Despite how the holidays are portrayed on television and in the movies, they often create a lot of stress for people. Research says that 8 out of 10 Americans are expected to feel stressed out by the holidays. Nearly two-thirds of people claim that the holidays create financial stress in their lives. Upwards of 40% report eating unhealthy during the holidays in large part due to stress. Spending time with family and relatives, although enjoyable on one hand, often fuels stress on the other hand as old family dynamics are recreated and played out. Almost 65% of people say that the lack of time to plan and prepare for the holidays is one of the top stressors during the holiday seasons. This year, try to take a proactive approach to keep your stress more manageable and in check. Talk with family members early on to coordinate dates, times, and locations. Start meal planning 2-3 weeks ahead of time so you have plenty of time to shop for food and get supplies. Consider splitting up the meal and have each family member bring a couple of items. This will be much more affordable for everyone and you won’t have to try to prepare and cook so many dishes on the day of. Gift-giving is a wonderful expression of love and appreciation, however, don’t feel obligated to out-do yourself from last year. Talk to family members, set a spending limit that everyone is comfortable with, and consid read more
What is Compulsive Gambling?
Where many people enjoy gambling as an occasional social or recreational activity, for others it becomes a real struggle. Problem gambling is an urge to gamble despite experiencing negative consequences or continuing to gamble despite a desire to stop. An estimated 15 million Americans have problem gambling with more than 3 million of them having severe problematic gambling. Problem gambling is not a bad habit or moral weakness, but a serious condition that is treatable. Although it is commonly referred to as gambling addiction, it is actually categorized as an impulse control disorder. However, like chemical addictions, it is a progressive and chronic condition. Problem gambling tends to strain relationships, affect one’s ability to fulfill responsibilities at work, home, or school, and can lead to financial catastrophe. It can lead people to do things they never thought themselves capable of such as borrowing or stealing money from partners, employers, and even their children.
Symptoms & Features
Pathological Gambling Disorder is a persistent and recurring maladaptive gambling pattern as evidenced by five or more of the following symptoms: 1) a mental preoccupation with gambling, 2) a need to gamble with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve the desired excitement or effect, 3) repeated unsuccessful efforts to con read more
Self-care means taking care of yourself. Right? If you are defining this idea with the words themselves, it may mean you have a fuzzy idea about what self-care actually is and should look like. Let’s take a moment to try to better understand what this thing is so you stand a better chance of implementing it into your routine and can try to make your life better. With clients, I often describe self-care as the counterbalance to stress. Where stress will run you down and deplete you, good quality self-care should replenish and recharge your batteries. Self-care is actually made up of those activities people do when they need to relax and rejuvenate.
Key Components of Self Care
There are three important parts to self-care in order to execute effectively on this tool. First, is having a well-tuned barometer. You need to know when the pressure is getting to you and it’s time to implement some self-care. Another metaphor is that self-care is like the fuel gauge in your car. You don’t want to break down on the highway before you realize that you have run out of gas. It’s important to have some internal awareness about how you are doing and how much reserves you have in the tank. Be sure to fill up some time before you wake up and realize you can’t get out bed. Second, you must be willing to give yourself permission to do self-care. This may seem a bit silly. Really? read more
We always hear about the importance of stress management and the countless ways to help ourselves decompress from the impact of the various stressors we all deal with. Hopefully, this will be your aerial view of stress management from five thousand feet. One way to conceptualize stress is to visualize the stressors in your life on one side of scale measuring from 0-100, and your coping skills on the other side of the scale also measuring from 0-100. For most people their coping skills remain static and unmoving. They have what they have in order to cope with life and its stressors. Perhaps it registers at 68 and the person can cope with most things life brings reasonably effectively. On the other side stressors are rarely static. In fact, they usually fluctuate up and down in a given day or week. Perhaps ranging from 40-80 at any given point, after all most of us feel like we are routinely trying to juggle several things at once.
Stress Management Skills
Most people will continue to do fine in life so long as their coping skills exceed their stress level. For instance, a stress level of 56 relative to the above noted 68 on the coping side. In fact, most of will endure and get through even when stress goes above our coping level, so long as it comes back down reasonably quickly. It is vital that our stress level not exceed our coping abilities for extended periods of read more
There are some people who look forward to the holidays all year and can’t wait for them to arrive. Other people enjoy the holiday, but find them to be a strain while trying to juggle all the responsibilities of their regular life, along with the additional shopping, cleaning, decorating, and cooking. Then there are some who find the holidays to be quite difficult. It may bring up feelings of grief and loss, they are simply too overwhelmed with the demands, or are set off by attempting to endure family members who trigger a lot of emotional turmoil and issues. A survey from a few years ago reported that 45% of Americans would prefer to skip Christmas. Another poll revealed that 50% of people are very financially stressed over the holidays and have a lot of anxiety over getting and giving gifts. Many begin to experience symptoms like disturbed sleep, low energy, impaired concentration, headaches, and much more. Much of our stress can stem from expectations, especially those that might be unrealistic. Lots of people go into the holidays with the idea that everything needs to be perfect. They think they need to cook up the most fantastic meals, initiate the most interesting and thought provoking conversation, and somehow make sure everyone gets along well and is respectful toward each other. It sounds lovely, but this maybe a set up for failure and disappointment. A lot of these read more