Holiday Stress

Are you looking for four tips on how to deal with holiday stress?  In this blog post, you will learn about going back to the basics as the most effective strategies to help keep the holidays enjoyable for yourself and your family and manage sensory overload.

Holiday stress is real.

The holiday season is already upon us.  Do you feel more stressed? Did you know that an American Psychological Association (APA) survey shows holiday stress is putting women’s and men’s health at risk?  The APA cites that nearly half of all women and 40 percent of men in the US experience heightened anxiety and tension during the holidays.

For people of any age who experience sensory overload, the holidays are especially sensory-rich.  Sensory-rich is a term I have coined to describe environments that have a more-than-typical sensory experience across one or more of the senses.  More exposure to sensory-rich events and places like office parties, concerts, holiday-themed activities, family gatherings, and more people out and about shopping, along with the added stress of the holidays, make the season much more difficult for people with sensory sensitivity.

The holidays, any holiday really brings added stress for children with autism, anxiety, and sensory overload.  Read on to discover a four-point check-up to manage sensory overload and set yourself, your children, and your family up for success and reduce holiday stress.

Four essential questions: an introduction

With my family from overseas, we have a running joke about the questions we are always asking each other when we are visiting each other.  Think about the approach you take when guests are visiting.  You are often more solicitous, asking, are you hungry?  Are you thirsty?  Did you sleep well?  Likewise, on road trips, do you need a bathroom break?  Moreover, you can likely recall yourself being the same, very caring about guests and visitors.  However, can you remember the last time you asked yourself these same questions?  Likely not.

These four questions are the key to your check-up to better manage sensory overload due to extra holiday stress.  Also, it is essential to know that they are all tied to interoception.  Interoception is your internal body sense.  It tells you if you are hungry, thirsty, or need to go to the bathroom.

If you are hungry, thirsty, tired, or need to go to the bathroom, your body and brain are less able to manage the sensory experience from your other senses.  Besides, this is something that you are likely not conscious of, and many people, children, and adults alike don’t even recognize it.  You simply have less tolerance, resilience, think “bandwidth” to cope with sensory overload, busy, noisy, bright when other parts of your sensory nervous system are not being attended to.

4-Point Holiday Check-up to Manage Sensory Overload

1. Hungry?
2. Thirsty?
3. Tired?
4. Bathroom break?

So regularly, ask yourself these four questions above.  However busy your holidays are, take stock of these basic sensations. Then address them for yourself, and your family will go a long way to reducing holiday stress.  Better yet, plan a day ahead so they are managed proactively.

Hungry?  Pack snacks.  Make it a habit to carry a healthy snack like an apple with a piece of cheese or nut butter for you and your children.  With all the extra food around the holidays, regular mealtimes can falter.  And candy and treats aren’t good at keeping bellies full.

Thirsty?  Bring along a bottle of water wherever you go for each member of the family.

Tired?  Bedtime routines and the holidays seem incongruous.  For young children, even simple things like putting pajamas on before the drive home can help.  Building in rest breaks and quiet time for everyone before and after significant activities and events is helpful.

Finally, go to the bathroom.  Regularly.  Make it part of your leaving the house for some party, event, or gathering routine.  Ignoring the cues from your body about going to the bathroom, as well as your level of tiredness, in addition to your hunger or your thirst is not healthy, will contribute to your sensory overload and add to holiday stress.

Wondering when you can squeeze in time to think about these four things? We love these tips from parenting coach Alison Smith on gaining time for yourself /for wrapping /for a phone call when the kids are home, bored, or interrupting.

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