Three days to go and it’s Christmas 2021. We are busy wrapping gifts and doing last minute grocery shopping for the family reunions and holiday celebrations that are to come. Despite the excitement for these end-of-year events, let’s face it, Christmas expectations can take a toll on our health and wellness.
A study conducted by the American Psychological Association shows that 31% of men and 44% of women have higher than normal stress levels during the festive season.
Yes, you heard me right. The festivities can put our mental, emotional and physical health to test. However, it does not mean that we can’t do anything about it. Here are four tips to help you enjoy and have a balanced health and stress-free Festive Season.
- Self-Care Is the Key
Christmas is the time for caring and giving. Not only for those around us, but even more importantly for ourselves. We need self-care and have our own time alone so we are emotionally and physically ready to give to the people around us. We also want to be in our best selves when we spend the Christmas holidays with family, friends and relatives during the festivities.
Do not overcommit yourself by preparing and attending gatherings. Consciously choose the events that you are attending and ask yourself, does an event give you or drain energy. It’s a simple but highly effective measure to decide what events you attend and which ones you politely decline.
Allow yourself to have some alone time to take care of your personal needs and refuel yourself. It can be through a scented bath or reading your favorite book over a cup of tea or coffee. Or it can be through physical exercise that restores your positive energy and makes your mood bright during the day.
Remember that self-care is the key to having a strong mental health at Christmas. Balance Health offers you self-care activities and sessions during the Christmas season. Among the best self-care treatments at our clinic are the acupuncture, moxibustion and cupping sessions, that work both on the body, the mind and the spirit.
- Eat Healthy, Eat Well
Christmas is among those few times when we enjoy consuming sumptuous dishes and desserts. Yes, this is the season of festivities. However, we need to remember that we can indulge in the festivities and eat healthy at the same time.
It won’t hurt to choose the healthier meals on the table, eating more vegetables than meat, and observing our alcoholic and sweet intake. Hosting a dinner can be your opportunity to look for healthy substitutes or alternatives to the traditional Christmas dishes, cutting down on processed foods and instead add more fresh fruits, vegetables and cooked dishes to your plate.
- Traditional Chinese Methods to Have a Merry Christmas
From a TCM perspective, the Christmas season brings along Winter and hence colder weather. It will help to consume winter superfoods to warm your body up and enhance the immune system, such as white radish, cinnamon, black sesame and goji berries.
TCM herbal formulas prescribed by a registered TCM practitioner can help address specific concerns during the Festive Season and alleviate digestive issues brought upon due to lots of food and drinks, or anxiety and pressures brought upon by the celebrations. Our Balance Health TCM experts offer many secrets to boost your health during Winter in this blog.
- Take Advantage of the Holidays to Reflect
The Festive Season is an ideal time to reflect. Transcendental meditation is one of the keys to removing your Christmas stresses and having a balanced health and wellness holidays. There are a lot of clinical studies proving that meditation classes have holistic health benefits to us. Among these are deep rest, better orderliness and improved blood flow to the brain. It will help you feel more comfortable with yourself and embrace life with a more positive energy and outlook.
In a recent article published at the South China Morning Post, Balance Health GM and expert in holistic healing, Judy Xu, highlights the different methods that can be combined with meditation. Acupuncture, craniosacral therapy, reiki energy healing and deep tissue massage are excellent activities to address stress. Going one step further she also recommends life coaching sessions, “to get to the root of limiting thoughts and behavior patterns, shifting stress to motivation and inspiration, while learning new tools to optimize our mind and emotions.”
The best tip of all?
But among all, the best tip for an enjoyable Christmas season is to
“Open your heart and share all the kindness and unconditional love that you can give.”
This festive season is an opportunity to replace all the hatred, fears and negative emotions. LOVE is so powerful and can heal the world one person at a time. Change the mindset from “me” to “we”, from achievement to be of service, and soon all the stress, pressures and tensions that we feel will be automatically replaced with a burst of positive energy that allows us to connect, to love and to be of service to the people around us.
Celebrate Christmas with a worry-free mind and heart and enjoy the upcoming Festive Season. If you are going to have a good time, we have already lined up our special Balance Health comprehensive detox and fasting event, run by our registered kinesiologist and expert therapist Catherine Hermant. But more on that in January.
From the Balance Health family, we wish you all a Merry Merry Christmas!!!
