4 triggers of holiday stress — and how to manage them

There is a memorable exchange in the movie “Christmas Vacation” when a frazzled Clark Griswold laments the stresses of the season and asks his father for coping advice. “How did you get through it?” Clark says. “I had a lot of help from Jack Daniels,” his dad replies. That’s not a recommended mechanism, of course, but Clark’s sentiment gets echoed in countless households each year around this time. Holiday stress is an annual fact of life for many folks. Charity Wilkinson-Truong, a clinical psychologist who works at Rutgers University and Stress & Anxiety Services of New Jersey — a cognitive behavioral therapy group with offices in East Brunswick and Springfield — offered detailed thoughts on the subject in an interview with Gannett New Jersey. Her holiday stress-management tips cover four different triggers that cause anxiety in November and December.

Trigger one: Unreachable ideals “A lot of what I hear is people having this unhelpful idea that things at the holidays need to be perfect, and this results in a great deal of stress because the goal of perfection is not attainable for any of us,” Wilkinson-Truong said. “I’ll often tell my clients that I don’t think I would like a perfect person. Think about all the times you go back and laugh about things that didn’t go exactly right.” The perfection ideal doesn’t magically appear in peoples’ heads. It’s placed there by a steady stream of outside influences. “We get the soft message from the media, from social media and movies and television shows, that this time of year everything should be happy and wonderful, when that doesn’t match up to anybody’s reality,” Wilkinson-Truong said.

A big driver of this: Facebook photos. “People compare themselves to others when they see pictures on Facebook — pictures of great holiday meals or decorations or a loving family,” Wilkinson-Truong said. “We don’t post pictures of people fighting or being upset. So you see a picture of happy, smiling people and tell yourself, ‘Uh-oh I’m supposed to be like that.’ Well, that’s not a helpful thought.”

It’s better to view such things through a realistic prism. “We encourage people to have more helpful thoughts like, ‘You know what? This picture doesn’t represent everyday life, how everybody is supposed to feel,’ ” she said.

Trigger two: Spending sprees “There’s a lot of stress about gift-giving, being able to give something perfect, or doing something that’s really memorable and different,” Wilkinson-Truong said. “I would really encourage people to set limits and budgets before they go into a store. Shop judiciously and not emotionally. Think about the long-term impact of spending.” Beyond the practical, reflect on why you’re giving in the first place. “Think back on gifts you’ve been given that are most meaningful. They’re usually not the most expensive ones,” Wilkinson-Truong said. “So giving somebody a gift is really about knowing that person, caring about them. We really get hung up on dollar amounts, but dollar amounts don’t reflect our affection for people.” A practical tip: Don’t shop online when you’re feeling tired or anxious. “If you’re feeling stressed or upset, you can go online and it can be real easy to click and buy too much,” she said.

Trigger three: Prickly company Family friction is inevitable in a lot of households when relatives get together. But there are ways to minimize it. “My No. 1 advice, especially right now in a heated political time, is no discussion of politics at all on holidays,” Wilkinson-Truong said. “It’s absolutely forbidden because it’s not helpful. It’s so easy for people to get really upset when politics come up.” Beyond that, Wilkinson-Truong cautioned against reading too deeply into any one comment or question. Most people don’t say things with ill intent. “We hear things with an interpretation that might not be there,” she said. “If a well-meaning relative says, ‘You look tired,’ we put our own spin on that and take it as an insult. So try to think about what the intent was of that person.”

Bottom line: Holiday gatherings are not forensics tournaments. “What’s really your goal — to win arguments and be right, or to have a nice experience and a fun time with people you love and care about?” Wilkinson-Truong said. “What do you really want to happen at the end of the day?”

Trigger four: Lack of sleep This might be the trickiest of them all. The first three triggers are largely mental, but sheer exhaustion around the holidays is what happens when there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. “Not getting enough sleep is absolutely linked to stress and depression,” Wilkinson-Truong said. “What is most helpful is sticking to a schedule, going to bed at the same time and waking at the same time.” If you’re facing a short night’s sleep, she said, a simple act can reduce anxiety about it. “One thing we advise people to do if they’re staring at the clock, worried about not getting enough sleep, is to turn the clocks around,” she said. “It’s not helpful to look at the clock.”

Watch your caffeine intake, too. Having coffee or even chocolate at night can mask an exhausted body’s cry for sleep — to your eventual detriment. “We do a lot of unhealthy things around the holidays,” Wilkinson-Truong said. “We may get out of our healthy eating habits, we may drink too much wine with dinner. These things can lead to feeling badly.” One source of relief, if all else fails? The calendar. “What helps me is reminding myself this is temporary and will pass,” Wilkinson-Truong said. “I’m not getting enough sleep, but my schedule will go back to regular again.”