Holistic Bonfire

Suruchi Saini, MA, LPC, CCTP, TMHP, CYT

Stress Management

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5 Ways To Keep Stress At Bay During The Holidays

The holidays are meant to be filled with laughter, peace, and joy, but with so many things on the to-do list, so much shopping and baking and meal preparation to take care of, so many get-togethers to attend, it can be hard to avoid getting overwhelmed and stressed out.

To ensure that your holiday season is as fulfilling and positive as it can and should be, try following these five guidelines:

  1. Set a budget for buying gifts. One of the biggest causes of anxiety during the holidays is not feeling like you have the funds to purchase the presents you’d like to. Don’t spend more than your limit or buy items that will take a year to pay off. Happiness comes from moments shared and memories made, not gift-wrapped presents.
  2. Stick to your healthy habits. With an abundance of baked goods at home and in the office, and an endless list of parties and social gatherings to attend, it can be easy to imbibe in too much alcohol and consume too many foods high in sugar, fat, and calories. Overindulgence simply adds to your guilt and stress, so focus on eating nutritious fare and maintaining your exercise régime.
  3. Give personal gifts. Homemade presents often mean more to recipients than costly store-bought items, and creating gifts can be a great way to relieve tension and stress. Love and thoughtfulness can easily be conveyed in photo albums, videos, poems, handmade scarves—whatever you enjoy putting together. The options for handmade gifts are endless.
  4. Set aside differences. Your family and friends might be feeling the stressful effects of the holiday season like you, so focus on the positive aspects of your relationships with them rather than on what may be getting under your skin. Now isn’t the time to dredge up family history or to engage in conversations about touchy subjects.
  5. Relax. Spend some time alone, meditate, read a novel, go for a walk, stargaze at night, or simply sit and listen to peaceful music. A mere fifteen minutes of solo time can go a long way in lowering your stress levels, putting you in a better mood, and allowing you to fully engage with family and friends in the holiday spirit.

If you find yourself feeling lonely, seek support and companionship by attending a community, religious, or social event. Volunteering your time is another great way to boost your spirits, form new friendships, and help others. There are numerous ways to contribute to nonprofits this holiday season such as serving meals at a homeless shelter or wrapping gifts for Toys for Tots.

Don’t be afraid to seek professional help if you’re unable to manage your stress during the holidays. After all, the holidays shouldn’t be something you dread. With careful planning, a good knowledge of your stress triggers, and the adoption of some strategies like those in this post, you should be able to have a peaceful, joyous season.

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How to Have Stress-Free Holidays

The holiday season is fast approaching, and with it comes the chance to break bread with family and friends, express gratitude for all that you have, adorn your home with lights and decorations, and witness the excitement of the festivities through the eyes of your children.

Unwelcome guests, however, can also show up in the midst of what should otherwise be a time of merriment. With parties to attend, feasts to prepare, gifts to buy, travel arrangements to make and more, depression and stress can easily pop up unannounced.

Rather than letting stress and depression ruin the holidays for yourself and for your loved ones, heeding some practical tips can help you enjoy the season for all of the wonderful things it has to offer.

To help you minimize the chances of stress cropping up in the first place, or to minimize the effects of stress that’s unavoidable, it’s best to know ahead of time what specific events cause you anxiety during the holidays.

Are you concerned you won’t have enough time to get the house spotless before guests arrive? Does spending time with certain family members make you tense? Do you worry your gift budget isn’t adequate?

Plan Ahead

Great preparation is the key to overcoming these and other obstacles that often lead to holiday stress. If you spend time before the holidays creating a realistic plan, you’ll be able to relax more when the occasions are upon you.

If you’re hosting a dinner party, plan your menu well in advance. Make a comprehensive shopping list of what you need, and if possible, go to the store during nonpeak hours. Rushing around at the last minute to buy necessary ingredients will undoubtedly spike your anxiety. Also, be sure to enlist help from friends and family before and after the feast. People like to feel useful, and no one person should be responsible for cooking all of the fare, baking all of the deserts, and cleaning up the entire mess.

Don’t Shop ‘Til You Drop

Try to get your gift shopping done in one day. It helps to take a list of ideas so that you don’t waste time once you’re at the store. Also, take advantage of online shopping, especially during excellent sale days like Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving).

Using a calendar is a great way to help you keep track of the numerous activities that can fill the holiday season, and the Calendar app gives you access to your schedule whether you’re standing in line at the post office waiting to send packages or you’re at the store buying decorations.

Get Assistance

You can kill two birds with one stone by asking friends and family to help you complete your tasks. You’ll be spending time with loved ones, and you’ll be getting things done. Decorating, baking, and wrapping presents are ideal activities to do with others.

Also, know that it’s okay to decline invites. Rather than exhausting yourself by going to every party and get-together, save up your energy for the few you truly want to attend.

