Self-Care Tips for the Holiday Season
With the holidays comes a more hectic schedule, often leading to stress. Here are some tips to relieve holiday stress.
Pare down your schedule. Prioritize what has meaning to you and pick and choose how you want to spend your time this season. Think about past holidays and what you enjoyed. Put those choices into your schedule and take out those that don’t work for you in maintaining peace.
Work out regularly. Schedule your workouts so they aren’t lost at the end of a tiring day. Working out will replenish your body, give you energy and increase your coping skills.
Set up no expectations. Go to the gatherings with no expectations so that all the moments can be more than expected. Getting together with extended family can bring up past history (if only in your mind), difficult personalities, and the hope that something good will happen. Go neutral and just be in your moment.
Get adequate sleep throughout the season. This is mandatory for your body to rest and your mind to be open and tolerant. Enough sleep will set the stage for everything.
Eat healthy. Make good choices. Control your caloric intake by eating healthy throughout your day and being selective when you choose to eat at gatherings. Instead focus on filling yourself with some heart-filled conversations.
Manage your alcoholic intake. Alcohol is a depressant and will not improve your mood if you are stressed out. It will also not help you navigate away from melancholy moments that may be more prominent during the holidays. Limit yourself.
Don’t compare yourself to others. This is a losing proposition. Instead spend your time focusing on what you do like about yourself, your family and your life. Show up at your gatherings feeling good about something in you!
Tags: Self Care tips for the holidays, taking care of yourself during the holidays
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janie Pfeifer Watson
Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker
Licensed Independent Mental Health Practitioner- Janie Pfeifer Watson, LICSW, is the founder and director of Wholeness Healing Center, a mental health practice in Grand Island, Nebraska with remote sites in Broken Bow and Kearney. Her expertise encompasses a broad range of areas, including depression, anxiety, attachment and bonding, coaching, couples work, mindfulness, trauma, and grief. She views therapy as an opportunity to learn more about yourself as you step more into being your authentic self. From her perspective this is part of the spiritual journey; on this journey, she serves as a mirror for her clients as they get to know themselves—and, ultimately, to love themselves.
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