Here’s How You Should Deal with The Stress of Holiday Travelling

The holidays are meant to be the greatest time of the year, yet they turn out to be extremely stressful. Everyone wants to utilize the holidays in the best possible manner and make a lot of effort to have a great time, however considering the limited resources we have, it becomes extremely crowded everywhere.

Whether it is the airport, or your local grocery store, you will find crowds everywhere. Combine that with the stress of having to meet your distant relatives including people you don’t particularly like and what you are left with is more stress than you can manage. Since all of this is inevitable, we think it is best that you approach this holiday season with adequate preparation. The following guidelines offer a good enough place to start.

The holidays are meant to be the greatest time of the year, yet they turn out to be extremely stressful.

List Down Your Holiday Stressors

The first step you need to take in order to deal with your holiday travel stress is to first list down all the events which stress you out. According to Dr. Cheryl Carmin, who works at the Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center as the director of clinical psychology training, the stressors for every person during the holiday season will be largely unique, hence it is important you evaluate your case with complete impartiality and due attention.

This process is referred to as expressive writing, which, according to Dr. Jason S. Moser, who works at Michigan State University as the director of its Clinical Psychology Lab, helps in offloading tasks on a piece of paper in order to approach them from an problem-solving perspective (or throwing out the paper can also give you the comfort of symbolically throwing out your problems out the window). After having listed down all the time and factors which contribute to your stress levels during the holiday season travelling, it is time to figure out their solutions.

Ensure You Pack Everything Important

We understand why you may be in a habit of packing at the very last minute, and of course doing that significantly increases your chances of forgetting something very important at home. The right way to approach packing during the holiday season is to get everything packed and ready to go the night before your actual flight.

To maintain the importance of this task, you should place reminder notes on all things you interact with at home. For example, placing a note telling yourself that you need to pack before your next trip does wonders in keeping you on track.

This process is referred to as expressive writing, which, according to Dr. Jason S. Moser, helps in offloading tasks on a piece of paper in order to approach them from an problem-solving perspective

Choose an Off-Peak Time

Perhaps the holiday season is over-hyped, a collective marketing campaign by brands around the world to compel us into spending our money. The non-essential items become cheaper, while essential items such as airline tickets become more expensive as companies know that these services have an inelastic demand.

However, all of this may be avoided if you simply choose to go on a vacation during off season. There are multiple advantages of going off season: you will have to tolerate fewer tourists even at the most famous world destinations, pay far less for your return ticket, and pay less in accommodation as well.

Have Help on Your Phone

Sometimes it all becomes a little too much to bear, in which case you need immediate help. The best way to go about it is to develop a playlist on your phone with the most soothing songs you can find and plug those in with your earphones while going out in public, especially when using public transportation as you want to block out all the noise. Apps like Headspace are excellent at teaching some on-the-go meditation techniques, so if listening to music is not your thing then perhaps you should try it out.

Since smartphones have made it very easy to connect to the internet, we now have Netflix on the go. Try using it, or a similar streaming service, to watch some of your favorite movies and/or TV shows especially when you are sitting and waiting for your journey to end. Trust us, doing so will take away most of the stress you experience while travelling, and also enable you to enjoy your destinations much more as you will have a relaxed mindset when you reach there.