3 Ways to Reduce Holiday Anxiety
It’s safe to say that in a normal year the holidays can bring out feelings of anxiety and stress, now add a global pandemic and you’ve got a great cocktail for a rough season (and that’s not the holiday cocktail we were all planning on).
Here are a couple easy things you can do to stay grounded, reduce stress and enjoy this abnormal holiday season:
Focus on Body Gratitude
Body shaming likes to rear it’s ugly head during the holiday season. In the past for me personally it has been an easy time to be critical of the imperfections I see in my body, become laser focused on what I’m putting into it and feel bad for enjoying those amazing holiday treats. It’s a hard cycle to get out of. But, studies have shown that gratitude writing can be incredibly beneficial, especially when we focus that writing on positive words.
Try this: Each day in the month of December, write yourself a gratitude letter. It can literally be one sentence, but focus on using positive words about yourself and your body.
Move
Regular exercise has been proven to reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms and, with a consistent routine, can even have mood boosting effects. It doesn’t have to be an hour long sweat-filled sesh to feel the benefits either. Just 10-minutes of movement has been shown to be effective in boosting endorphins, those natural mood lifters. Plus, psychological studies have found that moving with someone else, even when they aren’t in the same room, can improve self esteem.
Try This: *Shameless plug* Join my virtual HIIT Strength membership for access to a constantly growing library of on-demand classes (and playlists!) that you can take on your own schedule as often as you’d like!
Breathe
Yep, that inhale, exhale thing you do more than 20,000 times per day. It’s involuntary, but that doesn’t always mean we’re getting the full benefits of it. There’s a difference between breathing into into our chest (think short, quick breaths in our upper body) and breathing from our diaphragm, the muscle that lives at the base of our lungs (think deep, conscious breaths through our lower torso). They’ll both get the job done, but breathing into your diaphragm helps the lungs work more efficiently and will give you some extra benefits including lowering blood pressure and reducing cortisol, a stress-inducing hormone.
Try this:
Find a comfortable seated or lying position. Think about rooting your back into the ground if you’re lying.
Place one hand on your chest, and the other below your stomach on your rib cage. Your thumb should be wrapped around your back.
Take a big inhale through your nose. As you do this, your whole belly should expand out from the inside - everything from your belly, to your back, ribs and chest. Think about pressing your breath down through the stomach and out the sides.
As you exhale, draw your breath in while tightening your core muscles from the inside. It should feel like bracing, similar to what you might feel if you were doing a plank.
Let go and repeat for 5-10 breaths.
