3 Easy Ways to Reduce Holiday Stress

The holiday season can be a stressful time with year-end deadlines at work, last-minute gift shopping, family visits, and party planning.  This year, resist the temptation to fill up your calendar and to-do list, and take some time for yourself to rest, relax, and enjoy the holidays. These tips can help you reduce your holiday stress.

Limit your obligations

Doing things out of obligation can drain your energy and take away your sense of enjoyment.  What are the things that you and your family enjoy doing the most over the holidays?  Make those favorite activities your priority and focus less on trying to do everything.  Plus, try these tips:

•  Say no if you don’t want, or aren’t able, to take on hosting duties.  If you would prefer to not have house guests, arrange a list of nearby hotels for them instead of offering up your home.
• If you exchange gifts, talk to your family and friends and set a dollar limit.  This can help ease financial stress.

• Besides the favorite events you’ve chosen to attend, deem any other events and obligations optional.

Delegate and plan ahead

Taking on everything by yourself can increase your stress level. Don’t be afraid to lighten your load by asking for help. Try these ideas:

• Invite others to your home for a potluck so that you don’t have to make all the dishes.  Enlist help for clean-up duties.

• Give yourself enough time to split up shopping tasks over the days and weeks instead of doing them all in one day.  Better yet, assign someone to take on some errands for you!

• Most importantly, don’t wait until the last minute to get things done!  Lack of time can be a major stressor.

Enjoy yourself

Take some time to be merry! Enjoy time spent with loved ones, savor the traditional dishes you eat together, and appreciate the sights, sounds, tastes and feelings of the holidays.

• Live in the moment and appreciate the fun and magic of the holiday season!

• Create new traditions with your family. Enjoy an activity together, like looking at holiday displays, decorating your home, seeing a special show, going ice skating…the possibilities are endless! 

• Spend some time helping others or donating to a worthy cause.  Doing something kind for others helps you feel happy because you are contributing to something worthwhile. 

• Reconnect with friends and family members you haven’t seen or talked to in a while. 

• Take a day off from your to-do list.  Plan a day (or more) of doing nothing but kicking back and relaxing.

If you’re a Health Advocate member with access to the Wellness Coaching program, reach out to your Wellness Coach for more ideas on how to reduce stress during the holidays and throughout the year.

Be Good to Yourself: Stress-Fighting Tips

Traffic jams during your morning commute made you late for work, you can’t seem to get ahead of the growing stack of papers on your desk, and your bill payments are almost due. Does your regular routine leave you feeling stressed out at the end of each day? Life is full of stressors, big and small, and if not properly managed it can affect you physically as well as emotionally, causing potential health issues like headaches, insomnia or, in severe cases, even a heart attack. Try these useful solutions to help you better handle stressful moments:

• Learn to recognize stress. Stress can manifest itself physically in many different ways. A common sign of holding too much stress can be feeling tightness or soreness around your neck, shoulders, and back. Stress could also cause headaches, giving you a pounding sensation around your eyes or temples. However, physical pain may not always be the sole indicator of too much stress. Stress can manifest itself in other ways, too, such as diminishing your focus or productivity, or making you feel less calm.
• Talk to someone who listens: A simple, quick stress reliever can be talking to someone about the things that are making you feel stressed.
• Consider massage. Seek out a local massage therapist and schedule an hour-long appointment.  Or, see if your workplace has options that can help you—some offices bring in massage therapists who, for a nominal charge, can give you a brief (usually 10 or 15 minutes long) stress-reducing massage.  Research from the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami reported that massage therapy has been effective in reducing stress and improving performance for employees who have received massages at their workplace.
• Get in touch with your inner yogi. Yoga combines stretching of the body and meditation of the mind, which can help reduce tension and promote relaxation. But yoga’s potential benefits don’t stop there—it can also improve posture and stimulate weight loss.
• Just breathe. Breathing therapy is free and can be done anywhere! It involves integrating meditation, movement, breathing, and body awareness all at once; these exercises promote a relaxing mind-body connection that can help lessen stress and tension.
• Think happy thoughts. Don't underestimate the power of positive thinking. Studies have shown that optimism and eliminating negative thoughts can reduce your stress level and promote well-being.
• Walk it out. Taking a walk is a healthy activity that can also allow relief from a stressful situation. If you can, try walking outside to engage your senses in experiencing the sights, smells and sounds of nature.
• Get giggly. Laughter has proven to reduce the levels of stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and dopamine, while increasing levels of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins. So tune in to comedy channels on TV, or your favorite jokesters on the radio, and start laughing!

Want more help reducing stress? Consider talking to a counselor who can help you work through some of the issues that may be causing you to feel stressed.  If you are a Health Advocate member and need help finding a counselor who’s in-network with your insurance plan, local to you, and has hours that are convenient to your schedule, talk to one of our  Personal Health Advocates—they can help you find a counselor that meets your needs. Another way to seek counseling is by calling your workplace's EAP number.  Some Health Advocate members have access to our EAP+Work/Life service (talk to your benefits department or login to your member website if you are unsure which Health Advocate benefits you have).Your EAP may have telephonic counseling that you can access right away, free of charge.

