Life
9 Apps To Help You Beat Holiday Stress
The holidays are a wonderful time of year — but they're also really stressful. Whether it's dealing with family members, traveling far distances, dealing with grief and loss, or even just hosting a big dinner, there are a lot of potential stressors that pile up at the end of the year. From emotional to physical to culinary, many of us have a lot we have to take care of at this time of year.
And holiday stress, like so many other things, is gendered. Women and assigned female at birth (AFAB) people often bear the brunt of holiday planning, cooking, and entertaining — and their stress levels reflect that.
A survey from health site Remedy Review found that more women than men experience stress around the holidays. They surveyed 1,000 people using Amazon's Mechanical Turk to find out what's raising people's blood pressure at this time of year. Among other things, they found that 71.5 percent of women experience holiday stress, compared with 60.3 percent of men. That's a pretty substantial difference!
While no one can wave a magic wand and take away your stress, we do have one major tool that our foremothers did not: A smartphone. And with that smartphone, apps. Here are nine apps that will hopefully ease your holiday stress this year. (But, sorry, there still isn't one for disinviting your racist uncle.)
1Send Out Invites: Punchbowl
Punchbowl is an app that lets you send out beautiful invites to everyone on your holiday list. They can be sent via text and completely personalized, with handmade art, your photos, or any of their stock designs. When guests RSVP, you'll be notified right on the app, eliminating the need to track down everyone's replies in email, text, and messaging apps.
4Book A Hotel
Whether you're going somewhere else for the holidays or you have family coming to visit and the guest room just isn't quite big enough (or it's non-existent), you might need a hotel booking this holiday season. Check out TravelPirates for great hotel deals, which makes it a double stress-buster: Both easy to find a place to stay and you'll save some money. They also have deals on flights, rental cars, and vacation packages.
5Book A Rental Car
Americans travel more around the holidays than other time of year, which means rental cars are in high demand. Get a great one at a great price at Avis.com
8Play A Game Together: Heads Up
Heads Up is a fun little app that's great for group games. The app displays a word or name and you hold it up to your head without looking at it. Then, the rest of the group has to act it out or explain it to you so that you can guess. It's a fun, loud, charades-like game that the whole family can get into.
9Enjoy A Little "Me Time:" Lioness
Once everyone has left or once you've headed home, you're going to need to destress. Treat yourself to a Lioness vibrator, which not only lets you track the intensity of your orgasms, but also comes with an app that lets you load specific vibration patterns onto the vibe. Orgasms are a proven stress reliever, so this couldn't be a better move once all the hecticness of the holiday is over.
There you have it — nine apps to help you beat stress this holiday season.
Editor's Note: This article was updated from its original version on November 26, 2018.