Be Realistic

No holiday season is the same year to year, so don’t put pressure on yourself to repeat past occasions. Understand that as families grow and change, so do traditions. Incorporate your favorite rituals into this year’s festivities, and consider adopting new ones as well.

Finally, bumps and hiccups during the holidays are inevitable, so don’t burden yourself before they even get underway by expecting everything to be perfect. The main focus should be on celebrating your kinship with family and friends, and enjoying the holidays for the wonder that they are.

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Effects of Social Media on Physical Health

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In the third and final installment in the series about how social media use affects our mental, social, and physical health, we’ll look at the physical effects of using social media in our hyper-connected (yet strangely dis-connected) world.

Social media use has skyrocketed thanks in great part to the growth of smartphone technology. It seems that everywhere we look, people are glued to their smartphones. Awkward moments of silence and small talk in the elevator with strangers are now gone due to the ability to stare at a screen and look busy.

Looking at the mental and social impacts of widespread social media use was more straightforward. But how are we being affected physically?

Most physical effects of social media use have to do with the increased amount of time we spend staring at our phones or our computer screens. What damage is being done in our effort to always be connected?

Posture

Numerous medical and scientific studies have shown alarming results when testing people who use smartphones for more than four hours a day and those who don’t. Smartphone users tend to develop rounded shoulders, spinal curvatures, vertebrate disorders, and associated neck pain and headaches caused by these ailments. It makes sense. Using our smartphones often involves being hunched over. Our posture suffers, and we alter the muscles and bones in our torsos over time.

Eyesight

Smartphones emit blue light, which is very bright for our eyes. Looking at our smartphones in bed is especially harmful, as this direct exposure to light can be damaging to our retinas, which can lead to macular degeneration (i.e., worsening eyesight).

Also, a growing number of ophthalmologists are beginning to believe there’s a link between smartphone use and cataracts, with younger and younger patients experiencing cataracts instead of the typical 75-and-older crowd.

Disrupted Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important factors in our overall health. In order to achieve and maintain healthy sleep, our bodies need to be able to naturally produce melatonin. Staring at smartphone screens in bed is like tricking the body into staring into a brightly-lit landscape, which delays melatonin production and prevents us from having quality sleep patterns, resulting in a host of health issues.

What Can We Do?

Not using our smartphones at all is extreme and not pragmatic in our modern world. However, there are many things we can do to prevent the negative health effects associate with too much use. Simply being aware of the potential dangers of excessive smartphone use is the first step, but changing our habits is the hard part.

Here are some great habits to apply to your life to limit the amount of negative health effects from using your smartphone every day:

  1. Be aware of your posture. While using your smartphone, focus on keeping your shoulder blades back, chest out, and core engaged. Don’t hunch over your screen.
  2. When using a smartphone for a prolonged period of time, take frequent breaks to focus your eyes on the horizon. This reduces eye strain.

Don’t take your phone to bed. Use an old-fashioned alarm clock and set your phone to “Do Not Disturb” so that only calls from emergency contacts will come through. Don’t stare at your screen in bed. Instead, read a book or lay quietly in the dark and allow your body’s natural melatonin production to take place.

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Perfectionist Tendencies and How to Cope with Them

Perfectionism is a person’s desire to achieve flawlessness. It is often accompanied by setting impossibly high standards, and being overly self-critical if those standards are not met. There are both positive and negative aspects of perfectionism, as we saw in the first post of this two-post series, but when it becomes too controlling or too pervasive, it’s important to curb perfectionist tendencies.

Are you a Perfectionist?

PhD Max Belkin says that “perfectionism often stems from childhood experiences with primary caregivers.” Parents especially can become exceedingly dedicated to raising highly accomplished children, and then be critical of their children when they fall below those standards.

Regardless of how you were raised or what you encountered during your formative years, there are many signs that indicate if you’re a perfectionist:

  • You’re quick to find fault in others, yet you also get defensive when you’re criticized.
  • You’re extremely eager to please.
  • You have an all-or-nothing attitude; either you excel in something or you don’t bother with it in the first place.
  • You don’t think there’s room for error.
  • You’re incredibly specific about how things should be done.
  • You procrastinate, waiting for the “right” moment to start something.
  • You set nearly unattainable goals.
  • You become depressed if you fail to achieve your objectives.
  • You often spend much longer on a task than is needed in an effort to perfect it.
  • You aren’t happy even when you succeed; there’s always more to accomplish.

