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Stress in excess: Battling the hectic holidays

Joyful or not, the holiday season often produces stress in our lives. Dr. Lawrence M. Martin, an adult psychiatrist at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., helps put our holiday feelings in perspective:

Oasis: What are examples of holiday stressors?

Dr. Martin: There are more things to do than we have the time to do them. Our lives are full, often to the brim, with holiday extras. A lot of the things that people do during the holidays feel like obligations rather than choice. That accentuates our feeling of helplessness. You might see, for example, a young couple, both of whom have jobs, and they have a couple of younger children. At holiday time, they feel a need to have their own Christmas and they have to go to both families of origin to celebrate Christmas as well. And obviously, that adds to the time pressures. It may increase marital stress, because a spouse might feel his or her side of the family is being shortchanged.

Oasis: What are other examples?

Dr. Martin: Most of us have routines in our lives. Routines, although we may call them boring, are there because they are efficient. We can get up, shower, get dressed and get to work without having a single conscious thought because we do the same thing every day. The other thing that routines offer is consistency, a sense of security that things are going to go according to plan. We may have pretty healthy routines during the rest of the year. We may factor in exercise. We may eat a reasonable diet. Those kinds of things help us feel healthier and provide ways of managing our life stresses. This time of year, often, we skip exercise because we don't have time. Obviously, I don't have to talk at length about diet. There's a focus on high fat, high sugar and very little protein this time of year. Yet there's also a sense of obligation. For example, do I not eat that second helping when my mother says: 'Oh, here, dear, try each kind of pie'?

Oasis: What about the holiday events themselves?

Dr. Martin: There are a number of things having to do with expectations. Expectations are that each year, Christmas has to be better than the year before, or at least as good. And in a sad way our culture determines how good a Christmas we have by how much stuff we get. The dilemma is that a lot of times people who are otherwise pretty good about budgeting throw their budgeting experience out the window at this time of year. They spend like crazy. They put things on plastic, only waiting for the other shoe to drop when the credit card bill comes. There may be a lot of anxiety associated with that. And yet, again, there's the feeling of obligation. I call it giving your family a 'competitive' Christmas. The kids next door are getting Nintendo 64, and your kids come up and say, 'Johnny got Nintendo 64, and here I'm left with this little 16-bit system.' The guilt of perceiving oneself as a bad, denying or neglectful parent can cause parents to use really bad judgment about their spending.

Oasis: Do people expect Christmas to be better than what reality offers?

Dr. Martin: We've seen the TV ads about going home for Christmas. Home in TV commercials is always some rural estate, where people drive up in a brand-new minivan, or some even arrive by sleigh. The loving parents are there to greet us, greet our children, and it's a wonderful homecoming experience. The reality is that a lot of families are not like that.

Oasis: What about the role of television?

Dr. Martin: Holiday specials are filled with happy endings. In the old Waltons' Christmas, the worry was that Dad wasn't going to make it home with the presents, and of course he did. One of the great dilemmas of TV holiday specials is that conflict resolution always takes place within an hour. People's lives aren't like that. It can make us think: 'If this is what it's supposed to be, then I'm kind of a failure.' It accentuates our sense of sadness. Can we turn off the TV? Probably not. Is there something better to do with our time? Almost always.

Oasis: What about the role of our childhood and of children?

Dr. Martin: We remember those few brief years of wonder, excitement and anticipation we felt as children. There is still the desire or expectation to feel it as adults. And the dilemma is, we don't. We know where the presents came from. We probably spent too much for them. Sometimes people spend a lot of money to get that feeling back. They hope to get it back through their children. They come away feeling vaguely disappointed that the kids end up playing with the boxes Christmas afternoon, or whining because they are tired.

Oasis: So what can people do?

Dr. Martin: I really like pre-emptive strikes. I recommend a pre-holiday approach. Set a budget, stick with it, realizing that our families, if they love us, will love us despite how much or how little we spend. I strongly recommend, throughout the holidays, trying to maintain some semblance of routine, some regular form of exercise, trying to eat as healthily as possible--outside of the occasional parties. I recommend to people that they eat first before going to parties, realizing that the important part of the party is the people, not the food. Increased alcohol consumption impairs sleep and leaves people more tired.

Oasis: What other problems are frequent during the holidays?

There is another group of lonely people, isolated people, who may look to their job for a lot of their friendships. The holidays are a time when their friends are likely to be much less accessible. At the same time that everybody is feeling overwhelmed with too much obligation, these people are feeling the absence or diminishment of obligation. I try to encourage them to plan ahead what they are going to do during the holidays. How are you going to make it something other than just time weighing heavily on you? A lot of these folks seek out volunteer activities to get themselves engaged and feeling needed. Those people can get through the holidays pretty well, better than a lot of us who are in a state of excess.

Oasis: Can a new year's resolution put us back on track?

Dr. Martin: The goal is not to make resolutions that you can't keep. I recommend that people try to return to their basic life patterns rather than trying to change their lives all around to make up for the excesses of two to three weeks. The dilemma of New Year's resolutions is they give us plenty of opportunities to fail. And then we have one more reason to feel bad about ourselves.

Oasis: So what might be a more helpful approach?

Dr. Martin: I encourage people to think about what their priorities are through the whole holiday season. Are my priorities to feel brief episodes of happiness? Or, are my priorities in the day-to-day accomplishment of living, providing a stable home for my family, doing things that help me feel productive and of service to the world around me? Self-absorbed New Year's resolutions tend to be unfulfilling or underfulfilling, even if accomplished. The major values of thinking ahead to the new year revolve around questions such as: How do I want to feel about myself in general? What gives me a sense of productivity? What are the relationships I want to nurture? Which relationships are most important to me and how do I need to go about making those better or maintaining them in a healthy fashion? Most people are social. We are social animals. When I look at what makes people happy, it's relationships, rather than money.