Daris Lancaster Stojakovich: Hi! I am Daris Lancaster Stojakovich, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Life Coach. Today I am talking today about how to handle holiday stress. Right now, I am going to be talking about some tips and techniques for really reducing and stopping stress in its tracks during the holidays and any time of year.

One simple, easy and very portable way to stop stress in its tracks is to practice up deep breathing. It's portable because you can do it anywhere. You can do it while you are standing in line, feeling a little stress of the holiday shopping crowds, for example. Its really simple, all you need to do is to just call your awareness to your breathing and you can start by taking three nice deep cleansing breaths. Now when you take these breaths, you want to be aware that you are breathing into your chest and into your abdomen. Breathing in slowly, you can count 1, 1000, 2, 1000 and on the exhalation you can count to 4 in the same manner 1, 1000, 2, 1000, 3, 1000, 4, 1000.

Deep breathing is a wonderful stress reliever because it can change the focus, it can change your mindset instantly. When you are calling your attention to your breathing, rather than whats going on around you, like the stress of that line that you are standing in, just calling your awareness to your breathing, the mindfulness of how it feels, the rise and fall of your chest and your abdomen as you are breathing, that can bring instant stress relief. Also, shallow breathing is a contributor to a feeling, the physical sensation of breaths. So being aware of your breath and just taking that moment to take a few breaths slow and deep and relaxing can really bring a feeling of deep relaxation.

So another thing that you can do during the holiday seasons to quickly take a break from stress and to really learn how to cope with its effects even more efficiently is to use hypnosis or self-hypnosis. Now all hypnosis is considered self-hypnosis, whether you are having a Hypnotherapist act as the guide to lead you through the visualization and deep relaxation, but its a process that you allow. To prepare to do self-hypnosis, you need to understand some principles of gradual relaxation, just sitting, being aware of your breathing and just imagine with visualization a scene that you want to build. You can imagine seeing yourself in a beautiful safe place in nature, you can imagine just simply sitting quietly by your favorite holiday decorations and just relaxing.

Have prepared also what you want to focus on, you can choose a mantra, something like this holiday is a time of deep relaxation for me, whatever you choose, making sure that its positive, uplifting and that its not using a negative, because the unconscious mind doesnt really understand a negative. A negative would be something like, I will not be stressed this holiday. Your unconscious mind here is stressed this holiday. So make sure that its something very positive. You can choose to go into that state of relaxation and to imagine and visualize yourself in a surrounding thats safe and comfortable.

Its not come and go, which they will, again, dont engage in them and just simply when you feel very, very deeply relaxed, kind of, like in a state of a daydream, state of deep focus, like you get involved in a movie or a book, when you feel that state of mind come over you, then you can simply say to yourself, whats great in the visualization, you can say to yourself those lines, this holiday season is a wonderful relaxing time or whatever it is you choose to focus on.

The wonderful thing about using self-hypnosis is that you are getting that critical factor, the part of your mind that says, yes, but. Yes, but, in fact, it is stressful and you are quieting that part of your mind, so that the literal thinking non-critical part of your subconscious mind can just accept it.

Now if you think about how emotions and attitudes affect your holiday season in any time of year, you can become aware of an example of someone driving in holiday traffic. If you have someone cut you off and instantly the feelings of negativity and upset and distress and stress can come over you. Then imagine your phone ringing and its someone that you love dearly on the line there, and suddenly where is that negativity and stress, your focus is changed, even if it's just for that moment and those feelings of stress have completely left your body. Thats how stress can really affect us, consciously or unconsciously. So while you are enjoying that conversation, you are feeling the feelings of happiness and of joy. Its only after the conversation ends and you reengage with the traffic and then you let your mind drift back again with those thoughts of that rude driver that cut you off, you begin to feel those negative feelings again. So with self-hypnosis you can actually learn how to control your thoughts and how your thoughts can really control you in how you feel.

Well, I hope you found that these simple tips and techniques have helped you and that you really enjoy and have a wonderful happy holiday. Thank you!