According to an American Psychological Association study, nearly half of all women in the United States experience heightened stress during the holidays. Only half?? Perhaps the other half were simply too exhausted to fill out the form correctly.

Let’s face it: as joyful as the holidays can be, they can also be the source of anxiety, frustration, holiday depression (also known as the familiar “holiday blues”), and the ever-popular five-pound weight gain.

Holiday Stress and…Belly Fat???
And we’re not talking your ordinary, garden-variety weight gain here! According to the experts, stress causes your body to send damaging hormones, including cortisol, coursing through your system. Excess cortisol is believed to cause your body to store belly fat, the adipose tissue most likely to damage your heart and other organs. Oh good, just what we needed….

The good news: you can change this dynamic by taking control of your life – and your days. The following tips should help you beat holiday stress, and just maybe find an easier way to navigate the coming year.

1.    Pamper yourself.  If there were ever a time to get a massage, this is it. Book one for December (to diffuse the “I have four weeks of stuff to get done by this Saturday” crazies) and one in January (for blissful recovery). Dark chocolate and red wine are also effective – and healthy! – approaches to pampering, especially when shared with others. (Avoid imbibing in the closet by yourself – this could signal other problems….)

2.    Move. Focus on fitness, rather than worrying about fatness – rev up your metabolism w/ aerobic and strengthening exercises. Ready to try something new? Head to the local public library for some exercise DVDs. Many routines can be adapted to sitting movement. Mall crawling only counts if you’re moving really fast – no stopping for pedestrians who got in the way of your wheelchair!

3.    Hang out with happy friends. Go for quality rather than quantity in your social life: during the holidays, hang out only with friends who make you laugh, feed your soul, or in other ways delight you. You’ll have plenty of time for your other friends in February.

4.    Volunteer. Give your community the gift of you, even if all you can volunteer is a smile or a compliment. Consider volunteering at a local charity. In addition to benefitting from what experts identify as “helpers’ high,” you may also meet new friends and make lasting connections that will enrich your life throughout the entire year.

5.    Play with your food. Lighten up family favorites, do a recipe “makeover.” Figure out what you want to eat and enjoy it – then ignore the rest of the buffet table. Use smaller plates for smaller portions. Stick to your healthy foods, even if you add the occasional holiday splurge – this will make it easier to resume your healthy lifestyle in January. Then if, after following all these great strategies, you still gain that three to five pounds everybody else but supermodels packs on over the holidays, know you made your best effort and the pounds will go away soon enough.

6.    Rethink gift-giving.  Make gift-giving as easy as possible. That may mean giving fewer gifts, doing all your shopping online, paying the local mall group a few dollars to wrap your packages for you, or perhaps making modest online donations to the favorite causes of friends and family. Although rumor has it there are hardy souls who actually love to search for, find, and exquisitely wrap just the right gift for their friends and family, most of the rest of us spend our time agonizing about what to get for whom. Consider instead that the real gift you give is of your time – this is the gift that creates memories, the gift that lasts for a lifetime.

7.    Laugh. According to researchers at California’s Loma Linda University, just anticipating having a good laugh “significantly decreases levels of the stress hormones dopac, cortisol, and epinephrine. Cortisol? Hot damn, there goes the belly fat! But seriously, laughter is life’s gentlest means of easing our fears and anxieties and frustrations – and over the holidays, our most precious commodity. Where to get started? Consider renting two of the season’s funniest movies, “A Christmas Story” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

8.    Sleep. Try for eight hours, make sure you get at least seven. For people with disabilities, who may already have compromised immune systems, a lack of sleep can have devastating – and long-term – consequences. But even if that weren’t the case, missing your shut-eye will result in exhaustion, depression, and general crankiness, which you might as well save for February when you’re already got a great reason for feeling depressed and cranky!

9.    Say no. Remember, “no” is a complete sentence. No, nada, nope, that doesn’t work for me. Consider this an absolute necessity for protecting your health and sanity during the holidays (although it works pretty well through the rest of the year, too!).

10.    Cut yourself some slack. How many ways can you say “guilt?” You didn’t get the cards sent, you only made one batch of fudge, you had the rum eggnog and the dozen peanut butter brownies, and the gifts you finally got mailed off to your brother’s kids will probably be there by New Year’s. Cause for guilt? Nope – cause for celebration. It just means you’re a completely normal, dues-paying member of the human race, and you wisely decided the holidays should be not about stress, but about joy. Congratulations!