While the winter holidays might be about joy and gathering together with people you love, it’s incredibly common for people to find them very stressful and overwhelming! There can be many reasons for this– maybe you have a complicated relationship with certain people in your family, and spending time with them can be uncomfortable. Maybe the hustle and bustle of hosting, cooking, cleaning, and preparing meals and celebrations adds to your existing workload in a way that’s hard to manage. One reason that many people find themselves stressed out during the holiday season is travel!
The months of November and December are some of the busiest travel months of the year as people head home from all over the world to see their families and friends, and this organized chaos can make even the most level-headed people sweat. If you find that holiday travel often stresses you out, you’re not alone! Luckily, there are many ways to relieve this worry and anxiety to help make the holidays a little more enjoyable for you. Here are some that you can try this year!
Set Your Expectations
A place where many people fall down in terms of getting stressed over holiday travel is perfectionism. When you’re excessively rigid in your plans and overly harsh on mistakes that you or other people make, it can make your emotions more difficult to deal with, which only throws more wrenches into the system than there would be if you were able to stay calmer!
Managing your expectations when it comes to planning travel can be crucial. Accept the fact that something will go wrong– something will be forgotten at home, a flight or train will be delayed. Instead of getting worked up over every hiccup, identify your priorities and focus on adapting to other issues outside of them. It might be more important to remember to pack everyone’s gifts and get to the airport on time, but forgetting to pack pajamas or use the restroom before you get on the plane are mishaps that you can deal with. Adjusting your goals and making an effort to go with the flow can really reduce your stress on travel days.
Make Preparations Far in Advance
The longer you have to prepare, the more flexibility you’ll have in your travel plans. The holiday season is not the time of year to be booking your flights or other modes of travel a few days before you’re supposed to leave. Seats will fill up and hotels will run out of space. Hosting guests at your home isn’t without its issues either. If you don’t plan far enough ahead, you might suddenly find the grocery stores out of all the things you wanted for a house full of people! Starting early is absolutely crucial to giving your holiday preparations the best possible chance of going off without a hitch.
Practice Relaxation Techniques
Even if it were possible to come up with a flawless plan for holiday traveling, sometimes things will simply go wrong, and you’ll find yourself in a situation that’s completely out of your control. This is where stress reduction and relaxation strategies become most crucial. When you just can’t fix it, you have to focus on yourself! Breathing techniques, meditation, or methods like taking walks or trying grounding exercises are all things that can not only help you to feel calmer and less overwhelmed, but that you can easily do just about anywhere, from a car to a living room to a crowded airport terminal. Practice these techniques ahead of time to find what works well for you, and then be ready to bust them out when you need them during your holiday travels!
Find Your Own Time
For many individuals, being surrounded by other people, be it strangers at the train station or family members in your childhood home, can be incredibly tiring and overwhelming. This isn’t something to be ashamed of– it’s common, and it’s easier to deal with if you make an effort to find a little time and space for yourself to be alone and recharge! Taking a quick walk around the block or just sitting outside for a few minutes can really help, and many public transportation hubs today have dedicated spaces where you can head for a little bit of quiet time if you need it. Carving out this time for yourself can do wonders to lessen your stress, so don’t feel like you need to spend every single second with your loved ones. It’s much better to find a balance that works for you, so that you can enjoy the time you do have with them that much more!
A certain amount of stress during the holidays is inevitable, especially if you’re traveling, but with the right preparation and stress management techniques, you can make the season much easier and more enjoyable for yourself! If you’re interested in learning more about mental health and stress reduction, you can continue to read our blog here.