How to Tame Your Perfectionist Ways

If you identified with a number of the common attributes of a person with perfectionist tendencies, there are many steps you can take to cope with this trait. Few of them are following:

  • Acknowledge your positive attributes: make a list of healthy relationships you’re cultivated, things you like about yourself, and meaningful experiences you’ve had.
  • Build relationships with people who value family and community over money, status, and tangible items, the latter of which are commonly seen in an all-or-nothing light.
  • Try to squash the idea that it’s all or nothing, and tell yourself it’s okay to not be the best at something in order to garner respect.
  • Set time limits to help curb your penchant for procrastinating, and know that spending too much time on one thing means you’ll have less time to work on another.
  • Focus on being more patient when others make mistakes, which will likely help you shed your fear of being criticized by others as well as the habit of being overly self-critical when you happen to error.

Looking Forward

It’s not inherently healthy or unhealthy to strive for the best in whatever you do. When correctly approached, such determination can affect positive results. However, if you’re constantly criticizing yourself for not performing up to your lofty, often unrealistic standards, you may develop self-loathing, anxiety, and depression.

It’s great to set goals, and work hard to achieve them, but make sure they’re realistic. And if you fall short, know that it’s okay, and know that perfectionism is more often an impediment to success than it is a helpful factor.

Do your best by all means and do not forget to appreciate yourself often!

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Nobody’s Perfect, and That’s Awesome!

According to Noah Webster, “perfectionism” is “a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less.”

While not inaccurate, the dictionary definition does not convey the full depth of the word, its connotations both positive and negative.

In this two-part series, we will look at the different types of perfectionism, how they manifest, signs and symptoms of perfectionism, and how to cope with the consequences that can stem from negative perfectionism.

Is Perfectionism Good or Bad?

Perfectionism is considered by some to be an asset, a healthy motivational tool that helps people achieve success at the highest levels be it in the boardroom, on a Broadway stage, or on an Olympic track.

Conversely, it is deemed by others—including an increasing number of doctors, therapists, psychologists, and others in related fields—to be not only an impediment to success but a precursor to issues that can have wide-reaching effects on an individual.

More and more evidence is being documented that suggests a strong link between perfectionism and negative attitudes and behaviors. For example, after more than twenty years of research, practicing psychologist and University of British Columbia professor Paul Hewiit, PhD, and his colleague, professor of psychology at York University in Toronto Gordon Flett, PhD, have found that “perfectionism correlates with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health problems.”

They further argue that while there are different types of perfectionism, no form is without problems.

The Types of Perfectionism

Many researchers, like psychologist Kenneth Rice, PhD, who has written studies for the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, believe there are two kinds of perfectionism: adaptive and maladaptive.

Adaptive perfectionism is considered to be “normal” and healthy, a trait where one gets satisfaction from achievements attained through hard work while allowing for the inevitable imperfections that accompany any activity. Adaptive perfectionism can also be viewed as positive perfectionism, in which the person is achievement oriented.

Maladaptive perfectionism is considered to be unhealthy, and is seen in someone who has high personal performance standards and the tendency to be highly self-critical. Furthermore, when something does not go according to plan, a maladaptive perfectionist is likely to develop negative thoughts and feelings. It can also be viewed as negative perfectionism, in which the person is driven by the fear of failure.

Hewitt and Flett believe that while “winning”—be it in sporting, academic, or business endeavors—is important to adaptive and maladaptive perfectionists, failing to do so is considerably more stressful for the latter than it is for the former.

Research shows that such stress can result in consequences such as low self-esteem, Anxiety, and Depression—sometimes so severe that the final result is suicide.

How Perfectionism Manifests Itself

Some perfectionists feel the need to be error-free because of perceived social pressures. They think others will value them only if they are perfect. If they fail to perform to that standard, they can become depressed and suicidal more easily than, say, people who are “other-oriented” perfectionists.

Other-oriented people are not without their struggles, though. What most often presents in them is the tendency to require perfection from their family members, friends, and colleagues. Intimate relationships in particular often suffer when at least one of the partners has this type of perfectionism.

Self-oriented perfectionists, for reasons that are still not entirely clear, are internally motivated to be perfect. People in this group can be fine in low-stress situations but can readily become anxious when serious issues arise. They often have mental health problems, particularly eating disorders and chronic stress.

The Problems with Perfectionism

For many perfectionists, life is a constant evaluation of their own accomplishments, looks, status, etc. It is often a surefire route to low self-worth and unhappiness. Perfectionists tend to have inner voices that call them lazy, useless, or not good enough when they fail to fulfill their standards, whether those standards are self-imposed or imposed by others.

Perfectionists can lead lives in which they’re regularly afraid of private shame or public humiliation for not meeting their own or other’s unrealistic expectations. Often, this can result in high Stress, Anxiety, Depression, and Anorexia in many female self-oriented perfectionists, and even suicide.

What’s Next?

The first steps to correcting a problem are accepting and understanding the problem. With the knowledge of what perfectionism is and how it can manifest in different ways, the next post will provide guidance for how to cope with perfectionist tendencies so that they do not lead to adverse mental and physical health issues.