Traveling to be with family over the Thanksgiving holiday? Planning a Christmas visit back home? Dreading the increased levels of stress and anxiety that holiday air travel can bring?

One way to minimize the stress is to understand what you can and can’t control. There’s nothing you can do to change the way today’s overbooked, under-staffed airlines operate. Instead, focus on controlling your own reactions and on the steps you can take to minimize the opportunities for stress.

Start by booking tickets to help reduce possible problems. Flying earlier in the day can mean less crowded airports and extra time to handle canceled or delayed flights. Taking routes with the fewest connections also minimizes the chance for stress-inducing delays.

If your flight is canceled, experts advise using your cell phone to call the airline about booking another flight, if that’s what’s needed. That long line at the ticket counter eventually may fix the problem, but also can leave you impatient, angry and stressed.

If you’re flying with children, plan ahead so that crying, complaining, unhappy kids aren’t another stress source. Games, reading materials and a portable DVD player may mean extra weight to carry, but are invaluable in keeping the kids occupied during flights or airport delays. And don’t forget those snacks. Regardless of your child’s age, hunger doesn’t make for a happy traveling companion.

It also helps, in today’s world of heightened security, to know the rules. Pack smart, with gifts left unwrapped and with no forbidden items in your carry-on luggage. Don’t pack items like reading glasses, medications and overnight basics in checked luggage in case your bags are lost or delayed. Call your airline if you’re unsure about baggage or carry-on rules.

A major stress reducer for airline travel is accepting the inevitable. Most flights go just fine, but when there are problems, remind yourself that the airline counter clerk isn’t the one who overbooked the plane, the gate agent isn’t controlling the weather and the TSA security person isn’t making the rules.

Handling travel problems with minimum stress is simply another form of anger management. When difficulties arise, take a deep breath, count to 10, and think rationally about what to do next. Getting angry fixes nothing and often makes the situation worse. Instead, stay calm and try to make the best of the situation.

Your goal is to get to your holiday destination, not to get stressed.

From “The Counseling Corner,” a public service by the American Counseling Association, the nation’s largest organization of counseling professionals, www.counseling.org.