Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
This is your holiday, and you don't have to be jolly if you don't want to. But the season of light will come and go whether you want it to or not. You say you've contemplated all the common sources of holiday annoyance, reasoned everything out to the best of your ability, and the festivities still get you down? Don't try to cure the disease -- treat the symptoms.
Start by writing your troubles down: Simply getting things off your chest can help you feel better. Next, get some books and tapes on combating negativity, and do the exercises they recommend. Steer clear of the ones that urge you to affirm in buoyant tones that you are prosperous, healthy, and surrounded by loved ones. Look instead for titles that acknowledge life's negatives but focus on the positives.
The best way by far to beat the holiday blues -- and all the other stresses of the holiday season -- is to cultivate your sense of humor. Spend some time every day enjoying whatever tickles your funny bone -- The Far Side cartoons, P. G. Wodehouse stories, reruns of Seinfeld, or a joke book that's been sitting on your bookcase for years.
You can also find humor in the holidays themselves. You may not find every event amusing -- say, your cat leaping onto the Christmas tree, sending it crashing down on the robot you spent all night putting together. But if you do enough chuckling and guffawing, you'll find that the world does indeed start to look different, and maybe not so bad after all.
Advertisement 
Your Comments
See all
...