Seven Ways to Reduce Holiday Stress
What should be the happiest time of the year, is for many one of the most stressful. We often give ourselves permission to overindulge and binge. We give into sugar cravings and our borderline bad habits. We don’t eat right, don’t get enough sleep and end up feeling anything but cheery! According to the American Psychological Association, this is more the norm than many of us care to admit. They say that during the holidays, people tend to experience heightened emotions, many feel overcome by loneliness and that intensifies our ability to deal with what would otherwise just be an annoyance. The APA also found that nearly half of all women in the US experience heightened stress during the holidays and that 41% use food and 28% use alcohol, to deal with that stress. While we may all feel the need to binge on an extra bag of cookies or share a drink to bring in the holiday cheer, there are many ways to keep a sense of peach and limit our emotions from spiking and diving to new d