A lot goes into hosting Thanksgiving. There's grocery shopping, meal prepping, hours of cooking, turkey basting, cleaning the house and setting the table. And that's just one day of the holiday season, which may also involve travel, gifting and partying. The preparation, logistics and tasks don't get accomplished through magic. Rather, it's women who bear most of the burden, and a lot of the time on moms -- who do everything while still managing childcare. So the fact that a 2023 poll from Yahoo News/YouGov found that, compared to other times of the year, 43% of women and 32% of men said their level of stress and anxiety increases during the holidays shouldn't be all that surprising.
"I know it's not in every relationship, but what research shows is women are consistently doing more work when it comes to family and the household. And that just escalates during the holidays," Jenny Evans, a resiliency coach and consultant, tells Yahoo Life.
Pew research published last year found that in marriages where men and women work equal hours outside the home, women spend more time on childcare and household chores while men spend more time on leisure activities; and even in marriages where wives are the breadwinners, women spend almost 3.5 hours more per week on caregiving and housework.
"Just having to do the tasks creates additional stress and anxiety, but also I think there is this cultural expectation around perfection and doing it all during this time of year that's probably not very realistic, but drives a lot of the stress," Vaile Wright, the American Psychological Association's senior director of health care innovation and contributor to APA's Stress in America report tells Yahoo Life.
Societal expectations around perfectionism and having an Instagram-worthy holiday setup can compound the stress women already feel -- especially when moms tend to be the stewards of family traditions.
"We look back on our childhoods and we see holidays through one of two lenses -- either the holidays were not good for us and so we want to make them better for our families, or we see them through kind of rose-colored glasses of, 'Oh, that was perfect, and Mom always had it like this,'" Josh Briley, a psychologist and fellow of the American Institute of Stress tells Yahoo Life. "But we forget everything that mom went through."
Women also often bear more of the "mental load" in heterosexual relationships by doing many of the invisible tasks required to keep a household running, like planning ahead for events, anticipating needs and delegating chores. The holidays can compound this and add to the emotional toll women already experience.
"Women tend to have more responsibility for hosting social gatherings, as well as emotional nurturance in family relationships -- and those tend to spike around the holidays, since the whole point is oftentimes about gatherings and visiting with extended family," Chloe Carmichael, a clinical psychologist and author of Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety, tells Yahoo Life. "There's a lot of logistics as well as the emotional labor that occurs during the holidays, so it makes sense that women would be a little bit more stressed."
So how can you get a better handle on all that holiday stress? Here's what stress experts suggest:
But most importantly, experts say, you should take time to appreciate what matters this holiday season. "I think when we really ask ourselves what are our values and priorities during this time of year, it's not going to be commercialism or having an Instagram-worthy table," Wright says. "I think it's about relationships, families and friends, and reconnecting to maybe our spiritual or faith side and reflecting on gratitude and blessings. So if those are true to your values, ensuring that you're engaging in activities that really align with those is going to be an important first step."