Surviving Christmas

Christmas is typically one of the most stressful events of the year. The expense of buying gifts, the pressure of last minute shopping, and the heightened expectations of family togetherness can all combine to undermine our best intentions.

Some practical tips that can help you reduce your ‘Christmas stress’.

Top Tips

Staying physically active during the holidays. The good news is that the people who reported the most physical activity through the holiday season showed the least weight gain. Some even managed to lose weight.

Try and remember your postures and optimal lifting techniques when either lugging around heavy gifts at the shops.

Stock the freezer with healthy meals. Everyone’s overly busy during the holidays, and most of us want to spend our time shopping, decorating, or seeing friends and family, which leaves less time to cook healthy meals. Take defensive action several weeks ahead of time by cooking meals intended specifically for the freezer.

Just because it’s Christmas does not mean you have to eat the whole pudding or the whole cheesecake. Remember everything in moderation, and try to keep to a normal every day routine. According to ‘Nutrition Australia’ we put on an average of 0.8-1.5kg over the Xmas period. It could take weeks just to shed those kilos again.

Toast the new year with just one glass of bubbly. You may be celebrating, but that doesn’t mean that that you should send your meal plan (and your judgment) on holiday. What’s more, alcohol breaks down your inhibitions and judgment, which makes you that much less likely to resist the junk foods that you would otherwise be able to pass up.

Take some time out for either yourself or your immediate family. Whether it is a hobby or a quiet getaway, take some time out and remember that stress can have a dramatic impact on your health.

Take the focus off food and drinks this holiday season by embracing a project that will have lasting meaning: Organizing your family photos. What household doesn’t have a mountain of snapshots that need to be sorted? Dispensing with this source of clutter will be stress relief in itself, but you also will get an emotional lift when you glimpse the photos again.

Get enough sleep. Plan for some early nights in as the ‘silly’ season can cause havoc with our sleeping routines.

Please call your Physiotherapist at Campsie Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation Centre on (02) 9787 1233 or visit our clinic at Shop 14, 15-21 Ninth Avenue in Campsie for more information.