Please note: Before engaging in any physical exercise or massage therapy, we recommend consulting your doctor to verify that these types of activities are right for you.

Taking Control of Stress at Work

Whether you’re stressed out at work due to looming deadlines, too much on your plate, or any other reason, you could likely benefit from a little TLC. At work, it’s important to take a little time to care for yourself in order to prevent stress from getting the best of you. If you are an employee looking to better manage your own stress in the workplace, consider using coping strategies. Try the following ideas to help ward off tension that could arise throughout the day.

Spend time alone.

Take a 10-minute coffee break in the morning before the day starts, or try a brief, brisk walk in the middle of the work day. This may help you feel calmer and more focused when you come back to your desk.

Take a deep breath.

Try some deep breathing techniques at your desk. Inhale deeply, feeling your stomach expand. Hold your breath for a few seconds and then slowly exhale, visualizing tension leaving your body.

Train your brain.

Mindfulness training is an emerging stress management technique that involves training the mind to focus attention on the moment. This approach can train you to find the ability to rest and find qualities of peace and relaxation into your everyday life.

Stretch it out.

Stretching can easily be done at your desk. Sit in a chair with your upper body resting forward on your lap. Slowly roll up, starting at the base of your spine, until your back is straight. Stretch the neck muscles by titling your head the right and slowly rolling your head down and to the left. Repeat a few times in both directions.

Self- massage.

Sit with your shoulder relaxed. Use your right hand to massage your left shoulder and neck, working your way up to the scalp. Repeat using the left hand for the right shoulder.

Positive self-talk.

Replace negative mental thoughts that are in response to stress, such as "I’ll never get this done" with positive ones like "I know I can do this."

Reach out for help.

If you have access to Health Advocate, we have several resources that can help you:

If you have access to Health Advocate’s EAP+Work/Life service, you can call and speak to a professional about stress, work/life balance, and more.


If you are a Health Advocate member, you can call your Personal Health Advocate to help you locate a nearby in-network counselor or other mental health professional that can help you address stress.

While you often can’t control many of the stressors in your everyday life, you can learn to deal with them using coping techniques. When things start feeling too stressful, coping strategies like the ones listed above may be able to help you feel calmer and better able to tackle the tasks at hand.

Resources for employers

If your employer has Health Advocate’s EAP+Work/Life service, our Management Assistance Program (MAP) may be able to help you reduce stress in the workplace. MAP can give you the guidance you need to become an even more effective leader. Plus, check out Frontline, our quarterly newsletter full of helpful information for managers and supervisors.

Health Advocate’s free

white paper "Stress in the Workplace: Meeting the challenge" identifies ways that employers can help mitigate stress in the workplace. Read it today at HealthAdvocate.com.

Stress less with these simple tips

April is National Stress Awareness Month, a time to increase efforts and education that can reduce America's epidemic of stress.  It's important to understand that stress doesn't generally stay just in your head, where the worries reside--it can affect many other areas of your body, too. If stress is making you irritable, tired, or achy, check out some no-hassle tips that can allow you to relax a little, lessen your stress and give you some relief.

• Adjust your posture. If you sit all day long at work--hunched over your computer, stressin' about your job--you could be spending many hours in a slumpy position, putting added stress on your neck and spine. Be mindful of how you're sitting at your desk and adjust your posture so that you're sitting up straight.
• Consider massage. More than one third of the over 100 million massage appointments are for therapeutic massage. Massage therapy can reduce achiness...plus it could provide you with a much-needed hour of stress-free relaxation.
• Get in touch with your inner yogi. Yoga can help stressed-out people feel more relaxed by reducing the amount of tension in the body. As a side benefit, yoga can also help with improving posture.
• Just breathe. Breathing therapy can be done at home, and it's always free! This involves integrating meditation, movement, breathing, and body awareness all at once; these promote a relaxing mind-body connection that can help lessen stress and tension.
• Take a minute for yourself. 60 seconds is all you need to engage in one of these relaxing activities that can reduce your muscle tension.
• Think happy thoughts. Don't underestimate the power of positive thinking. Studies have shown that optimism and pessimism can affect your stress level and well-being.
• Walk it out. Taking a walk is not only a healthy activity, but it can also allow you to escape a stressful environment for a while.
• Get giggly. There's something to that old "laughter is the best medicine" adage. Laughter can reduce the the levels of stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and dopamine, while increasing levels of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins.

Want more help reducing stress?  The National Stress Awareness Month website has three free publications available to help you learn about and reduce stress.  Click here to download them.  Or, consider talking to a counselor who can help you work through some of your stress.  If you need help finding a counselor who’s in-network with your insurance plan, local to you, and has hours that are convenient to your schedule, consider asking an advocacy service for help. You may have access to a service like Health Advocate through your employer; if not, Health Proponent (Health Advocate’s consumer division) can also help you locate a counselor. One more way to seek counseling is by calling your workplace's EAP number.  Your EAP may have telephonic counseling that you can access right away, free of charge.

Please note: Before engaging in exercise or undergoing massage therapy, it's recommended to consult your doctor to verify that these types of activities are safe for you to do.