Ep. 152: Tools to Ease the Holiday Stress

The holidays have always been one of my favorite times of year… and also one of the most stressful. For so many years, I felt like I had to juggle caregiving, family expectations, shopping, gatherings, and this pressure to make everything perfect. It was exhausting—and honestly, it stole the joy right out of the season.

In this episode, I’m sharing the simple tools I use to bring myself back to calm, especially when life feels overwhelming. From box breathing to grounding to quick gratitude resets, these tiny “sprinkles” truly make a difference.

Whether you’re a caregiver, a parent, or simply someone who feels the weight of the holidays, this conversation is for you.

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Let’s create a little more peace—one breath at a time.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Holiday Reality Check
• 2:45 The Trap Of Perfection And Overload
• 5:05 Why Chronic Holiday Stress Escalates
• 5:55 Box Breathing Made Simple
• 6:35 Five Senses Grounding Reset
• 8:04 Mini Gratitude And 90-Second Rule
• 9:15 Intentional Transitions Before You Enter
• 11:00 Hand-To-Heart Safety Cue
• 12:00 Small Sprinkles That Add Up
• 13:05 The Sprinkle Effect Card Deck
• 15:00 Let Go Of Perfect, Keep Meaning
• 16:05 One Stress, One Small Shift
• 16:19 Discount Code And Closing Wishes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Maybe I Can Podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Weiss, and thank you so much for joining me today. Listen, if you like the show, then please I'd really appreciate it if you would follow and share it with anyone else that you feel could benefit. I think we all can, right? Including me. I do this because I'm talking to you, but I'm also talking to myself, reminding me about all the things that I share, all the little tips and tricks. Like it's great. I might know them, but you know what? We're all human. And sometimes I just forget about them, especially when I'm in the moment. And we're coming up on the holiday season, which is really one of my favorite times of year, as I think it is for many people. But there is also another side to the holiday season, and that is stress. I don't know about you, but for many, many years, even though I looked forward to the holiday season, it was a gear-up to this tremendous amount of pressure and stress and this idea that everything has to be perfect. And it doesn't need to be. We need to figure out how do we deal with this stress and bring back a sense of calm so we can actually enjoy this time of year. Easier said than done, especially when my kids were younger, and it was all about the presence and the gatherings, and you're still dealing with everything else in your life, right? And so certainly when I was in real big caregiver mode, I still had to balance that with work, with regular life, and now I've got to go shopping, and I have to attend parties and family gatherings and make sure that I have something to bring for this one and that one and the mailman. If you're still that person who does tips, I do. And I felt like I couldn't let him see just how extra stressed I was, which of course created more stress, right? It's like stress upon stress upon stress. And as I get older, now I realize that the presence and what I'm gonna wear and the perfect food or cookies or whatever it is, or every single event that you feel that you need to attend, it's all something made up in our minds, right? I think maybe for me, I watch too many Hallmark Christmas movies. It's like it has to be perfect. And if it's not perfect, then I am, I don't want to say not a good enough woman, but like I would let myself as well as my other family members down. And boy, that's so untrue because I don't know about you, but when I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, do you think I was enjoying the holiday season? Enjoying being with my friends and family? Not really. I was always like, okay, check the box, got this one done. What's next? What's next? While again, still trying to juggle everything. Stress is not good. We already know that. Holiday stress on top of regular stress really allows for this period of time between now and New Year's for us to always be in this heightened state of stress where our heart rate spikes, our breathing gets shallow, you know, your shoulders. This is a big one for me. My shoulders always get like scrunched up. I don't even realize that I'm like making these fists or these faces. It is, imagine, like we're not getting a break. It feels like we're never coming down from that stress for a good six weeks or so. I don't know about you, but I don't want to feel anxious, irritable, and overwhelmed during this period of time. So let's talk about a few simple things that you can do to try and bring that stress down. I'm gonna start with my favorite thing, which is something called box breathing. I remember that I was introduced to this when Sam, my oldest, was, I don't know, 12-ish, and he'll be 25 in March. And I think that the person that introduced it to him, she called it square breathing, which actually for me is a very helpful visual. And the idea is that you inhale through your nose for four seconds, then you hold it at the top of the square for four seconds, and I visualize like I breathe up and I make one vertical line, then I hold it, I make a horizontal line, then I exhale through my mouth for four seconds, and then I come down from that vertical line, and then I hold at the bottom for another four seconds, and I complete the square with a horizontal line. If you repeat that three to five times, you will really see how everything just calms down. And you can do it anywhere. Nobody has to know. You could be standing in line at a store, you could be driving, you could be working, nobody knows what you're doing. So that is definitely a tool that has always worked for me. The hard part, like all of these things, is remembering how to do them and remembering to draw on these ways to de-stress when you're actually in the moment. Another one is that when you're stressed, you think about five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. And that pulls you back into the present moment, right? Our minds are racing with whatever the next thing is that we have to do, or whatever thoughts are overwhelming us and playing like a loop in our head. When you have to pay attention to these things, all of your senses, right? That's obviously what we're doing. Five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing that you can taste. It really draws you back into the present moment. Tip number three, do a mini gratitude reset. You can close your eyes, not close your eyes, whatever you want, and quickly think about three things that you're grateful for right now. It could be listening to this podcast, it could be your comfy socks, the smell of this kind of like cinnamon candle that I've got going on right now. It literally lowers the stress hormones immediately and shifts your focus to remind you that there are good things going on in your life right now, not just the things that are stressing you out. Alright, next one, the 90-second rule. When a wave of frustration takes over, give yourself 90 seconds. Just breathe, time yourself, right? Time it. Set a timer, look at your watch, breathe, and let it move through you. The physical reaction to stress only lasts about 90 seconds unless we keep fueling it with our thoughts. The next is being intentional about transitions. So transitions when you're going from one place to another. I used to do this when I would come home from work and I was about to go into my house, and a lot of times I would walk into the house after a day of work, and everything would hit me. The kids would be like asking me for something, and Gary would be doing the same. And it was like, oh my gosh, it was this incredible feeling of overwhelm. And so I would sit in the garage 30 seconds to a minute, and I would reset. I would take a deep breath. I'd say, okay, I'm leaving this energy behind. I am stepping into a new one, and I am going to show up as a calm, stress-fee-free version of myself. So maybe it's boy, I don't know about you, but I can think about times when we were going to someone's house for a holiday, and in the car, there was a fight over something. There was some kind of disagreement. And I would always walk into my friend or relative's house all uptight, and everybody knew it. My cousin would take one look at me and say, Okay, get her a drink. She just knew that I needed, not that that's the best way to do it, but she knew it was so obvious from the look on my face that something had to change. The drink really wasn't the answer. I could have, before I walked into that house, calmed myself down, recentered myself, and say, okay, I am leaving behind everything that happened into that car, and I am walking into this house. I'm excited to see my family. I'm excited to spend time with everyone and show up as a different person when you walk through the door. You can also, if it feels better, do some breath work with calmly putting one hand on your chest and one on your stomach and breathe slowly, and you can say out loud or to yourself, I'm safe, and exhale and say, I can relax. That instantly tells your body it's safe to let it go. Whatever it is, it's safe to let it go. It's a good one when you feel overstimulated or before you go to bed and you can't go to sleep. These small moments of calm, the breathing, the grounding, the gratitude, they're basically what I call sprinkles, right? They may seem tiny. They're all little short things, but they can really add up to shifting everything if you remember to use them. And that's why I said at the beginning of the show, I need reminders too. It's horrid when you're in that moment of everything's frenetic and you are totally overwhelmed. But come back and listen to this episode, right? Because what I found is as you get more comfortable with using these techniques, then you're able to call on them in the moment more often, recognize sooner before you are like beyond, right? Beyond stressed, overwhelmed, you're gonna make yourself sick. You can head that off at the past, so to speak. Now, of course, if you want help creating a little more calm or a little more intention, you can always pull a card each morning from my sprinkle effect deck. Or three cards, because each sprinkle effect deck represents 17 different sprinkles. And for each sprinkle, there are three cards a journal prompt, an affirmation, and a quote. And I don't know about you, but just reading a quote, saying an affirmation, and of course, journal prompting, I mean, to me there's nothing better. But if you don't have enough time for that, don't think that that means that you can't do anything. Just reading a quote, saying an affirmation out loud, right? It calms you down and tunes you back in and allows you to refocus. You can use the deck in many ways, and one of the ways you can use it is to pick the sprinkle that you need that day. Because every day we all need something different, right? Maybe it's belief, maybe it's curiosity, maybe it's adaptability and resilience this time of year. You can keep those cards handy and draw on them whenever you need them throughout the day. And then, of course, that will help remind you throughout the day when you are stressed, when you do need to then take a look at your toolbox and decide, okay, what can I do right now to calm down? Should I do box breathing? Think of things I'm grateful for, whichever one resonates with you, right? There is no one size fits all. And remember, the holidays, they don't have to be perfect. They have to be meaningful. And now looking back, I mean, we all know what it's like we show up to holidays now and you think about those holidays past when you know you're thinking about your loved ones who are no longer there. Don't you want to enjoy every second with your friends and family that are here? I know that I certainly do. I want to leave that stress behind. And you know what? If I don't get the right gift, if I don't have the right wrapping paper, it doesn't make a difference if you burn the cookies. You just have to realize that nothing is perfect. And it doesn't make sense to ruin your holidays by bringing all this stress on yourself, because let's face it, we're really bringing it on ourselves. It's our own, maybe unrealistic expectations. So take a moment to think about this. What's one thing that usually stresses you out during the holidays? And what's one small shift you can make this year to handle it differently? Journal on that, record something on your phone, whatever it is. But think about it. Whenever you are purchasing the Sprinkle Effect card deck, you apply the coupon code JOY10 to get 10% off. It is a great tool for you, and hey, this holiday season, it's a great gift, right? Who wouldn't like something that is so fun and colorful, but yet incredibly useful? So remember even when life gets busy, you have the power to create your own calm. One breath, one pause, one sprinkle at a time. Happy holidays!