Time For Self-Care 

With so many events happening during the holidays, it’s easy to forget to perform the daily tasks that help you look and feel your best. If you notice you are neglecting part of your daily routine and aren’t prioritizing self-care, then it’s time to recalibrate.

Add meditation to your busy schedule to give yourself space to breathe and find some calm. Use essential oils in your diffuser, and schedule times to enjoy simple pleasures like reading and an occasional long bath.

5. Keep Exercise In Your Routine

Exercise is another part of your life that often gets pushed aside around the holidays, even though it becomes more critical than ever. Not only will exercise help combat the inevitable extra calories you consume over the holidays, it can also have therapeutic benefits.

Do your best to keep to a regular exercise routine. Even if you are simply taking a thirty-minute walk in the neighborhood each day, it is better than nothing.

6. Delegate Roles When Hosting A Party

Hosting a party in your home is stressful any time of year. Combine this with the added anxieties that come along with the holiday season, and you have a potential recipe for disaster. A common mistake to avoid when hosting a holiday party is refusing help from others. 

Whenever someone offers to bring a side dish or help you decorate and plan, accept this help graciously. Whenever possible, delegate roles to family members and helpful friends. Enlisting others makes throwing a party more fun and less stressful.

7. Make Sleep A Top Priority

With the added events in your calendar and constant shopping that holidays require, there’s a strong possibility you won’t make it into bed as early as you’d like. Instead of letting your sleep suffer, make it a top priority.

When you are well-rested, you can think more clearly, have more energy, and tackle each busy day with greater enthusiasm. When your sleep suffers, you are more likely to feel anxious and unwell.

8. Spend More Time Embracing Tasks You Love

It’s easy to get wrapped up in holiday madness. To help reduce stress, remember to continue focusing on tasks you love. Consider embarking on a DIY project you’ve been dreaming about, or take a whole afternoon to make your favorite holiday recipe. 

Finding fun and wholesome ways to be productive during the holidays is a great way to boost your mood and combat stress.

9. Hire Help For Special Occasions As Needed

If you are hosting a particularly elaborate holiday event, consider hiring extra help to relieve some of the pressure. When organizing a large gathering, it can feel logistically impossible to host and cook for that many people, especially if you’ve never done it before. 

Hiring extra help might cost more, but if you can afford this added expense, it’s a great way to ease the stress of the holiday season.

10. Plan And Prepare In Advance

One of the best ways to lower your stress level in nearly any situation this holiday season is to plan. When it comes to cooking, do as much prep ahead of time as possible. For example, you can bake holiday cookies weeks in advance when life is less stressful, and freeze each batch until you are ready to serve them. 

Holiday shopping and decorating should be done as early as possible, so you can spend more time enjoying festivities without these tasks lingering in your mind.

11. Get Into Nature

The weather during the winter holidays isn’t always the best for outdoor activities. Still, it’s essential to connect with nature during this period to minimize stress. Take walks with your pet or family when the weather permits. Check the weather and capitalize on warmer days. You can even forage for pine cones and winter branches to make beautiful winter arrangements to display in your home.

12. Consider A Holiday Escape

If you and your family can’t seem to escape the chaos that the holidays bring year after year, then it might be time to recharge with a destination holiday. Instead of exchanging gifts, you can treat the family to an exotic (or even nearby) trip away from it all. 

Whether you choose a rustic cabin in a winter wonderland or opt for warm sandy beaches, a holiday escape is a fantastic way to avoid holiday stress altogether.

13. Meditate And Reflect On The Positives Of The Year

The winter holidays are not only a time of celebrating, but also a period of reflection. This season marks the end of one calendar year and the beginning of another. Take time to meditate and reflect on the past year. Focus on the positives, embrace your achievements, and cherish your most treasured memories of the past year. Taking time to reflect on positive moments is a great way to mitigate stress and cultivate gratitude.

14. Do Your Best To Minimize Unnecessary Road Travel

As you plan your holiday season, try to keep car journeys to a minimum. Congested roadways, increased accidents, and heightened road rage are all too common during the holiday season. Find ways to decrease the amount you drive during this time of year whenever possible. 

Summing Up Ways To Make The Holidays Less Stressful

If you used to love the holidays, but now find yourself filled with anxiety as this season approaches, then it’s time for a change. The holidays have become very stressful for many adults, but they don’t have to be. 

To help bring joy and calm to your holiday season, simplify your decorations and parties, give fewer gifts, and consider attending fewer parties. Ask for help and delegate when decorating and hosting holiday parties. Prioritize sleep and make time for self-care.

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