OK, I admit it. I’m a little high-strung sometimes. I’m energetic by nature, and sometimes that energy transforms itself into stress.
Especially when I think about driving down here in South Florida. I get “pre-traumatic stress syndrome.” I just look at the highway and freak out.
Well, it was my good fortune recently to talk about it on-air with Dr. Heidi H. Allespach, Ph.D., Director of Behavioral Medicine and Associate Professor at UHealth’s Miller School of Medicine.
She’s an expert in stress management and teaches stress management techniques to both doctors and patients.
So here’s what Allespach taught me. Practicing acceptance, she said, is the key. Instead of fighting the situation, we can accept the reality and do our best to cope.
This allows us to stop letting the situation – in this case, the traffic – control us.
It turns out that the same principle – choosing a different perspective – is applicable to holiday stress. Allespach said we shouldn’t go into autopilot and fall into the same stress-producing patterns while expecting a different result.
Instead, we can reevaluate old traditions and ask if they take us closer to our goals of happiness and peace – or farther away, Allespach said.
“We need to wake up and keep it simple,” she said.
We can consciously choose attitudes and behaviors that take us toward the goal of actually enjoying the holidays. These might include:
– Spending less.
– Drinking less.
– Eating less.
– Shopping online instead of in the stores.
It was a great conversation. If you want to de-stress, too, then click here to listen to the full interview with Dr. Heidi H. Allespach of UHealth.
