Powerful Tips to Beat Holiday Family Stress

Expert tips for navigating the fraught dynamics of family gatherings.

Holidays are often accompanied by mixed emotions. On one hand, it can be lovely to gather with family and share in traditions: enjoying your dad’s famous fig stuffing at Thanksgiving, lighting the menorah at Hanukkah, decorating the tree at Christmas.

On the other hand, given the complexity of family dynamics, holiday gatherings can be stressful, disappointing, and sometimes downright triggering, leaving you feeling exhausted and depleted. Some of us need a holiday after the holidays, just to reset.

These feelings are sometimes known as family jet lag. Psychologist Kristin Neff, PhD, coauthor of Mindful Self-Compassion for Burnout, says many factors can contribute to it, including a packed schedule of compulsory events. “If we’re doing lots of things that we don’t really want to do, but feel obligated to do, that can be really stressful,” she notes.

The holidays often disrupt our normal schedules, derailing the small self-care practices built into our daily routines — that relaxing postwork yoga class or a brief lunch-hour walk.

We also have limited influence over the food options at family events. That lack of control (or the stress of the gathering itself) might lead to eating differently than we normally do. Perhaps we indulge in some extra cookies and sugary treats. Maybe we drink a bit more alcohol than usual.

Adding to the pressure is the fact that many of us revert to less-evolved versions of ourselves around family. “We still have parts of us that are very young inside,” Neff says. “And family gatherings can trigger those parts. We aren’t always our most mature selves.”

Grief therapist Heather Stang, author of Navigating Loss: Wisdom and Self-Care for Times of Grief and the Challenges of Life, concurs. “Because of our expectations around who we are in a family dynamic, we often regress,” she explains. “That’s universal. Because, to a parent, you will always be their child. And, to you, they will always be your parent.”

We may leave these gatherings feeling ashamed of our behavior or berating ourselves for being unable to, say, tamp down our irritability. That can be especially difficult these days, when many families include people with conflicting political views.

But there are ways to alleviate the jet lag — in some cases, even before it begins. The following expert tips can help make your holidays happier.

Before the Holidays

A little strategic planning can go a long way toward easing holiday stress. Stang facilitates a grief group that starts practicing for the holidays in October. The members begin by listing their needs. “That’s going to be different for everybody,” she notes. “But there are some similar themes: genuine connection and presence on one hand, and then perhaps some alone time on the other.”

Once participants have defined their needs, they have to learn how to communicate them — which is not always easy. That’s why preparation is key. This could include listing people you tend to struggle with and even creating a mini script to consult if things get messy.

It could also include making a plan for getting out of the house — say, to meet up with old friends or go for a walk. You may want to role-play various scenarios with a friend or your therapist.

Or you may decide ahead of time not to engage with certain topics during the visit. However you prepare beforehand, it will help you feel less nervous when you arrive.

During the Holidays

If you struggle with setting boundaries at first, or if your preparation doesn’t help as much as you’d hoped, be patient with yourself. “I call it practicing,” Stang explains, “because you’re probably not going to do a perfect job, and you have to have some self-compassion around that.”

While you’re at the gathering, note what works and what doesn’t. “Observe,” she suggests. “Sure, some people might throw a temper tantrum: ‘What do you mean, you need time alone to recharge? I thought I recharged you!’”

But you may find that challenging conversations can actually be illuminating. “Sometimes the person just needs to understand your why.”

Neff likens family jet lag to burnout. “Any time stress exceeds our ability to cope with it, we’re likely to become burned-out,” she explains. “It’s the body’s natural way of trying to cope — it shuts down.”

The good news, she adds, is that self-compassion can ease stress and burnout. It won’t eliminate the stress completely, but it can help us cope so we aren’t so overwhelmed.

One common obstacle to self-compassion, Neff warns, is the mistaken notion that it’s selfish. But if you can’t be forgiving and gracious to yourself, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to be compassionate toward others.

“If your care just goes outward to your family and doesn’t flow back inward, you’re going to get depleted,” she says. “Compassion has to flow in and out.”

One way to practice some self-compassion during stressful family visits is through the power of touch. We’ve evolved to interpret warm touch as a signal of care, Neff explains. “It actually changes our physiology, lowers our cortisol levels, and increases heart rate variability and heart rate coherence.”

Self-touch actually offers some of the same benefits as a warm touch from someone else. You may want to go into the bathroom or another private area, says Neff, laughing. “Take a moment and put your hand on your heart, and say something like ‘This is really stressful.’”

In one study of 156 participants, researchers found that a 20-second micropractice of self-soothing touch helped reduce the effect of stress on cortisol levels.

After the Holidays

Many of us tend to jump back into work immediately after a holiday — we’ve just taken time off, after all — when we might actually need more time to recover. Whether it’s soaking in a bathtub or going for a walk, find activities that offer comfort and help restore your energy.

There’s no one correct way to do it; you get to decide what’s wrong or right for you. Ask yourself what you need, and then do it.

The least helpful thing to do after a family visit is to beat yourself up. “Maybe you’ll need to send a little apology email,” says Neff. “But remember, it’s human. My mother lives next door, and I still find myself reacting like a teenager to her sometimes.”

Instead of judging yourself, try to cultivate what Neff calls a learning mindset. So, rather than telling yourself, I really blew it. I can’t believe I verbally sparred with my stepcousin, switch to thinking, What can I learn from the things that were challenging?

After holidays, Stang formally assesses what went right and what went wrong by practicing what she calls integration. “Thanksgiving is usually the first major holiday of the year, and in my counseling groups, the class after that is always integration.”

People are often surprised by what they learn during integration. “Someone might say, ‘Oh my gosh, it was a total disaster,’” she explains. “But then they’ll say, ‘But I really enjoyed playing with my nephew.’”

“There’s a lot of impermanence in life,” Stang continues. “And I’ve been able to observe people who have had really difficult family dynamics, and to see that change. I’ve gotten to witness change in my own family. Learning, and holding onto that hope, is so important.”