The holiday season and Christmas Eve are just about to be laying their blanket this winter season and here you are wondering how to take it all in. There are gifts to be brought, get the groceries for the holiday season, get the Christmas tree, stand under the mistletoe, prepare some eggnog, write on Christmas cards for everyone you know, so these can be sent in a timely manner, and do a whole lot of other planning. We get it, it can also bring about something we call Christmas stress. While it can usually be a happy time for most of us, the responsibilities during this time of the year can keep us on edge, bringing anxiety and stress into the mix. To help you circumvent, we’ll go over everything related to stress at Christmas.
Why is Christmas So Stressful?
The time that leads up to the holiday season and Christmas Eve can be extremely busy for you and it’s likely you are going to feel anxiety and stress about it. There are a lot of factors at play, which can cause you to feel stress at Christmas. During this time you could be taking in all that stress because of the following:
- Working long hours to save up for and cover up the work before the holiday season arrives.
- A lot of worry related to organizing and financial constraints of Christmas Eve. These financial pressures can extremely be hurtful in terms of Christmas stress.
- Getting all Christmas presents in time and for everyone and there is also worry and stress related to the expectations of these presents.
- Overloading and underwhelming your Christmas schedule. Overloading can be stressful and underwhelming can be lonely as one can get at a time like this.
- Forced celebrations with members of your family or friend’s group with whom you have a fractured relationship.
Read More: Season’s Greetings or Season’s Grievings? Everything About Christmas Depression
Let’s Talk About These Pressures and Stressors in Detail:
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Christmas Stress Due To Financial Pressures and Poor Time Management
The expenditure of gifts and food that goes into the planning of the Christmas day and the time that goes into the tasks related to it can all induce a lot of stress for you, especially if you are suffering from a pre-existing anxiety disorder such as OCD or PTSD. To avoid the triggers that relate to Christmas stress in terms of financial and time management, read on:
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Budgeting
Budgeting can be done to avoid the financial stressors related to Christmas stress. This way you won’t be overspending but in fact, you would be putting away some save-up money for the extra things that may arise on Christmas Eve.
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Shop Early
Shopping early has a lot of benefits. Shopping close to the holiday season and Christmas Eve will be expensive because things tend to be expensive at that time as the demand is extremely high. More and more people tend to buy when the holidays are closer and closer.
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Hire A Financial Counsellor
Eliminating Christmas stress related to your finances can easily be done by outsourcing your financial management to a financial counselor, and not just for the holiday season but for the whole year long.
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Shop Online
The stresses of Christmas can be avoided by managing time efficiently during the festive season, which you can essentially do by shopping online as it not only provides ample time for you to shop but can also provide you with much-needed exclusive online discounts.
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Give Out Pre-Used Stuff
If something you keep that is in good condition, it might work as a gift during the festive season. For example, there could be something like a book you ended up really loving and want to share its story with someone, you can give them that book.
Isolation Stemming from Stress at Christmas
Christmas stress also has a very anti-therapeutic effect: Isolation. Isolation by itself is extremely harmful and will also induce other effects such as depression or sadness. Which, in turn, can also induce stress in the process, beginning a vicious cycle. Isolation stems from relocation to a city far from relatives, a marital break-up, or bereavement. The reminiscence of family, and friends and the shared good times with them during the ‘festive season’ can make people who are isolated feel depressed and unloved. But there are ways to circumvent it:
- Keep in touch with your family and friends via different technological mediums such as smartphones and emails while older mediums like sending letters can also be tried (albeit in a timely manner, so it can reach the people you want these sent to).
- Consider giving back. Not only it will show you your philanthropic side but will also allow you to be around people, also allowing that xmas stress to dip because you feel less isolated. An example would be your volunteering at The Salvation Army for giving Christmas lunch to people in need.
- Wider your social network. One way to kick off the impending Christmas stress is to start widening the net of your social network. You can start it before or even on Christmas Eve. Perhaps, visit a bar close to you and do volunteer work, where you can meet with like-minded people.
Read More: Mental Health at Christmas
Christmas and Bereavement
Just like birthdays and festivals such as Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, Christmas can be hard for family and people in bereavement and naturally, that is going to lead to Christmas stress, especially if this is the first Christmas after a bereavement.
- Ignoring Christmas altogether will not do anything yet it will still make your Christmas stressful. What you can do is you can make some changes in the way you normally celebrate Christmas. Perhaps, a change of scenery this time around could be of big help. Conversely, going with your family’s traditions may be more helpful if that’s your preference.
- Stress at Christmas of this type can also be alleviated by sharing the good memories of the one who is passed over. This helps not just but also the people who you are sharing the stories with as they were also probably in those stories and also shared them with the one gone.
- If you are saying, “Christmas stresses me out” a lot during a time of bereavement, you can have a little fun and a bit of a laugh riot while not feeling guilty about it.
Feeling down at Christmas and New Year Generally
Bereavement, isolation, and Christmas planning all contribute to the devastating Christmas stress but you can also feel down just like that and a reason would still not be necessary in that place. But the general lack of reason does not mean the low-down feeling and the attached stress at Christmas that comes with it happens to come out of nowhere. It can be that you are just reflecting on the version you were the previous year and if any improvements are not made according to self-expectations, you are indeed going to feel low. Instead of mourning the loss of another year gone by, you should do these things:
- Make a list of all the positive things you did the previous year. Make a conscious effort to do it.
- If you think you are missing someone and there is something to be salvaged and mend the differences that you have with that someone, you should go for it.
- Avoid making unrealistic promises and resolutions to yourself as the high expectations attached to these will only contribute to Christmas stress. Instead, this time, go for realistic goals and come up with ideas that will help you achieve them.
- Realize that all of your Christmas stress is related to the festive season itself including the festival. Also, realize that it means this stress will essentially go away once the season is over.
Read More: ADHD and Christmas: What’s The Real Connection?
Always Remember To Find Support
One should not fret about finding support for an issue like Christmas Stress. There are a couple of ways you can get rid of it if the hints provided above do not work. Treatment methods such as psychotherapy and medication can always help if the symptoms of Christmas Stress get out of hand or perhaps are the result of an underlying mental condition that is not only serious in every sense of the way but also needs treatment promptly – something like Seasonal Affective Disorder, whose symptoms mimic the symptoms of Christmas stress such as emotional implosion, perpetual sadness, and depression.
Medications like antidepressants such as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) which use internal biological processes to induce better effects for affected individuals can be used for treatment. You can also use anti-anxiety like benzodiazepines can be used to treat symptoms related to Christ stress. For a better overview and oversight, you can also go for psychiatric medication management.
Psychotherapy, which is a type of “talk” therapy is also helpful in providing beneficial introspective insight into the affected individuals to them as it helps them look inward and teaches them how their negative thought processes contribute to their problematic behavior.
Lifestyle changes such as journaling, regular exercise, and practicing mindfulness, all contribute to alleviating the effects of Christmas stress and help in getting rid of the bad aura even before Christmas is stressful for you.
Read More: Holiday Anxiety: What and When To Do Something About It
Summing Up!
We hope you are not under the weather, as you must’ve found something that helps you make stress at Christmas go away. If that doesn’t work out, then you will probably need some form of professional treatment such as the ones mentioned above or an alternative one such as telehealth psychiatry, not only for Christmas stress but also for other mental conditions, for example, for treating conditions like bipolar disorder, eating disorder, or psychosis at Inland Empire Behavioral Group.
