Trying to keep up healthy habits like eating well, not smoking and limiting alcoholic drinks over the holidays? 

Good luck, says Jean DuRussel-Weston, health promotion coordinator at the University of Michigan Health System.

The holiday season is particularly difficult to maintain any healthy behavior because people are bombarded with so many temptations, demands on their time and other stressors for a prolonged amount of time, DuRussel-Weston said.

“All the stress starts with first seeing your relatives during the Thanksgiving holiday and stretches all the way into January, maybe even that second week in January,” she said.

She recently answered some questions about the difficulty of keeping up those health behavior changes.

Q. Ok, we hear all about how holiday stress can lead to some pretty bad health habits. Is it really that bad?

A. Absolutely. We see more people having trouble with the health behaviors they’re trying to change. If you’re trying to lose weight, this can be a really difficult time. If you’re dealing with alcohol management and now you’ve got all these holiday parties - that can be tough.

…Then you get into the whole culture and heritage of your family. And food is so important to people. It’s funny when you think about holidays and the things when you were kids, what sticks out in your mind is the foods that you ate - many of them only come out once a year.

Q: What are some of the triggers that can help uproot healthy behaviors?

A: Smoking for instance, maybe you’re trying to quit and then you go to the office holiday party for the first time without smoking, or you see old friends for the first time as a non-smoker, it’s hard to keep that up … Plus, you get tired, you just don’t get the same amount of sleep around the holidays … When you are tired, you just don’t have the same stamina to keep up the routine.

Q: What are the best tips you offer to clients about keeping their routine?

A: Set yourself up for success. If you were going to a party and you know that if you have a couple of drinks, that’ll make it so much easier to have a cigarette, you make sure you plan to hang out with the people who don’t smoke, rather than in the corner with the people who are.

If you lost weight or are in the process of losing weight, you should not go to a party hungry because you’re going to run into all those high fat foods.

… You really have to get into a different way of thinking and say, “OK, I can have a little bit of that because it’s Christmas and tradition.” But try not to think about it like, “I can have this only once a year. I’m going to have the whole thing.”

… If people can continue any kind of physical activity over the holidays, the physical activity will make you feel better, increase those endorphins and make you feel like, “Yes I can avoid those cookies.”

Q: What advice do you offer to those who completely fall off the health wagon this season?

A: I think you have to be realistic. You have to be gentle with yourself and realize, “If I’ve been eating cookies every day since Thanksgiving,” if I jump in and say “I’m not eating cookies any more ever again,” that’s not realistic. As soon as you feel deprived, you begin feeling sorry for yourself. People can gear up for it and look at it as a challenge. But they need to take it slow, in steps.

… A realistic goal is to be able to maintain (your weight). The average person gains about 5 pounds or more over the holidays. Set your goal saying, “I’m not going to gain weight over the holidays.”

Tina Reed covers health and the environment for AnnArbor.com. You can reach her at tinareed@annarbor.com, call her at 734-623-2535 or find her on Twitter @TreedinAA.