3 Easy Tips to Decompress and Fill The Season with Comfort and Joy  

The holidays: mistletoe, snow, jackets, gingerbread houses, scarves, gloves, jingle bells, shopping, malls, crowds, family, friends, office parties…and stress, lots of stress.  Does this sound familiar? The holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year and ironically, trying to find the perfect gift, the perfect decorations and the perfect food can mean anything but a picture-perfect holiday experience. But it doesn’t have to be that way.  With a few practical daily adjustments, your stressful holiday schedule can become a less-stress-and-more-cheer kind of experience.

Here then are my top 3 holiday stress-busters:

Exercise: Find a Committed Friend, and Be a Committed Friend
Don’t lose your fitness momentum. You have worked too hard over the year to maintain your fitness routine, and the holidays can definitely have an impact on its effectiveness if you don’t commit to keeping up that healthy habit. Exercise is a fantastic way to manage your daily stress productively. Carving 35-60 minutes out of your day to work out will help your immune system stay strong, give your mind time to focus on moving your body, and boost your energy so you feel calm, refreshed, and in control of your holiday stress, instead of having stress control you.

One way to stay motivated in maintaining your own fitness habit is to exercise with another     committed friend throughout the holidays. Exercising with another dedicated friend creates a mutual sense of responsibility and accountability that goes a long way in supporting one another in your fitness goals. If your friend is local, go to the gym together at the same time every day, and add an extra ten minutes to your routine of something new that you both want to try (yoga, swimming, Pilates, etc. . .).  If your friend is not local, you can still make it a point to exercise at the same time and then Facetime or text one another to share what you did in your workout.

Shared fitness adds an element of fun to working out and will not only boost your psyche and your metabolism, but will pump up your fitness attitude and your stress management capability.  This is a healthy habit for both the holiday season and throughout the entire new year.

Organize Your Shopping
Rushing around aimlessly trying to find gifts for family, friends or co-workers will simply add to your already stressful season and make a busy schedule busier.  Organizing your shopping goals, on the other hand, will help focus your efforts and keep them on track.

• Create a Budget. Overspending will add to your holiday stress.  In other words, shopping over what you can afford not only creates hardship on your wallet, it is detrimental to your well-being as you spend months trying to re-supplement both the dollar amount you owe to your bank, and  the interest tagged to it, particularly with credit cards.  Gift-giving is simply not as fun when you know that gift will cost you – big-time – later on.

• Create a List.  List the individuals whom you are gifting (ie. Mom, Dad, brother, sister, assistant, dinner host, co-worker, friends, nieces, nephews, etc. …), and write down your thoughts and ideas for gifting each one.  It will help you go into the shopping season feeling organized.

• Be Targeted in your Search for the Gifts on your List.  The moment we set foot into department stores, it is so easy to get distracted from the thoughtful gifts on our list. Sale signs and promotions will try to grab your attention, but if you dedicate yourself to sticking with what is on your list, you will not only save yourself from overspending, you will feel a great sense of satisfaction about your “shopability” to stay on track.

• Shop Locally. Local artisans, service providers and stores have a lot to offer our communities.  Shopping within your region not only supports their efforts to maintain business in your area, it will also decrease your stress intensity levels. Why? Because typically, local stores will not be over-crowded, and they offer a more personal shopping experience, as owners realize that each customer brings value to their ability to stay in business. Shopping locally also means that you can take advantage of your community’s rich culture. Services such as meal delivery subscriptions, unique pampering items and tasty local foods, make great personal and memorable gifts for the people on your list to last a lifetime.    

Pamper Yourself For Less Stress
The holidays are usually a chaotic time of year for our schedules, and consequently for our health and well-being.  We get so busy attending social events, office parties, and/or family gatherings that we end up neglecting our nutrition and our bodies, and by the time the new year rolls around, we are worn out and de-motivated.

So along with the exercise tips mentioned above, we also need to take time to relax our muscles and feed our bodies superfoods to keep immune systems healthy and working well. In addition, you can keep your muscles relaxed and tensions low by booking a massage for yourself at least once through the holiday season.  While you there for your massage, you can purchase one for a friend as their holiday gift too.

Also, on a nightly basis, pamper yourself with a hot bath and Epsom salts to draw impurities out of your skin and help your muscles to relax. There are myriad DIY products that you can make for your personal use, and give as a gift to someone else too.

For example, this recipe for Almond Orange Scrub is perfect for the holidays: 

Almond Orange Scrub
Ingredients
1 handful almonds
1 orange peel
1 cup coconut oil
2-3 drops wild orange essential oil

Directions
Mix all ingredients in a food processor. Apply to face, massaging in circular movements for 30-45 seconds and rinse. Store unused scrub in an airtight container. 

Packaging your DIY gifts in pretty jars, with a homemade tag and holiday ribbon, will make a beautiful and thoughtful gift, and encourage someone else to pamper their stress away as well.

The tips above will help keep you stay sane and healthy as you manage the holiday season, so you can better enjoy the spirit of festivity while creating great memories with your family and friends – free of stress!