Managing each day and week so that we are more productive and effective while a little less crazy and stressed is a great challenge for most of us. That challenge seems to be multiplied as the calendar pages turn in December. Maintaining balance between your well-being physically, intellectually, emotionally, financially, and spiritually seems almost impossible as we prepare and live through the Holiday Season and into the New Year. Therefore, I will offer you six articles with food for thought… one on each of the five areas and the last article will be on leveraging the New Year to max advantage.
Physical Well-Being During the Holidays
The Holiday Season offers a lethal combination of challenges to our commitment and desire to maintain our physical well-being. Too much and the wrong kind of food and drink combined with less exercise and more stress can take its toll on us. And part of the toll is that we have less energy and focus to deal with the challenges that are typically greater in the other areas of life at the same time. This can set up a deterioration in not just the physical area, but others as well which multiplies the set back to our overall well-being and effectiveness. Those costs can be huge. What are some tips to better manage these challenges?
If there is benefit to maintaining balance by paying attention to health in the physical, emotional, intellectual, financial and spiritual areas over time, the techniques and strategies that work in normal times can work in more intense times if we intensify our determination to use them. However, the temptation is to respond to the unusual and hectic pace as the year-end approaches by letting the distractions push us into the reaction mode and lose grip of our days. When that happens, one of the first places we cut is our exercise program. Big mistake. Exercise and stretching are great stress reducers and help burn off extra calories that seem to also accompany the holidays. Exercise not only burns off calories during the time of activity, it also increases our metabolism so that we burn more fuel, like eggnog and iced cookies, at all hours.
In the area of nutrition, it is much more effective to control the input than to try to offset excess with more output. It is part of the joy of the season to partake in some of the treats that accompany it, but the key is to plan and moderate. Eat a healthy snack before the party. Consider your mind set and mood before facing the buffet and decide in advance your limit, like only one plate, for instance. If you blow it, see that as an event which has ended, not a permanent change in lifestyle and personal values.
Sleep is always important because it restores us in every way. But the quality and quantity of sleep can suffer around the holidays for all the reasons we understand. The benefits of planning our days ahead, in writing, so we identify all the activities we need to address and more efficiently combine trips are several and helping us maintain our confidence and avoid frantic/panic feelings is chief among them. Such feelings interfere with sleep. Bad sleep contributes to lack of confident feelings and panic. Don’t go there. Plan!
Gift giving is a part of most holiday traditions. If you have not made your physical well-being a high enough priority, if you don’t like the way you look or the way you feel, a great gift to yourself, the ones you love and your own future is to make a small beginning to exercise regularly and pay better attention to your nutrition. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. You might decide to get off tobacco, moderate other habits, stop risky behavior, and begin more healthy habits right here in the middle of the holiday madness. What better time?
