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Holiday stress management is key to enjoying your holiday to the max. One of the most stressful parts of holiday times is the worry of weight gain. Food is such a big part of every holiday and really every celebration. You want to enjoy the season, but you don’t want to walk away 5 lbs. heavier.
One way to avoid holiday weight gain is to plan how you’ll deal with your eating in advance. Don’t wait until you’re faced with the choices to set up a system that helps you make good choices. You want to enjoy the things you like that make the holidays special for you and stay as healthy as possible with no setbacks. With planning, you can do it.
Here are six techniques to incorporate this holiday season to stay healthy and avoid weight gain:
Set Healthy Boundaries
Obviously, you will eat some things that you normally don’t during the holidays. However, the fact that you will eat pie or cake does not make you a bad person. You can say no or yes to this. Choose to do what’s best for you by setting healthy boundaries for yourself and others. For example, you can have one piece of pumpkin pie on Christmas, not two and not one every single day.
Don’t Sacrifice Your Normal Routines to Manage Stress
As humans, you’re wired to like a routine. The routine makes you feel calm and also sets up your digestion to work better. Find a way to keep to most of your healthy routines during the holidays, like your sleep-wake schedule and also your caloric intake.
If you are a Lavender fan use your lavender soaps and lotions to counter the normal stress of all the extra activity happening during the holiday season. Whatever your scent preference making sure to continue with your normal skin care routines will help you sail through the season looking and feeling great!
Lower Your Expectation and Requirement
Any holiday can cause a lot of stress mainly due to the existence of expectations and setting perfection requirements. If you build the holiday up in your mind to be so spectacular that reality cannot live up to it, you’ll end up more stressed out. Ease up and simplify and you’ll be happier and less stressed.
Keep Holiday Stress in bounds with Daily Walking
While you’re busy due to the holidays, it does involve so much cooking and eating it’s imperative that you continue the practice of daily walking. Even if you have company over, you can encourage all of you to go outside for a walk around your neighborhood or play a game of tag in the yard.
Simplify
Who says a holiday has to include so much food that no one can or should eat it all. Why not have a very simple holiday with a normal meal with one or two things that make it feel special to you. Every holiday dinner or event doesn’t need to be fancy and huge every time. You can even go out for the main meal and then have hot chocolate and fondue to celebrate at home. Again, keeping things simple and low key is huge in terms of holiday stress management.
Manage Holiday Stress by Being Thankful
The more you focus on gratitude and giving instead of judging and receiving, the happier you’ll be, which means you’ll feel a lot less stress throughout the holiday.
The old adage: “It is better to give than to receive.” more than applies here. It is not only better, but you will feel better by focusing on others and giving rather than yourself and what you may be missing.
Enjoy who you are with and what you have and try to let go of preconceptions and expectations.
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