Holiday Stress | Table for Five

December 14, 2011 By Elizabeth

The holidays stress me out. They have for as long as I’ve been a Mom. This year has been even more stressful than usual, I think because I’m creating a lot of stress for myself due to my complete lack of ability to organize. Organize what?, you ask? EVERYTHING. I am the most unorganized person in my entire family. Which is probably why no one EVER says “let’s get together at Elizabeth’s house”.

When I say that my New Year’s Resolution is to get organized, I MEAN IT. I can’t go on living this way. My family can’t go on with me living this way. I have no system in place for organizing my blogging, my household responsibilities, my emails, my life in general! And now it’s the holidays, Christmas is in 11 days, I haven’t even ordered Christmas cards let alone started gathering the addresses, I haven’t wrapped a single present, it’s just all a big mess.

In fact, Chris and the kids decorated the tree, a job I usually love, while I sat on the couch deleting emails. There’s a tub sitting here in the living room full of my snowman collection that I haven’t even unpacked. Kaitlyn needs a book for her class gift exchange tomorrow that I haven’t even bought, and Nathan has a band concert tonight.

I know what tools I could use to accomplish all of this. I have paper calendars, online calendars, a huge dry erase board in the kitchen. I have a family willing to help me with anything I ask, which makes me so grateful. But they can only help me if I know WHAT I need help with, you know?

Also? It’s been 6 1/2 years that I’ve been writing this blog, and I think it’s time for me to make a change. I started out writing about everything that was happening to us on pretty much a daily basis, and then it became more professional, and now I think it’s time to get it back to being personal.

I guess I’ve been worried that if I was “real”, I would lose the advertisers and the brand campaigns and what have you. But the thing is, I want people who read this blog to know who I really am, faults and all. The truth is, I’m foul-mouthed and snarky and critical. I care about politics and education and gay marriage and drug laws. I’ve been reading Entertainment Weekly for 20 years and know a ridiculous amount of trivia about TV shows and movie stars. But I don’t write about any of that!

So, that’s my real New Year’s Resolution – get organized and get systems in place so that this time next year I’m ENJOYING the holidays instead of stressing out about them. Can you relate? Are you feeling it too? Tell me in a comment that it’s not just me!

Stress is not invited to my Christmas (christiansciencebc.com)
[Blisstree] Holiday Stress: 10 Things To Avoid Talking About At Christmas Dinner (blisstree.com)
Signs of a holiday meltdown (cnn.com)

Tips for reducing holiday stress from the Institute of HeartMath

December 13, 2010 By Elizabeth

: Image by Crashmaster007 via Flickr

The holidays are stressful for a lot of people, me included. I’m totally stressed out about money, about getting all the gifts bought and wrapped, about finding time to address and mail Christmas cards, about the house being a mess, about the pile of work I have to do. The Institute of HeartMath, who makes the Wild Ride to the Heart game that I recently reviewed, has tons of resources on their website to help people like me learn stress-reduction techniques. You know, so I don’t explode.

In a recent survey, the American Psychological Association learned that while 69% of parents of tweens and teens say that their stress has slight or no impact on their children, a whopping 86% of children report that their parents’ stress bothers them.

“We don’t have to let stress deteriorate the quality of our lives when there are very quick and effective ways to manage it,” said behavioral psychologist, Deborah Rozman, Ph.D., who serves on IHM’s Scientific Advisory Board and is the author of Transforming Stress. “Taking a few minutes to learn one effective stress-reduction technique is a small investment of your time that can be invaluable for the countless moments ahead where stress will challenge us.”

APA and IHM say there is cause for national concern. “America is at a critical crossroads when it comes to stress and our health,” APA Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice President and psychologist Norman B. Anderson said in APA’s online press release about the survey. “Year after year nearly three-quarters of Americans say they experience stress at levels that exceed what they define as healthy, putting themselves at risk for developing chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and depression.”

During the holidays – one of the most stressful times of year for millions of American families – the institute is offering several free resources, including a guided emotion-regulation technique and a popular e-book.

I know that might sound like a lot of new-age mumbo jumbo, but here’s the thing – it’s worth a try. I used to have terrible, horrible insomnia until one day about 10 years ago at the bookstore I saw a guided meditation CD that said it would help me learn to relax my mind so I could sleep. I’ve been practicing guided meditation regularly ever since and I rarely have insomnia.

So, if guided meditation can help with insomnia, I bet it can help with stress, too. The stress experts at IHM recommend adults use their Inner-Ease™ technique when they experience feelings of overwhelm and anxiety and need to reset to a calmer, more balanced emotional state. A more detailed version and guide for this technique are available in the free e-book, “The State of Ease,” by IHM founder Doc Childre. It is available for download in several languages at http://bit.ly/StateofEase.

HeartMath stress experts say their technique can help people shift from negative feelings to a positive emotional state – one of peace and ease. You can practice Inner-Ease with the following adaptation of this technique:

If you are stressed, acknowledge your feelings as soon as you sense that you are out of sync or engaged in common stressors such as financial worries, being stuck in holiday checkout lines, etc. Take a short timeout to do heart-focused breathing: Breathe a little slower than usual, and imagine you are breathing through your heart or chest area.
During heart-focused breathing, imagine with each breath that you are drawing in a feeling of inner ease and infusing your mental and emotional nature with balance and self-care from your heart.
When your stressful feelings have eased, affirm with a heartfelt commitment that you want to anchor and maintain a state of ease as you re-engage in your projects, challenges and daily interactions.

If you are at all stressed out about the holidays or anything else, I highly, highly recommend you visit the Institute for HeartMath website, and they are not paying me anything to say that. The same person who sent me the Wild Ride to the Heart game sent me the press release about the holiday stress survey, and I just knew I had to write about it here. I can’t be the only one feeling a whole lot of stress right now. Try these links:

Download the FREE De-Stress Kit in PDF or Audio (highly recommended, it’s helping me through a tough time right now): PDF link

Watch the video Navigate Your Life With The State of Ease and learn a technique to reduce and prevent stress that you can use at any time.

Facebook page with tips for anyone who cares for a child: http://www.facebook.com/HeartMathMyKids

If you have any tips for getting through the holidays with as little stress as possible, please feel free to share them in the comments. Let’s all have as stress-free a holiday as we possibly can.