Holiday Stress Tips Contact Me - Click Here


Holiday Stress Tips

Regardless of what your traditions, being aware of your holiday stress tips is important as you prepare to cope with the change in routines, expectations, and time.

Hopefully, the holiday season is a time rich in family and historic traditions. And, hopefully they are a time of joyful anticipation of getting together with loved ones that otherwise you may not see throughout the year.

For many, however, the holiday seasons are a time of increased pressures, hustle and bustle, sense of loss, loneliness and depression.

Regardless of your typical holiday experiences, stress is stress.

How to think about holiday stress

When you think about stress, it really doesn’t matter if you experience the holidays as being a time of pure joy.

Even the good stress experienced in being with family and enjoying the richness of traditions can be stressful because of the change in:
  • Routines and daily expectations
  • Stress in preparing for visitors
  • Preparing for big meals
  • Financial stressors
  • Social responsibilities
  • Traveling
It is important to think about the stressors of the holiday season in this way:

The body functions optimally when in balance – when peaceful and calm.

When you are in balance, you are not stressed.

Reflect on a time in your life when you were really happy about something. Did you ever wonder why that joyful feeling doesn’t last?

Even with a good stress like joy, it doesn’t last because the natural state of the body is to be in balance – peaceful and calm.

Holiday stress tips

holiday stress tips

As I have mentioned, holiday stress is seasonal and you know that it isn’t going to last. But, if you are already struggling with chronic stress it is important to be more conscious of ways to cope with stress throughout the holidays.

Here are my top 5 holiday stress tips to keep in mind:
  1. Re-evaluate expectations.
    Come up with reasonable goals and expectations for yourself regarding your time, responsibilities, and energy level. Strive to not over-commit yourself, or spread yourself too thin during the holidays. Strike a realistic balance for yourself.


  2. Integrate and practice the stress relaxation techniques that work best for you.
    This is a time to create as much balance for yourself in a nurturing kind of way that you can. From a holistic perspective (thoughts, body, emotions, behaviors) “listen to the truth” being shared with you about how you are handling stress. Make choices that support your overall health and wellbeing as much as you can.




    The simplest and most effective technique you can do is to do very frequent slow deep breathing from your abdomen. This will activate your relaxation response and help create more opportunities for balance throughout the day.


  3. Set realistic goals for yourself with how much you eat, drink, and spend.
    Being more conscious of moderation is important. “Tis the season”. Yes, and…set realistic goals for what you can spend, should eat or drink. Honor yourself while having fun in moderation.


  4. Create a way to vent your stress. Because of the many personal and familial expectations, and old habits that can manifest during holiday celebrations, it is important for you to have figured out ahead of time how you are going to create a realistic way to release your stress.

    If it is possible, find a way to exercise for 10-20 minutes each day, get plenty of sleep, laugh out loud, talk honestly about what you are feeling, take a drive by yourself and yell out loud, etc.

    It is important to find away to vent your stress so that it doesn’t put you over the edge.


  5. Volunteer
    Create an opportunity for you and your family to volunteer during the holidays. There are great inner rewards that are borne out of volunteering to help another who has less than yourself.

    Some of my most cherished memories as a child was to go with my family to a nursing home to visit with the residents there who didn’t have family. It doesn’t have to be something big to do.

    It is interesting how helping another human being or animal may end up being one of the most effective holiday stress tips that I could share with you…


  6. Pay it forward this season.







    For more information, please see:

    Return From Holiday Stress Tips To Stress Relaxation Techniques

    Return From Holiday Stress Tips To Coping With Stress Home



    Pay it forward!

    There a lot of people who have become overwhelmed by stress and how to get rid of it. I can understand this feeling. But it does not mean that good information is NOT out there. It is.

    Please help a friend or loved one by sharing this information with them. Email this link to them or submit this page to your Tweet account, or Facebook or your favorite social bookmarking or networking site. Use the links below to pay it forward.




Looking for a specific topic?
Search for it here:

site search by freefind advanced


Stress Tip Of The Day!

Throughout each day, the primary cause of stress is because of threats of uncertainty.

It is thoughts of fear and worry that are triggering the stress response.

