Holiday Priorities: Don't Leave Self-Care off Your List

Feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, or anxious before the holiday season?

You have a fever - holiday stress! The reason is that you have a busy holiday season!

While the holiday parties can be exciting, they're also emotionally and physically demanding. Between traveling, family gatherings, gift shopping, and holiday parties, it can feel more like a hectic time than the most wonderful time of the year.

Master the art of self-care and enjoy healthy emotional, physical, and mental health. This blog shares what steps you should take for self-care for yourself and your loved ones.

Life Doesn't Stop Because it's the Holidays

We're not only juggling with the holiday self but also care activities, schedule time, and increased stress levels in the present moment. It feels too easy to put our mental health on the back burner. You're not alone in thinking there aren't enough hours in the day for self-care. The sun sets at 5:30 p.m. and feels like icing on the cake, boosting your negative emotions!

Relaxation or Rejuvenation to Lower Stress Level

During a holiday, you must avoid a stressful time and enjoy what improves your physical and mental health and immune system. So, when you return to routine, you will be more energetic and productive. After all, you aim to succeed in life. Then how can holiday blues stop you?

Here the question is:

How do we develop healthy boundaries for good mental health?

Even if it's holidays and you have realistic expectations, you can still have rest and peace.

It's possible to balance work, sleep, family, fun, joy, and laughter. You need to exercise mindfulness, peace, gratitude, and happiness. A few things are pampering you to have wellness and self-love. Whatever they are, they all will unwind the self-care!

What is Self-Care

Self-care is purely Me-time! 🌼

Self-care is a self-love connection of you with yourself. It is consciously pampering your:

• Physical health
• Mental health
• Emotional health

Note that self-care isn't one-size-fits-all. Self-care for one individual could be taking a long bath at the end of a hectic day. For someone else? It could be self-reflection on mindfulness, gratitude, or creativity in life!

Holiday Priorities and Self Care

You may be thinking, "When do I have time to do self-care? I have so much going on!"

Well, when care practices that you can't even comprehend when you COULD take time for yourself, that's when you need it the most!

Consider these care practices that go beyond bubble baths, naps, and walks in nature to make this holiday season more about your needs so that you can finish out 2021 on a high note!

🌼 Spend What You Can

There's a lot of pressure during the holidays to spend spend spend. Between gifts, travel, holiday parties, grocery shopping, dining out... such a present moment hurt your bank account!

Take a financial inventory and set budgets for what you can afford to spend on gifts and extracurriculars this month before you whip out the credit card. You can even set spending limits with your family members and loved ones to keep your finances in check.

🌼 Add "No" To Your Vocabulary

Have you been invited to something you would much rather not attend? Whether it's grabbing drinks with a friend who's back in town for Christmas or your partner's work party, know it's okay to say no if you're not feeling up to it.

You might hurt feelings, but there's no benefit in over-extending yourself to appease difficult family members! If you're feeling anxious about turning down an invitation, you can try saying, "I appreciate you inviting me, but I was looking forward to some time to rest and recuperate. Thank you for thinking of me!"

🌼 Feel Your Feelings

While the holiday season can be a joyous time for many, others may find it a cause for mental illness because it brought them a hectic time with unrealistic expectations from difficult family members.

So, what to do in such situations?

Step 1

First, take time for deep breathing and feel your best self. Suppressing your negative emotions and putting on a brave face at a difficult time might sound like the best option, but ignoring those feelings won't make them disappear.

Step 2

Second, consider taking a social media detox until after the difficult time. You can use the extra time you're not scrolling through Instagram or TikTok on yourself. If you want to get stress relief, try:

• Journaling and rejuvenation
• Communicating with friends
• Talking to a mental health care professional
• Joining a peer support group

These all will help you process what you're experiencing.

🌼 Hydrate And Eat Well

We know. Trust us; we know how many delicious treats are available right now.

This time of year is unbelievably delicious, between homemade cookies, truffles, pies, and cheesecakes.

Sweets

We're not saying avoid sweets and treats. We're just saying it's essential to be mindful and ensure you're still eating well-balanced meals for better nourishment and consuming water along with Grandma's Apple Pie -- the one made with a recipe behind lock and key!

Vitamin D

On top of that, make sure you're getting enough vitamin D in your diet with the lack of daylight and outdoor activities! Vitamin D insufficiency affects 50% of the world's population, and thanks to the lack of daylight hours and limited outdoor activities, it's a good idea to add vitamin D-enriched foods into your diet or take a multivitamin.

🌼 Take Your Vacation Time

In 2018, American workers failed to use 768 million days of personal time off. To put that in perspective, that's 2.1 million YEARS of unused P.T.O. It’s important to remember that when you're hired for a job, you're exchanging your labor and expertise for benefits, like vacation and personal time off. Check-in with your Human Resources department to see if you can extend your holiday break or roll unused days into early 2022.

Rest

One of the best forms of self-care is giving yourself time to rest, relax and recharge! Already have vacation time scheduled this month? Make a promise not to check your work email or Slack notifications while you're out of the office.

That “out of office” means out of office!

If you're struggling to maintain a healthy work-life balance, consider joining the Live Don't Just Exist - Work-Life Balance peer support group, led by I.C.F. Certified Coach Stephanie Fitzpatrick!

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About The Peer Support Group

• Do you find yourself missing out on important events?
• Do you have time for family and yourself?
• Ever feel like you're working more than not?

Then you probably are not living; you are existing, which is not what life should be about!

What can you do about it, you ask?

Well, maybe taking the time to create a healthy work-life balance will help. If you're ready to find the right balance, join Live Don't Just Exist - Work-Life Balance led by I.C.F. Certified Coach Stephanie Fitzpatrick for only $15/mo.

Stephanie has worked with diverse individuals, groups, and organizations, including professional athletes, non-profit leaders, government employees, and others, in her eight years of coaching experience and is ready to help you! This group is available on the MentalHappy platform, App Store and Google Play.

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