3 Ways to Heal Through the Holidays

Maintaining your healing efforts through the holidays can seem extremely daunting or even impossible. Thankfully, there are things you can do to make this time more manageable and stay on track in your goal toward reclaiming your health. In this post, I’ll discuss 3 ways to heal throughout the holidays.

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Don’t Forget About Self-Care.

Around this time of year, self-care is probably the last thing on your mind. The holidays can be a fun and joyous time that we look forward to, but it also can often be very stressful when you have a tendency to put everyone else first. That’s why finding ways to relax and recharge is so critical. Stress can take an immense toll on your body’s ability to heal. Taking even 10 minutes a day to yourself to meditate, read a few pages of a book, or go for a short walk, can have a huge impact. If it helps for you to have structure in your routine, set a time each day (or even every few days) where you take a few minutes for yourself. When trying to form a new healthy habit, a strategy that works for some is to connect it to an existing habit. The habit you are tying the new one to could be very small, just make sure it is something you do every day.

Stay on Track at Holiday Parties.

Getting together with family and friends is undoubtedly one of the best parts of the holidays. But holiday parties can also be very challenging when you are trying to stay on track with a protocol, and there are so many tempting foods available that you wouldn’t normally eat. Here are a couple things you can do to stay on track at holiday parties:

• Suggest making it a potluck or bring something you have made yourself. That way there will at least be one thing that you know you can eat.
• Don’t skip meals. If you are going to a family member or friend’s house in the evening for a holiday celebration, make sure you’ve eaten breakfast and lunch, that way you are not starving and overly tempted for foods you wouldn’t normally eat.
• If you have a close relationship with the host and feel comfortable doing so, you can talk to them in advance if they are not aware of your situation. Even if they are, you can gently reiterate where you stand with your diet and health. This way they understand the reason you may not be indulging in everything and don’t take it personally. The important thing is that you don’t eat something simply to make someone feel good or so you won’t feel guilty.
• Remind yourself why you are doing what you’re doing and focus on catching up with loved ones instead of fixating on food.

Simplify and Prep Your Meals in Advance.

Planning and preparation is key to any healing journey, especially when our schedules are jam-packed. Consider going shopping with a list of the ingredients for each week’s meals. Plan for plenty of healthy snacks in between meals as well. Sticking to a list may be a challenge at first, but give it a try for one or two weeks. If it doesn’t simplify your shopping experience you can always go back to how you did things before.

If you want to take it one step further, set aside a day each week to prep all your meals for the week ahead. This way, the rest of the week is freed up for other responsibilities or gives you more time for you. Organize meals in reusable containers so they are ready to go with little effort as soon as you pull them out of the fridge. If you have young children you can choose a day on the weekend and involve them in the process to make it fun, while helping them understand more about their food and where it comes from.

Finally, make sure you take advantage of the simplicity that nature provides. Your meals do not have to be complicated. Simple salads and soups are great options. Raw fruits and veggies are about as easy as you can get. It may take some time to become accustomed to this simplicity because we are so wired to think about how we can make things new and different and feel pressured to always have variety in what we eat, but this mentality can work against our healing. The more we learn to appreciate our food in its most basic form, the sooner it will become second nature to enjoy it that way.

I hope these suggestions have inspired you and help the holiday season feel more manageable.

The post 3 Ways to Heal Through the Holidays appeared first on Reclaimers of Health.