While the holiday season is full of joy, gathering, celebration and warmth, it can often be a time of great stress.
Sleepopolis conducted a survey that analyzed over 1,000 American adults on their holiday wellness habits and found some interesting factors that play a part in why Americans are typically stressed around the holiday season.
Why are Americans so stressed around the holidays?
Harvard Medical School reported that due to the increase of responsibilities around the holiday season, “the brain’s prefrontal cortex goes into overdrive.”
The key findings of the survey found that:
- Eighty percent of Americans say that the expectations and events around the holidays cause them to feel increased stress, and nearly 28.2% say they get less sleep around the holidays.
- Almost half of Americans report that financial issues are the main cause of their stress around the holidays. (In the 2021 survey conducted by Sleepopolis, only 28% reported financial issues being their top holiday stressor.)
- One in four Americans are “very interested” in participating in Dry January this year.
- Over 50% of Americans plan on traveling to visit friends and family this holiday season, and most of them would rather sleep in a hotel than stay as a guest in their homes.
Beyond this survey, a 2012 book titled “Family Tourism: Multidisciplinary Perspectives” reported that another key aspect to the heightened levels of stress around the holidays is the pressure to have the “perfect holiday.”
“The societal pressures on parents to have a ‘happy holiday’ are significant and are bound to idealized notions of contemporary parenting,” the book details in the introduction to the eighth chapter.
The introduction continues, “This idealization of family leisure can have negative consequences for parents through increased feelings of guilt and stress, especially among mothers, as the ideal of family togetherness can be difficult to achieve.”
How to beat the holiday stress?
Here are three tips for triumphing over the holiday stress:
- Find ways to reach out to other people.
- Maintain the health habits you already keep.
- Budget out your holiday spending.
The Deseret News reported that the World Health Organization created a new commission to address the “health threat” of isolation and loneliness.
The Journal of Psychological Nursing and Mental Health Services published an editorial that discussed how social support could be a helpful method in decreasing your holiday stress.
The article reported, “Although human beings crave and benefit from connections with others, loneliness is considered a major public health threat, as approximately 43 million individuals admit to feeling chronically lonely.”
The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics detailed in a 2017 article that gathering with family and friends is key, along with prioritizing times to keep your wellness habits, such as working out and sleeping, which aid in curbing the stress that comes during the holidays.
“The truth is, people do tend to abandon healthy habits during the winter,” Dr. Beth Frates, clinical assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medicine School, said.
Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, said, “Everyone gets busy during the holidays, and often, the first thing to go is their workout plan. This is what NOT to do.”
Health Engine reported that another thing to not throw out the door during the holidays is planning a budget early and sticking to it.
If you’re thinking to yourself that it’s easier said than done, a helpful way to keep yourself motivated to stick to your budget for the season is to follow a few “deinfluencers” on Instagram or TikTok that use their platforms to say “that materialism and overpriced trends are no longer in style,” according to CNN.