Preparing for the holidays can be so stressful. It is not uncommon to anticipate and love all the holiday happenings and activities and yet feel that it has almost done you in by the time it’s all over. There is even a real condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This condition affects millions of people each year.
An article on health.com offers several tips to combat the feelings of stress during the busy season. Here are a couple of interesting ones:
- Get out and get some sunshine – sunlight stimulates the production of feel-good Serotonin. This is a great tip for any time of year.
- Take a whiff of citrus. Who knew? Citrus fragrances boost feelings of well-being and alleviate stress by upping levels of norepinephrine, a hormone that affects mood.
- Laugh! It can’t hurt. The article notes that “laughing like crazy reduces stress hormones and helps your immune cells function better.”
These are great tips and I’m sure there are things that work best for each individual. What seems to work best for me are some of the simplest, but easiest to forget to do. Take a walk and breathe the fresh air. There aren’t a lot of places better than our own area to enjoy the outdoors.
Be willing to get a little help. Of course, coming from the housekeeping industry, this is a biggie for me. How is anyone supposed to do everything that needs to get done or that you THINK needs to get done and not feel stressed? Enjoy treating yourself to a house cleaning. Schedule it for when you are going to be gone doing some of the many tasks on your holiday list, and when you come home you will feel a sense of relief and accomplishment. You got all your things done AND the house is clean! What a great feeling.
I think the most important tip of all is to count your blessings….literally. Take time each morning, five minutes maybe as you take that walk I mentioned earlier and dwell on the things that make you happy. Think of all your successes. Think about your family, your children or your friends that you care about. No matter who you are, even with possibly the worst life circumstances that you may be going through, there are still things that are good to feed your soul. Developing a habit of nourishing your heart and mind each day with the good and the blessings will certainly set the tone for the day, the week, the season and, ultimately, your life.
As we grow closer to the busiest time of the year, we at Prescott Maid to Order and MTO Janitorial are exceedingly grateful for all we have, the beautiful area and country in which we live, our freedoms, our livelihoods, our customers and our families. There are so many things to list, but this is supposed to be a short article so we will leave it at that. We wish you all the best this Holiday Season. QCBN
By Lucy Leyva
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