Everyone knows how hectic the holidays can be. Many of us will spend the coming weeks cooking and shopping, thinking about how best to treat our friends and family, on top of the added stress of navigating all of our holiday traditions during a pandemic. But do you have a plan for how to treat yourself this year?
Stress can inhibit your holiday plans, and when holiday plans start to falter, stress only gets worse, and your physical and mental health can spiral from there. In order to be your best for your loved ones, you need to make sure you’re taking time and action to keep your body and mind in tip-top shape. Here are some ways to create a self-care routine that will help you manage stress during the 2020 holidays.
Start Off Right
The moment you get out of bed sets the tempo for the day. Take this moment for yourself. Put down your phone and focus on your morning skincare routine. This simple activity isn’t just good for your face; rhythmic motions and specially engineered scents put your brain in de-stress mode right from the start.
Likewise, make sure you get an easy breakfast and a glass of water ASAP. Dehydration and low blood sugar make a massive difference in your physical and mental abilities, but they’re easy to avoid.
Pace Yourself
Jumping from one activity to the next without a pause creates cumulative exhaustion, but it doesn’t take much to reset and stop the stress from adding up. When you catch yourself getting tense, take a breath and make your eyes focus on something at least 20 feet away. Count to 10 or just envision a physically comfortable environment. Even the briefest moments of changing focus create the same real benefits associated with meditation.
Let Someone Else Be in Charge
If you’re the sort of person who feels like you’re responsible for everything during the holidays, then you’re likely experiencing super-high stress levels. And even if you have the wherewithal to take time for yourself, you probably still feel like you’re responsible for managing that time. Put a spa treatment in the books—whatever treatment floats your fancy. Then all you have to do is show up, and we’ll take it from there. For the time you’re at the spa, you don’t have to think about doing; you can just be.
Schedule Strategic Massages
Now, before things start to get really hectic, is the time to look forward through the next couple of months, identify a few days or events that you know will be stressful, and pre-empt them with a strategic massage. Massages have all kinds of proven physical and mental benefits—including, as we mentioned above, letting someone else handle things for a while—but 2020 has caused a massive decrease in physical contact, which is a very real human need. With a Bellagena massage, you can get satisfy that need in a safe and sanitary environment. Put yourself in the hands of the professionals.
Plus: All November, you get a free hand or foot treatment with the purchase of a deep-tissue massage. Identify your holiday stress points and then book your massage today: 941-554-7546
