Holidays are well-known for the carefree mood that allows you to be happy and stress-free. However, self-care activities can bring you a sense of calm and help you balance your emotions.
When you hear the word ‘Holiday’, moments of joy and fun activities flash in front of your eyes. Holidays are meant to be days without any hassle to catch the office cab, prepare breakfast and lunchbox for your kids, do the house chores within a fixed time, and more.
In one word, Holidays bring you a fresh air of relaxing vibes that make you free from your regular hectic schedules. However, many times, holidays become overwhelming for people.
Surprised hearing this? Yes, I also reacted the same way but when I learned more about holiday blues, I came to know about the usefulness of having holiday self-care routines.
Let’s discuss it here with more details.
Importance of Holiday Self-care:
Whether it is for the monotonous routine of the holiday schedules or attention to give your full energy to the enjoyment planned, you might feel bored or stressed, or tired.
Additionally, holidays have many plans for short trips, meeting your friends and family, giving gifts to your dear ones, doing pending tasks, etc. As a result, sometimes even holidays end up having lots of plans.
Continuous planning and execution make you feel anxious.
Many times, people start feeling differently during the holiday season. Whatever the reason behind their changing emotions, they find it hard to accept and acknowledge.
Therefore, practicing self-care activities help in taking care of your mind. By practicing small mindful acts, you can feel refreshed and overcome exhaustion.
In addition, when you start practicing mindfulness with easy self-care activities on holiday, you will be surprised to see the results benefitting you in a short span.
Here are 5 holiday self-care activities that will help you practice mindfulness and balance your emotions better.
Find Your Quiet Time:
Sometimes as a means of self-care, all you need is to slow down, stop and breathe. Doing a quick meditation will help but slowing down doesn’t necessarily mean you must meditate.
If you are unable to find one hour, it’s completely fine. Find some minutes; it could be five minutes or thirty minutes. No matter the free time you have, try to stop, sit, and breathe.
Sit in a quiet corner of the house and reflect. Slowing down from your rush makes you feel relaxed. Having quiet time with yourself is one of the best gifts you can give yourself to improve your overall well-being.
Embrace the Child Within:
During the holiday season, it is obvious to make plans and constantly tick off your to-do list. As a result, it becomes a time when you are more anxious about your plans but you forget to celebrate the joy.
Therefore, it is a nice way to have fun and fulfill your inner child’s wish during the holiday season.
Forget about all your worries, become a child again.
Do some fun with your dear ones, watch children’s movies with your kids, or go to the park and play with children there.
In addition, you can do some childish acts inside your home. Bring your favorite indoor games that you loved to play in your childhood. Play the game and cherish your childhood moments again.
Similarly, you can doodle, draw cartoons or use art in your journal and celebrate your holidays in a fun-filled way. These self-care acts will help you release your stress and balance your hectic routines.
Care for your Mind, Body, and Soul:
While holidays are great for relaxing your mind because you have no worries to chase your daily routines, however, you must focus on taking extra care of your mind-body-soul.
Holidays offer you ample opportunities to practice mindful self-care activities. You can have a bit more time to eat; thus, you can practice mindful eating.
Similarly, you can have time to go out and spend hours with nature to have some me-time. With eating and healthy diet, focus on your sleep hygiene and rest your mind.
In addition, you can practice mindful walking and feel the earth beneath your feet so you can feel more grounded. A daily walk can effectively reduce your stress, anxiety, and depression.
According to a study, the habit of daily walking helps you reduce social withdrawal and navigate your negative emotions. As a result, it helps you uplift your mood and boost your self-esteem.
On the other hand, with your mind and body, take some time to improve your spiritual well-being by practicing guided meditation, chanting, and reading spiritual books. You can also have a conversation with your inner self and contemplate your thoughts.
Accept and acknowledge your emotions:
Holidays are meant to be happy. But research says many people suffer from holiday blues during a time of fun-filled experiences. It’s obvious to feel several emotions altogether; stress, grief, loneliness, anxiety, frustration, depression, etc.
As a result, they prefer to be isolated and stay away from all types of celebrations. But you should not be afraid of accepting your emotions; rather, let them come to you and welcome them wholeheartedly.
Accepting your emotions, naming them one by one, and acknowledging them can help you practice present-moment awareness. They are beautiful self-care acts to improve your self-awareness.
Additionally, this self-care act will significantly calm down your anxious mind and help you nurture self-compassion. Eventually, you will feel relieved as you will stop negative self-talk and depressive ruminations.
Make Yourself Top Priority:
Since you are in the holiday season, it is obvious to plan your fun activities. But make sure you don’t get caught up in those plans too much so that you forget to take care of yourself.
If you practice small holiday self-care activities, being mindful for a fixed time such as five minutes or ten minutes, or fifteen to thirty minutes, it will help you focus on yourself.
In this timeframe, you can ask yourself questions to introspect or practice acceptance or letting go of negative thoughts. In addition, you can practice guided meditations to know yourself better and improve your well-being.
Most importantly, you will get an idea of the spheres of your life; what is under your control, which areas you need to focus on now, and what is beyond your grip so you can bring all your attention to your purpose and goal of life.
Concluding Thoughts:
Even if it is a holiday, sometimes taking time out for practicing self-care or mindfulness can be tough. Therefore, if you can take one step at a time and start with your favorite holiday self-care act, it will help you stick through the routine.
Additionally, the above mindful acts are easy and you can tune in to practice them quickly. But they will impact your mental and emotional well-being in a fruitful way.
As a result, these tiny acts of self-care help you in celebrating the holiday season more mindfully – gradually, gifting you moments of calm and contentment.
(This post was created for the Blogaberry Creative (Monthly) Challenge.)
(This post is also a part of Blogchatter’s Cause A Chatter program.)
The Blissful Storyteller 
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