ROCHELLE – Holidays like Thanksgiving can increase stress, anxiety, and depression due to family conflict, financial pressures, loneliness, grief, and the expectation to be joyful. Other challenges include food-related issues for those with eating disorders and disruptions to daily routines. Mental health experts recommend managing expectations, setting personal boundaries, planning ahead, practicing mindfulness, and building a support system to reduce stress.
Andy Jackson, Marketing Manager with Sinnissippi Centers said, “The holidays, including Thanksgiving, definitely can kind of increase the stress in our lives.”
“But there’s some things that we can do to kind of mitigate that. One of them is saying no to things like saying no to spending too much. That’s money’s always the biggest stressor saying no to too many commitments.”
“We can only do so much. And you can do some other things, too, that improve your mental wellness and deal with stress, taking breaks, seeking support, those kinds of things. There is a lot that we can do. We can’t always remove the stress, but there are things that we can do to kind of better deal with that and improve our mental well-being.”
