Inoculate yourself against holiday stress

When the holidays roll around, the stress starts to mount higher than the Christmas icicle lights dripping off the eaves.

Instead of all that joy and bliss we’re supposed to feel around families and friends, the festivities can often leave a bitter taste in our mouths, triggered by Uncle Bill’s advice on losing weight or mom’s critique of your new hairstyle.

But you don’t have to end up like Ebenezer Scrooge or the emotionally damaged Grinch. With a bit of preparation, you can anticipate the pitfalls of holiday get-togethers, then rehearse ways to respond that will leave you feeling calm and bright.

“We all have interpersonal triggers and histories with people,” said Glen Brassington, professor of psychology at Sonoma State University and a licensed clinical psychologist. “We need to be aware of and conscious of what the triggers are.”

Brassington, who works with athletes and artists to improve their performance in high-stress situations, suggests sitting down before a big party or dinner to review what’s happened in the past and how you reacted to it.

“When mom says something about the turkey or the ham, or that I don’t have a job right now, or why the kids are not behaving better - realize that ‘OK, those are some of the issues that I react to,’” he said. “Then have strategies for when that happens.”

The key is to try to stay calm, take deep breaths and physically slow down, he said. Then you may be able to see that your persecutor did not mean to ruin your holiday; they were just on auto-pilot.

“Work on your thinking beforehand ... we call it ‘stress inoculation,’ ” he said.

“You can rehearse your response to those things.”

Along with deep breaths, it helps to notice if your shoulders are starting to rise up with the clenched muscles and tension of fight-or-flight response.

“Lower your shoulders and walk and talk slower,” he said. “We know that being relaxed is not compatible with being angry. Physiologically, they don’t go together.”

Think things over

Terry Barnett-Martin, a licensed marriage and family therapist who practices in Irvine, also suggests sitting down ahead of time to think about each person you’ll see, and what kind of connection you want to have with them.

“It’s like a little inventory,” she said.

“We can only change ourselves or protect ourselves, so it is our responsibility to make our world work for us.”

Barnett-Martin wrote “Tending Fences,” a series of parables about the different kinds of fences you can erect around yourself to foster closeness or, conversely, to protect yourself from abuse.

For people who are close to her but who can also hurt her, she imagines herself surrounded by a filtering wall, which takes water from a stagnant pond and filters it into a stream of clean water.

“When people don’t think before they talk, I see that as the pond of old yucky water that needs to be filtered,” she said. “And I only get the clean stuff.”

For people who blurt out inappropriate comments, such as “Man, you’re fat,” she imagines a Teflon wall, so that the comments slide off and reflect back to that person.

“And sometimes I just laugh,” she said. “People are drinking and are a little bit looser, so you have to get ready for that.”

No lecturing

As a mother, she also tries not to jump the fence and infringe on her college-age son’s new wings by lecturing him about what he should be doing.

“If I act like the know-it-all mother, it undermines a person’s confidence,” she said. “So what I try to do with him is to just listen. “

For a healthy holiday, she also suggests tuning into your own body, so you don’t get sick, and not being afraid to say “no” to a party or two.

“Take a minute and tune into yourself so you’re not just running on the treadmill,” she said. “You really do choose to take yourself where you’re going to go, instead of allowing the season to take you along for the ride.”

Brassington said it’s important to get sufficient sleep (7 to 9 hours a night) in order to reduce the levels of stress hormones in the body. Exercise, such as meditation and yoga, and healthy eating also help keep stress, along with negative thinking, at bay.

Food issues

Watching what you eat is easy to accomplish at home, but if you’re going out for dinner at a friend’s house and have food issues, it’s only polite to let your host know ahead of time.

“Most vegetarians expect to eat around it and can be OK with it,” said Josh Silvers, chef/owner of Jackson’s Bar and Oven in Santa Rosa, about meat-based meals.

“But the onus is on you to say, ‘I’m gluten intolerant or a vegetarian.’”

If you have a food issue, it’s a good idea to volunteer to bring a dish that you can eat. If you’re the host and are faced with a last-minute food request, just do the best you can.

Because there is a lot of pressure to serve a perfect Christmas dinner, it’s easy for the host to become stressed out in advance of the big meal. Silvers suggests shopping and cooking as much as possible ahead of time, to make it easy on yourself.

“It’s just dinner,” he said. “The whole idea is to have fun with it. What makes a great dinner amazing is the company.”

Finally, make sure your guests stay hydrated through the evening, he said, and if they’ve been drinking, take precautions.

“Take that extra step, and say ‘Leave your keys, take a cab,’” he said. “Be a little more aware, especially if it’s raining.”

Staff writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com