Sleeping Through The Night

Well it has been a long time since I posted in this blog. Probably because I have had good fortune to keep my anxiety under control over the last year. I did had trouble sleeping over the past weekend which was unusual for me especially since we were camping and I usually sleep like a baby when I am camping. I forgot about my old standby trick on sleeping through the night. I broke out the bottle of Melatonin which I have previously wrote about. I tell you what it did the trick again.

Laughter is the best medicine

A great stress reliever is laughter. Medical research has shown us that smiling and laughing cause physiological changes in your body. It reduces cortisol, a chemical that indicates stress in the body, and an increase in mood elevating endorphins. Laughter can even improve circulation, stimulate the nervous system, heighten the immune system, and make the heart stronger.

Your body's safety valve: Laughing releases the tension and can help us keep things in perspective. Laughter is one of the body's safety valves, a counter balance to tension. So if you are really stressed out try to do something fun. Hang out with some up beat friends, watch your favorite funny movie or show. If you are stressed, don't watch something that will end up causing you more stress. Something light and funny will do the trick.

Kids laugh 400 times per day while adults are around 15 per day. As adults we might take ourselves to seriously. That is why is is important to find ways to get laughter back into you life. If you have kids hang out with them and act like a kid. I really like to wrestle with my kids and my nieces and nephews. Wrestling is crazy and makes a lot of noise and laughter and plus you get a good workout when you are wrestling with 6 kids.

Looking for ways to get more laughter into your life here is a list:

1. Change radio programs in the morning. Switch to the funny station.
2. Practice laughing just be a little crazy with your self. Even if you do a fake laugh it helps you feel better.
3. Did you ever go to a party and you see someone who is not laughing at the jokes or not enjoying themselves. Did you ever try to get them to snap out of it. It is important to laugh with other people when they laugh. Pull yourself up and out of the slump.
4. Chin up wear a smile. Try using the smile that makes people think you are the cat that ate the canary. They will walk by you and start to crack up themselves. Even though nothing is funny everyone will feel better.
5. Swith to the lighter TV programs or movies.
6. Do at least one silly, non-conforming thing a day. If you have a funny thing that happened to you during the day don't be embarassed about it. Make hay from it and tell everyone about it.

Christmas and Holiday Stress and Worries

Thanksgiving is my favorite Holiday of the year. The reason for this is no one has to get too stressed on Thanksgiving. Of course, Christmas is a different story, lot of stress, anxiety and worries at this Holiday.

About.com had an interesting article about how much sleep people lose during the holidays. According to the article, holiday stress can take a significant toll on sleep. A new survey published by The Gallup Organization, 76% of American adults reported losing sleep between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Just under half of respondents (49%) reported losing 3 or more hours of sleep per week. The survey identified remembering the loss of loved ones (40%), financial concerns (38%), scheduling too many activities (37%), and family issues (33%) as the leading reasons for sleep loss.

What are some things that we worry about during the holidays.

1. Money: I tend to worry about how much it is going to cost me. Some people spend to much money and then they regret it when they get the bill.
2. Gifts: My wife and mother will worry about all the gifts they have to buy, and they also set very high expectations on what they think they need to do.
3. Decorations: Some people over do it on the decorations and exhaust themselves by doing to much of it.
4. Overbooking: Parties, shopping, work, kids activities, school commiments, most are there year round however the holidays add extra things for us to consume our time
5. Cooking: Grocery shopping, cooking, baking, and preparing for parties and meals.
6. House guest: Family members and out of town friends staying with you.
7. Travel: Preparing for trips and traveling to visit family.

Ways to cope with holiday stress:

So you have all this holiday stress now what are you going to do about it, how can you manage and still enjoy your holiday.

1. Budgeting: On the money side setting a budget is a good idea. Do you really need to spend $400 on everyone in your family? Can you afford to do this? Sit down just before Thanksgiving and create a budget. Of course you are going to spend more on your own kids and less on your sisters kids.
2. Cut back: We eliminated exchanging gifts between my wife's brothers and there wives. It became a competition every year and I ended up feeling bad because they gave me something that cost $200 and I only spend $65.
3. Saving: Set up a special savings account this January to help pay for Christmas. I did it last January and it was great. The bills have already started to come in for the holidays and I simply transfered the balance of our special savings account. The great part is I don't have to do anything to restart the savings program this year it just continues to save every month and next December the money will be there again for us.
4. Ebay: Start selling stuff on eBay in early November, this is a great way to clean out your house and get some Holiday money. We always sell the kids Columbia coats and get $25 bucks for them, the Christmas dresses from last year, etc. It may not seem like much but $300 extra at Christmas time looks better in my pocket than it does hanging in my closet on some aging item that will even
5. Making a list: The other night my wife was all stressed and upset about shopping for the holidays. I asked her to give me her list of what was left to shop for an she didn't have one. I was planning on helping out but I didn't know what she needed help on. Making a list allows you to prioritize and check things off everyday and reduces the stress. Also with a list you can divide up the work and let other people do some of the shopping.
6. Money, Gift cards and savings bonds: Some people take the easy way out on shopping each year, good for them, and they don't seem stress about it either. They give people gift cards to Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, etc. You may think this is boring, however, it is actually like having Christmas after Christmas. Our kids like shopping with us between Christmas and New Years using their gift cards. They got so much stuff at Christmas getting something else that they pick out themselves is really great. My uncle and our kid's Great Grandma always gave U.S. bonds. These might seem boring to the kids at the time, however, years later when you pull out the envelop full of savings bonds they get really excited about all the bonds that Great Grandma gave them. Both gift cards and savings bonds take some work so if you run out of time, an evenlope with a check or money in it never upsets anyone. Don't say you ran out of time because you fell bad about giving money just say Merry Christmas. Kids always like cash, and the parents like the cash because they are paying all their bills own bills.
7. Break it down: You don't have to do all the work yourself, do some delegation, assign some of the work to your spouse. Give them one assignment every few days to pickup on the way home from work, or when you are out on Saturday shopping breakup the list and give your husband 3 things to find in Target or even better in Best Buy. What guy doesn't like to shop in Best Buy?
8. Outsource the cooking: If you can afford, do some outsourcing of the cooking, pickup a prebaked ham at Sam's club, buy cookies at Farmer Jack for the school back sale, you don't have to stay up until 1 AM baking cookies and pies to 2nd graders. They don't know who brought homemade vs. store bought.
9. All in the family: When you have visitors in from out of town you need to relax. Pretend like you have 8 kids like the neighbor down the street, something is always going wrong or messed up at their house but they never seem too worked up about it. Don't worry if the house isn't perfectly clean, after a few days of your guest being there it won't be perfectly clean anyway. Save some of the work for when your guest are there and go about it in a pleasant manner. Most of the time your guest will offer to help. If they don't help, don't get upset you were going to do the work before they got there anyway so relax and smile about the work that you are doing. Remember you are not alone on the holiday and some people are and that isn't a lot of fun either.