For many people, Christmas stress is right up there with major life events such as moving house or changing jobs. The endless planning, shopping and cooking are both immensely tiring and stressful to an already overloaded system. To those folk already suffering from stress, Christmas can turn out to be the last straw, pushing them over the edge and into full-scale meltdown. In order to prevent this happening, you need to set up strategies well in advance of the festive season that will enable you to cope.
First and most important thing is to plan for everything while remaining flexible with your arrangements. This may sound contradictory but it really helps to have set up structures such as present buying lists, food shopping lists and a rough timetable of events while also bearing in mind that any and all of these can be adapted or changed. Keeping a flexible mindset reduces stress and anxiety and encourages you to let things flow over you rather than fight inevitable obstacles and changes to plans.
This ties up neatly with my other top Christmas stress busting tip which is to keep your expectations at a realistic level.
First and most important thing is to plan for everything while remaining flexible with your arrangements. This may sound contradictory but it really helps to have set up structures such as present buying lists, food shopping lists and a rough timetable of events while also bearing in mind that any and all of these can be adapted or changed. Keeping a flexible mindset reduces stress and anxiety and encourages you to let things flow over you rather than fight inevitable obstacles and changes to plans.
This ties up neatly with my other top Christmas stress busting tip which is to keep your expectations at a realistic level.