Relieve Holiday Stress with Meditation and Yoga

Turn on any television during the holiday season or look at any holiday ad. You will most likely see people smiling and laughing while playing in the snow, cooking dinner for a family gathering, and even shopping for presents.

But that’s not always the case in real life.

While holiday ads show “happy” people, the holiday season can be the most stressful time of the year. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce stress during this time.

Let’s look at common holiday stresses first.

Causes for Holiday Stress

Nearly 40% of people said the holiday season increases their stress, while only 8% said they actually feel happier. A similar study revealed that 44% of people are stressed during the holidays with nearly 20% reporting they are more stressed. [1]

According to a 2021 survey, people’s laundry list of holiday stresses included the following:

• Shopping for gifts - 26%
• Managing children’s excitement - 17%
• Navigating family dynamics - 17%
• Supply chain issues - 14% [2]

The same survey revealed people dealt with stress in 2021 by:

1. Eating comfort food - 19%
2. Drinking alcohol - 14% [3]

Ways to Properly Cope with Holiday Stress

When figuring out how to deal with the stresses of holiday shopping, family gatherings, your kids’ needs, and everything else that seems to come along with the holiday season, it’s important to identify coping strategies.

Breathing Exercises

Having a positive attitude during the holidays isn’t just beneficial for your emotional state. It has effects on your physical health as well. For instance, chronic anger can lead to decreased lung function, heart disease, and stroke. [4]

Forgiving others, including your relatives from out of town, can improve your health and help you breathe better. [5] Breathing exercises can help increase oxygen levels and rid your lungs of stale air. [6]

Box Breathing Exercise

Breathing exercises can also help relieve stress, including box breathing.

Box breathing exercise is also referred to as square breathing, box breathing is a deep breathing exercise commonly used to help slow down your breathing and is a powerful stress reliever. How does it work? It distracts your mind as you count. By counting, it can calm your nervous system and decrease your body's stress level.

Box breathing is a simple but powerful relaxing technique that focuses on your breathing. There are plenty of benefits, including reducing stress and improving your mood.

Other benefits of Box Breathing include:

• Improved sleep quality
• If feeling overwhelmed, box breathing can help you cope with stress
• The counting helps you focus, allowing you to control your situation
• Focus when having a stressful and busy day
• It can ease worry and panic
• It helps you stay calm as you prepare for a long and busy day
• Lowers blood pressure and stress hormones (cortisol)

Read More: Sleep and Stress Management: Strategies for a Calm Mind

This breathing exercise is a 1-minute deep breathing technique created by Talei Allen that will allow you to follow your breath into relaxation and release. You can use this exercise anytime you find yourself needing to recenter and refocus.

Yoga Exercises

Yoga might not be the first thing that comes to mind after you burn your hands getting food out of the oven this holiday season, but yoga is one of the habits that can help you relax, relieve stress and unwind. Think it's not for you?

How to Get Started With Yoga

There are different types of yoga and varying skill levels and adjustments, making it a great fit for anyone.

Yoga incorporates different levels from beginner to expert. It's best to get started with a beginner-level routine that helps you learn poses, get used to them and gain strength, flexibility and balance that are necessary for properly performing more advanced poses.

Read More: How to Get Started with Yoga

While it might be tempting to jump right into some advanced poses, this could increase your risk of injury and ruin the calming aspects of yoga. To get started, consider taking a beginner's class in person, so you can have a qualified teacher guide you.

The Practice of Yoga Nidra

Yoga Nidra, or “yogic sleep,” is a form of guided meditation that involves deep breathing and reflection to promote a harmonious connection between body and mind. Because this meditative practice allows the mind and body to rest while the consciousness is awake, it’s often associated with promoting deep sleep.

Yoga Nidra vs. Meditation

While the primary goal of meditation and Yoga Nidra are alike, both methods work to develop a heightened sense of awareness. With meditation, you are traditionally seated, while Yoga Nidra is always practiced laying down.

Though some people lump them together, they're two different practices. With Yoga Nidra, the primary goal is to move into a deep state of consciousness, awareness sleep, and a deeper state of relaxation with awareness.

Regarding meditation, the individual is sitting in a waking state of consciousness while focusing the mind and allowing ideas to come and go freely. Meditation is about training in awareness and gaining a healthy sense of perspective.

Meditation

Meditation can be a great way to help ease stress and help you refocus on what matters most this holiday season.

Read More: Meditation Can Improve Your Sleep

How to Get Started with Meditation

One of the easiest ways to get started is to sit comfortably, close your eyes and focus on your breathing; breathe in and breathe out. Then, intentionally slow the breaths and extend the length of each inhale and exhale. You can go from there to next, focusing on a candle or object.

Meditation works best if you find the right type for you and your goals.

Mindfulness Meditation

You may then want to practice mindfulness. Try keeping your eyes closed as you aim to calm and empty your mind, noticing thoughts when they appear and gently allowing them to float away.

You notice and pay attention to your thoughts and observations without judgment while practicing mindfulness meditation. It can be an effective way to manage feelings of stress and anxiety while helping with relaxation. This practice combines awareness and concentration and can be done alone. Additionally, mindfulness meditation appears to help improve your sleep quality. [7]

The following are yoga-meditation techniques:

• 3-Minute Bedtime Yoga Routine
• 5-Minute Outdoor Yoga Routine
• 20-Minute Yoga Midday Stretching Routine

Laugh Often

Despite the neighbor’s Christmas lights, the overcooked dinner, and your snug sweater, laughing about it all will reduce stress and anxiety. There are plenty of benefits of laughter including:

• Relieves your stress response
• Reduces the physical symptoms of stress
• Helps you connect with others
• Improves your mood [8]

Conclusion

Getting caught up in the holiday grind is easy, but feeling emotionally drained before, during, and after only ensures that you’ll start the new year feeling the same way.

Before the calendar turns to a new year, it’s more important to reflect on the past year’s successes, and use that as an opportunity to map out goals for the next 12 months.