6 Tips to PREVENT Holiday Burnout

The holidays are coming!  This means it’s primetime for Halloween candy, eating way too much turkey at Thanksgiving, countless Christmas treats, and parties galore.  Not to forget about all the time spent traveling, shopping, and visiting family members.  Let’s face it, the holidays are stressful! It becomes way too easy to get in the habit of eating fast food on the go and taking time away from exercise.  Then there’s that thing they call the New Year’s resolution, and for most people it’s time to head to the gym undo all the damage that’s been done.  Sound familiar? 

I just want to take some time and remind everyone to take care of themselves.  Not just for the next 3 months, but for an entire lifetime.  Below are some friendly reminders of things you can do to improve and maintain your overall health.

Get massaged: The holiday season can be extremely stressful! With all that stress, your muscles will tense up.  Getting regular massage will do much more than feel good for you.  Getting massage will increase blood circulation, help eliminate toxins, reduce fatigue, and improve flexibility.

 

Get your buns moving: It’s getting colder and wetter outside, which means we are all less likely to go out for a morning walk, hang out at the park, walk the dog, etc.  The next thing is to maintain a schedule for getting regular exercise in.  Once you decide to take a day off its way too easy to decide to skip the next one and so forth.  Also having a friend go with you will help with motivation and keep each other accountable for going.

Don’t go to work:  Let’s face it, when the weather gets bad, we are more likely to catch a cold.  Your employers provide you sick time-off you for a reason.  They don’t want you at work spreading it to other employees, and your co-workers would rather you stay home as well.  You will recover faster if you get rest.

Holiday sugar is evil:  Between the caramel apples, pumpkin pie, Christmas cookies, and everything in between that you don’t have to eat it’s easy to overindulge and gain weight.  Sugar is very addicting; in fact it stimulates similar parts of the brain as the extremely addicting drug cocaine does!  No wonder why we crave sugar.  The best way to avoid this craving is to avoid refined sugar.

 

Keep your mind sharp as a tack: Now that we’re stuck indoors more often, now’s a good time to read a book and exercise the old noggin.  Work on some crossword puzzles and challenge your brain.  This is key to keeping your mental health throughout your lifetime.

Remember that stress (emotional, physical, and chemical) all contribute to subluxations (nerve interference).  As a chiropractor that’s what I’m here to help with.  Whether it be a car accident (physical stress), a chaotic working environment (emotional stress), or all those artificial ingredients in food (chemical stress) they all can negatively impact your nervous system.   Dr Scott and I both have our own fair share of holiday family events, but between the two of us our office will be open most of the time between now and the New Year.

These are some simple steps to take to improve your overall wellness (not to mention the New Year’s resolution will be much easier and attainable).  There are plenty more things you can do and a lot of them are common sense: eat healthy, get enough sleep, make new friends, etc.  I just wanted to take a moment and remind everyone to take care of your body, you only get one.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Yours in Health,

Dr. Bryan