The holidays can be a stressful time for couples and although Easter may not be as stressful as the Christmas holidays, the pressures of deciding whose family to see, travelling and staying away from home, as well as increased work pressure before the break, can all have an impact on a relationship. David Brudö, CEO and Co-Founder at personal development and mental wellbeing app Remente (www.remente.com), shares his best tips for couples to avoid holiday stress:
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Consider the possibilities
Before you embark on your Easter break, think about what could cause you stress. Perhaps you get stressed when waiting in traffic jams, or you get overwhelmed by spending too much time with your in-laws, or perhaps you and your partner disagree on what constitutes a relaxing time – you prefer to be active while they would rather lounge. Once you anticipate where the stress could come from, you can think about how to best deal with it before it becomes an issue.
Make a plan
Once you’ve identified where the stress is more likely to come from, consider how you’d like to handle it. For example, if you and your partner have different hobbies and want to do a variety of things, work out a compromise ahead of time, to ensure that both of you get to do what you enjoy. If you find spending too much time with in-laws or relatives, make sure that you can find space for me-time – whether it’s going for a walk or sitting in a separate room and doing a mindfulness exercise.
Be a team
Holidays are a good opportunity to spend some time with family, but if this is the first time that you are meeting your loved one’s nearest and dearest, it can be stressful. Before you head over for the weekend, make sure to brief each other. If your dad doesn’t want to discuss politics, make sure that your loved one knows to maybe avoid this particular topic. If your cousins dislike each other, make sure that your partner knows and avoids any awkward topics of conversation. The more pointers you give each other, the more relaxing and enjoyable the weekend will be.
Accept that stress happens
If you and your partner are hosting friends and family this Easter, you need to be prepared that the cooking, entertaining, preparing and socialising can become overwhelming, and that you and your loved one might snap at each other once in a while. If you accept this is a possibility, when stressful situations do arise, you might find that this knowledge will make you respond in a calmer way, or brush over any disagreements quicker.
Time for two
Unless you are going on a mini-break with just the two of you, you might find that between spending time with family and friends, you don’t have enough time to spend together, which could cause stress. As you plan your Easter activities, make sure you carve out time in the calendar to spend time together – it could be a relaxing brunch before you go to meet friends, or a relaxing movie after you spend the day with family.
Take a break
Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we lose our tempers. Even if you snap at your partner, or they snap at you, you can still stop the stressful outburst from becoming an argument. If you feel that things are escalating, simply take a step back and hit ‘pause’. This way, you can come back to the conversation when you are both calm and rational, instead of acting on impulse and upsetting each other in the first place.
Remente (www.remente.com) is a free-to-use personal development platform for individuals and businesses. The app combines psychology with brain and mental training to help users reach their full potential, complete personal goals, and lead a healthier lifestyle. Available to download on iOS and Android.