Holiday Health and Wellness: Stress-Less Celebrations

FARGO — We’re on our second installment of our weeklong series on staying healthy and minimizing stress for the holidays.

And even if you’re lucky enough to be surrounded by friends, family, and other reasons to celebrate the season, it doesn’t mean stress is necessarily going to miss you.

On the contrary, according to Sanford Health experts like psychiatric nurse practitioner Sara Dukart.

Pressure to put together the perfect holiday celebrations can take its toll on everyone.

So can expectations to entertain crowds at home, purchase the perfect gifts, please parents, kids and other relatives, and more.

Dukart says it’s up to you to monitor your stress levels and set healthy boundaries and what you can and can’t reasonably commit to.

You should also consider reaching out for help from your support system; for example, ask people to bring a dish to share at dinner, or suggest a gift exchange rather than buying gifts for everyone across extended families.

Dukart says a key indicator of stress is whether you’re starting to feel more pressure than fun during holiday events.

She joined the Morning Show to share some other survival tips for the holidays, how holiday stress can look different for different family members, and how you can all apply these tools throughout the holiday season:

https://www.sanfordhealth.org/doctors/sara-dukart