Staying focused on maintaining a positive attitude is an important stress technique.



- FREE -
Control My Stress
stress management tools!


control my stress logo

Testimonials

“Ms. Churchill is the unique health care worker everyone hopes to encounter, but rarely does. She has an extraordinary gift that allows her to do much more than diagnose and treat.”
Abbie K. – Minneapolis




K., age 45, is a long term chronically PTSD disabled patient. She has had daily headaches for 20 years. Two weeks ago she reported that she had had 4 days of pain free time, and was having the exceedingly odd sensation of "smiling all the time". She and Cathi have made extraordinary fast progress together.
Dr. Cole




I referred C.L., age mid-forties, to see Cathi after a life of suffering the post traumatic stress disorder of parental sexual abuse over many years of her childhood, with major dysfunctions of alcohol and drug abuse, and with the disabling symptoms of migraine that have for more than twenty years become chronic.

She has lived with daily headaches that have not responded to any of the several drugs which have benefited many such suffering patients. She has needed chronic opiate treatment of her chronic pain syndrome.

In the few weeks that Cathi has worked with her, C.L. has begun to experience days without pain, periods of happiness, and a reduction in her opiate dosage requirements that represent a breakthrough in her stalled-out life as a single mom raising a teen-age daughter with only social security income resources.
Dr. Racer








“I first met Cathi Churchill eight years ago when she effectively helped my work unit through the stress of a hospital-wide layoff. I was impressed with her clear-minded approach and willingness to listen.”
Andy R.




N., age 60, is a hard driving attorney twenty year patient of mine who hit the wall with chronic fatigue four years ago, and began to realize she had to learn to rest. She recovered enough to return to her workaholic lifestyle when she was stopped by a herniated cervical disc and resumption of her chronic colitis.

Working with Cathi, she is discovering "the way she does life" and learning to make choices about it. She came in last week, having "danced until dawn". She is learning to dialogue with her body in effective ways.
Dr. Cole




“I stumbled upon Cathi after my recent heart attack that was brought on by stress. I was scared of having another one, and didn’t know what to do. I had lost hope. Working with her has changed my life. I’m so grateful."
Debbie – Canada




M.S., a woman in her late forties with progressively more and more disabling rheumatoid arthritis since childhood, whose most recent problems have arisen over the last two to three years as complications of immunosuppressive therapy for her disease. The complications have been associated with the severely disabling chronic pain of recurrent herpes neuralgia for more than three years, and for the past 15 months, recurrent osteomyelitis in her right lower mandible.

The second, more alarming (even life-threatening) problem has caused months of diagnostic and therapy confusion among her many consultants, three successive resections of the bone over the last six to eight months, and the still ongoing threat of more relapses of the smoldering bone infection and chronic pain only made bearable by chronic, massive doses of opiates.

In the few months since M. began to work with Cathi with several modalities: stress management, therapeutic touch, guided imaging, and others, her life has become more livable, as she has become able to bear the pain and the discouragement of unresolved disease.

She has relied on many of the methods for maintaining hope and getting through overwhelming discouragement by using the inner resources she has learned with Cathi.

My hope as her primary physician, is that Cathi and M. will be able to continue to work together to maintain that inner strength and hope as she faces yet more months of pain, and further repeated surgery.

Thank you for the healing guidance you've been able to give her thus far.
Dr. Racer




“I sought out the help of Cathi during my divorce, and found her to be an insightful and compassionate coach. Her ability to see deep into the heart of an emotionally stressful problem is, I believe, unique and I would highly recommend her service to anyone.”
P.R. – Brooklyn Center




S., age 48, is a Laotian patient of mine with 15 years of chronic abdominal pain. She has had an extensive medical worked up, and nothing ever worked. Cathi saw her over several months.

S. has improved! Cathi established a trusting relationship with her, and helped her to effectively break through her wall of silence and grief about her son's mental illness, and taught her how to "change her thinking".

S. now comes in smiling, notes some unusual continued symptoms, but no longer has chronic abdominal disabling pain.
Dr. Cole




“Control My Stress is so amazing. I want to thank you, again, for such a valuable resource.”
Tony.


coping with stress logo