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Kate and Linda are excited to be here with you today and share some tips for you by sharing stress less tips for the holidays.
We are all rushing in order to get things done, but often the best plans go by the wayside. Our expectations begin to pressure us in ways we don’t even realize.
- Establish a good morning routine. Perhaps fill your car with the needed supplies the night before.
- Rejuvenate with yoga, take a walk, or just move more. You may not feel like it, but once we start, it is easier.
- Identify your biggest strengths and use them. If you are organized excellent! If you are less so, call on a friend for help.
- Focus on small things that can accumulate and add up. I began wrapping a presents as I got them. Soon I will sort and add ribbons.
- Remember more is not better when it comes to decorations, trees, and packages. Keep things simple this year.
- If you send cards, again attack the task in pieces. I just updated the address list. I sorted the cards I want to use. Next I will address the ones for the office. Then do my personal ones.
- Maybe traditional practices will need to be put on hold if there are other pressures this year. It is okay. Being flexible is better.
- When there are family illnesses, deaths, and sadness sometimes a quieter holiday is called for with a gentle spirit. Sometimes it is good to just sit and discuss the memories.
Change a few obligatory traditions if you are overly pressured. We set our expectations too high sometimes.
- Note what stresses you the most. Is it the financial pressure? Is it the shopping? the wrapping? the pressure to be with less than desirable people who you find toxic? Remember it is temporary.
Saying no to visiting or entertaining can wait until January or February. The season of giving and being with one another should not be draining.
Alan Cohen said, “There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.”
Linda ends this weeks show with “nothing we do is carved in stone, so be flexible, create new traditions, and let some of the old ones that are difficult dissolve. Take one step forward to stay well over the holidays, it may put you on the escalator of a better disposition in the weeks ahead.”
http://www.activebeat.co/diet-nutrition/7-surprising-foods-that-fight-stress/
Mayo Clinic suggests https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20047544