Just thinking about the holidays may be stressing you out. While it’s a beautiful time of year, the holiday season is filled with extra activities that people need to fit into their already demanding schedules, said Dr. Jeffrey Brantley, M.D., director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program at Duke Integrative Medicine and author of True Belonging: Mindful Practices to Help You Overcome Loneliness, Connect with Others, and Cultivate Happiness with Wendy Millstine. And all that doing can diminish downtime, leaving us with little time to relax and regroup.
High expectations are another source of stress, Dr. Brantley said. We yearn to be happy during the holidays and tend to create idealistic expectations. We think that the typical dynamics, disputes and clashes with our families will just disappear.
We also might underestimate the time needed for tasks like shopping, cleaning and cooking. Other stressors include money problems and the usual holiday hoopla like traffic, long lines and lack of parking, he said.
So how can you cope with stress amid the holiday hustle? Mindfulness can help.
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I don’t understand, Dr. Jeffrey Brantley, M.D., director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program at Duke Integrative Medicine says in point 2: “It’s … important to become aware of … maladaptive coping methods … regularly us[ed:] overexercising or overworking …. These only stimulate your stress.”
My therapist continually tells me the benefits of exercise and/or getting jobs done around the house to alleviate and deal with stress and especially depression. He mentions he goes on 28 and 32 mile bicycle rides nearly 2-4x a week!
But then it again it has made me think, what kind of things HE must be dealing with, where he needs to do that much bike riding to fight off his problems!
I thought exercise and work are/were good ways of dealing with stress and depression? Am I missing something?
@ LarryASpencer, thanks for your question! Exercise and engaging in activities you enjoy and find challenging are absolutely valuable!
But it’s unhealthy when we do too much of anything, such as compulsive exercise.
For instance, here’s more info on that:
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/addicted-to-exercise/all/1/
Hope that clears things up a bit!