28 Dec Three Ways to Recovery From Holiday Stress

This blog post was written by Recovery Help Now’s, Vanessa Blaxland, MFTi.

Take a deep breath, the holidays are over.  You have dealt with pushing crowds at the mall, traffic at all hours of the day, and stressful family get togethers.  Yes, there are some not so enjoyable aspects of the holidays, but here are a few ways to recover from that holiday stress.

• Find Gratitude: Now that the holidays are over you can look back and reflect on those great moments you had these past few weeks that at the time you may have been too preoccupied by stress and not completely present, unable to fully enjoy what ever the experience may be. So if you are still feeling that residual stress from the holidays take out that Gratitude Journal that you might have started last month if you’ve been following our blogs.  What are you thankful for this holiday season and what are you thankful for going into 2012?  Finding gratitude this holiday season can help relieve that stress you’ve been feeling this month and give you new perspective on your holiday events.

Get back to your routine: Because of the hustle and bustle of season many times your daily self-care routine can take a back seat.  So get back to your daily gym time, weekly date nights, or whatever it is you like to do to regularly manage your stress.

Rest Up: Stress impacts us physically and emotionally.  For many people stress affects their sleep, and when we don’t sleep it makes it hard for us to be productive, which then causes us even more stress.  So take that nap, or go to bed early.  You will feel more refreshed both physically and emotionally.