Tricks to Handling Holiday Stress Without Resorting to Sitcoms or Red Bull

Last updated on: December 10, 2012 at 9:25 pm by Christine Jeske

Tricks to Handling Holiday Stress Without Resorting to Sitcoms or Red Bull 2012-12-10T21:25:11-06:00 Christine Jeske

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Tis’ the season to throw your laptop across the room. Those of us with a semester to finish or deadlines to meet before we earn those precious holidays are enduring more than the usual stress this month. And if that weren’t enough, there’s the stress of finding the perfect gift for Aunt Judy and Uncle Harry amidst the inane messages of “Put on a holly-jolly face and swipe your credit card again.”

Want to swing a bough of holly through somebody’s car windshield?

Chances are, you’re stressed. Stress is almost as abundant this season as advertisements for the perfect gift.

The most obvious ways to deal with stress are 1) watch an entire season of Parks and Recreation, or 2) drink a pack of Red Bull. We all know neither solves the problem of the looming deadline, the traffic at the mall, or the self-imposed guilt of your tiny gift-giving budget.

But in the heart of a stressful season, the last thing you have time for is brainstorming ways to handle stress.

So I did some brainstorming for you.

Here’s a list to get started. Try some. Add some. Then go get holly-jolly.

Make music (as in, with your lips or a trombone, not an i-device)
Ask someone for a hug
Talk to a kid
Sit outside
Stretch on your tippy toes
Paint in bright colors
Make today your personal Ugly Christmas Sweater Day
Wrap yourself in a blanket
Cook for somebody besides yourself
Listen to Gregorian chants
Stare at a tree and pretend to be one
Write how much time you want to spend on every task and when time’s up, move on whether you’re done or not
Apologize to the person you take your stress out on
Plan ahead for a day of retreat
Listen to someone, even longer than you think you have time for
Make deadlines for yourself you can keep—not overly optimistic superhuman ones
Take a Sabbath
Shut your eyes
Practice making snow angels (even if you don’t have snow)
List five things you look forward to in the next month
Write a poem about happy places
Turn off your computer
Pet an animal
Walk for half an hour
Write someone a note by hand
Give someone a gift just for fun, not for Christmas
Make the world’s longest paperclip chain
Eat a banana
Mash a banana with a baseball bat
Ask for help

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