5 simple tips to stay happy and healthy over the holiday period!
2020 has been a crazy year for all of us! Staying healthy over the holidays can be particularly challenging. You’ll probably find yourself eating or drinking more than usual, but that’s ok! This is one time of year you get to kick your feet up and relax! We’ve got 5 simple tips that you can use to keep yourself happy and healthy over the break.
1. Be kind to yourself!
People often set unrealistic expectations of themselves over the break. They’ll often want to keep the weight off, while eating more, drinking more and exercising less! As you can imagine these are not ideal circumstances to maintain your normal weight… The reason why is because we require energy balance (energy in from foods/energy out from movement) in order to maintain a healthy weight. So instead, why not live life guilt free a short period of time and in the New Year you can go back to your usual routine.
2. Connect with people
Connecting with family, friends and even strangers is more important than ever right now. After a long year of social isolation, connecting, listening and talking to your loved ones may be difficult. However, spending time connecting with humans has been shown to be one the best ways you can increase not only your happiness, but those around you too! (1)
If you can’t connect physically, you can always connect through other means such as a text, phone call or video chat. You never know what that message could mean to someone!
3. Detach from technology
Humans have become increasingly dependant on technology. We often use our phones for work, organising our lives, helping us with directions, and socialising with friends. But this begs the question – is technology doing us more harm than good? This is still a very controversial question, and we yet to truly understand the impacts that technology may have on our mental health (2).
However, if you’re lucky enough to be able to detach from your smart phone this is the perfect opportunity to do so!
4. Get outdoors as much as you can!
Getting in touch with nature is another way that may help to increase your happiness (3). There are many other benefits of getting outdoors such as exercise/activities and getting vitamin D from the sun that is beneficial for many aspects of our health (4).
5. Do things you don’t normally get time to do
During the year our to do list often gets bigger and bigger, while the time we have to get these tasks done get smaller and smaller! The holidays is the perfect time to get this stuff done, whether that’s mowing the front lawn, cleaning your car or giving the house a good old fashion spring clean.
Or maybe you have a big pile of books covered in dust sitting on your bedside table waiting to be read. Just don’t forget rule number 1 – be kind to yourself. You don’t have to do any of these things if you don’t feel like doing it!
