Are you already feeling the stress and added pressure of the holiday season? Recent stats share that 8/10 people feel increase in stress over the holidays, and 28% lose sleep around the holidays. With current world events on top of economical issues the stress is feeling heavier on many. With elevated stress it is important to bump up the coping and tools to manage, so you can navigate the ups and downs of the holiday time with more ease.  Here I share five tips to consider.

If you are experiencing burnout, you are not alone! According to this 2023 article, 78% of Canadians feel burnout at some point in their careers and 35% say they are currently burnout. Burnout can leave someone feeling mentally and physically exhausted, short-tempered, depressed, cynical, and overwhelmed. So how does art therapy help? Creative Arts Therapy has been shown to significantly reduce the stress of clients (Martin et al., 2018). It is key to keep stress levels in a manageable range because when stress levels are too high for a period of time it can lead to exhaustion and burnout. There are various ways to keep stress levels low, one of those is mindfulness, research (Luken & Sammons, 2016) has found mindfulness-based strategies to significantly decrease levels of job burnout. Mindfulness is natural component in art therapy as engaging in the art materials encourages being present, engage in our senses, and helps us to feel more grounded. Please find below four ways art therapy helps with burnout prevention and treatment:

This is the fifth in a series of monthly posts about some of my favourite children’s books (here are the links to the first post, second post, third post, fourth post). This post is relevant for helping your child reduce perfectionism in your child through not feeling alone, being okay to make mistakes, and feeling freer without the strict pressures of being “perfect”. Please find below three of my favourites: