2024 has certainly been a challenging year so far. Many of us will be ready for the holiday season coming up soon, although we just finished one, a time of enjoying family and friends, and often trying to recharge from the year. But for some, the festive season is rife with stress. From hosting and even attending social events, organising, and preparing meals, and simply spending time with certain family members.
As we leave the summer holiday events behind, you may still feel the heavy weight of the stress on your shoulders – and in your gut. With Christmas and the new year approaching, anticipation can be high! But there is no need to let these feelings get the best of you.
We have put together a guide for tips to help ease post-holiday stress and why you may want to consider investing in a life coach. A coach can be a wonderful asset who can help navigate you through tough emotions, feelings, and situations, and come out stronger and more powerful. Let’s dive in!
Tips for Reducing Stress After Holidays
Give Yourself a Break
Schedule in a day just for yourself. Go for a walk to your local park. Grab a coffee enroute and just enjoy being out in nature. When you get home, take some time for self-care, whatever that might look like for you. Take a long shower. Put in a hair mask. Read. Or simply blob on the couch watching your comfort show. A break from everything – and everyone – can do wonders for a mental “reset.”
Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a cognitive skill in which we allow our minds and bodies to be fully present. We allow ourselves to be aware of where we are and what we are doing, and all the things that are going on around us. Mindfulness can reduce stress by helping you to be in the moment, without allowing space for your mind to wander and think of other things. It can help with feelings of calm and can create a more patient perspective, helping you to enjoy the little things in life more and is a valuable skill for mental well-being. Highly recommended!
Organise your Space, but Start Small
After the holidays, your living space may be in slight disarray. Don’t worry. We’ve all been there. After days of hosting dinners and parties, or rushing out the door, going to events, tossing clothes on the floor and make-up all over the vanity, your home might be feeling a little chaotic. Take the time to tidy any messes, and clean each room, one at a time. Decluttering and cleaning a space can help reduce mental clutter, helping to alleviate some of the stress.
Get Moving
Don’t roll your eyes now! We know you’ve heard this before. But movement is truly vital to mental well-being. When we exercise, we reduce stress-hormones in our body such as adrenaline and cortisol. As our bodies move, our brains release mood elevating chemicals such as endorphins. Exercise is also associated with emotional resistance. Create a movement habit in your day-to-day life to see both short-term and long-term mental well-being benefits. Try something new, it might help you implement more movement in your day. Like aerial yoga, it will really challenge you at first, but after a few sessions you may start to love it.
Set Goals
In anticipation of the new year, realistic goal setting is a great way to reduce feelings of overwhelm and stress. It is a powerful way to determine your priorities, and delegate your time and energy going into the new year. Goal setting also allows you to grasp greater control over your day-to-day and long-term life, helping to eliminate unnecessary distractions.
Revitalise Routine
With all sorts of social events, work gatherings, time with extended family, our regular routines are upheaved during the holidays. Now that things have died down, take the time to re-establish a calming morning routine. Try to start winding down at the same time in the evening and go to sleep at the same time. Having some normality and routine will help you gain some control back and reduce mental load, and subsequently, ease stress.
Adjust your Meals!
Add veggies, fruit, legumes and healthy fats to your meals and snacks. It is truly a wonder what nutrient-dense foods can do to your mental wellbeing. This is a yummy way to help prevent mood swings and keep your mind focused. There have been many studies that have shown that nutritious food, containing lots of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, nourishes the brain and the mind. Did you know your gut can influence your emotions? Most of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut. But the production of this neurotransmitter is controlled by a hoard of good bacteria who absorb nutrients and activate signals to the brain. Eating nutrient-rich, plant-based foods will help influence more of these signals and reduce feelings of stress. It’s especially important to incorporate some healthy foods after the holidays, where we may have enjoyed lots of different food groups. If you are finding it hard to carve time for food prep, you can always look at getting a meal plan.
So how does a Life Coach Help with Stress Management?
A life coach can help navigate you through feelings of stress for better wellbeing outcomes in both the short term and long-term setting. Let’s go into some of the reasons a life coach can help with stress after the holiday season.
Improve Self-Awareness
Life coaching can help you become more in tune with your thoughts and your senses. Individuals can become more self-aware and are able to recognise their thoughts and feelings better. When we can recognise what we are feeling, we will be more equipped to address those emotions and take proactive action to manage levels of stress.
Better Understanding of the Cause of Stress
By understanding and recognising the feeling of stress, a life coach can help you unravel the cause of that feeling. Life coaches want to help you tackle the root causes of your post-holiday stress, rather than just addressing the symptoms. Was it the presence of a certain family member? Or the change in your normal routine? Or a return to normal routine? Are you anxious about the year ahead? Challenging the root cause of stress will help you learn to take steps to prevent it in the future.
Improve Productivity and Focus
When you have learned the skills and strategies to reduce stress and maintain a sustainable stress management programme, you are more likely to see higher productivity and improved performance in your work and creative life. With less stress, our minds are better able to focus and concentrate, and for longer periods of time, helping to improve our ability to get things done. In turn, we are more likely to tick things off our “to-do” list and further reduce stress. This is a wonderful benefit to a life coach as we move into the new year and set new goals for ourselves.
Establish an Action Plan
A life coach will help you establish a set of action plans that will help you reduce the impact of stress and even remove stressors after the holiday season. These action plans will be designed to help you both in the short term and long term, so you can sustainably manage your stress in the new year.
Stress Management Techniques
Similarly, a life coach will help you learn techniques to help you manage your stress in the long term and short term. They will help you practise how to respond to those feelings of stress in the moment. We all know that feeling. The gut clench. The increased heart rate. Techniques that life coaches will help you learn include focused breathing and visualisation and mindful meditation, among others. These techniques will help you move through these physical and mental symptoms and thus, improve your ability to cope. Mindfulness has been shown to improve the life satisfaction of participants in many psychological studies and it is a great holistic approach to managing your feelings and thoughts as they come and go. We would highly recommend it!
Learn to Set Boundaries
Setting boundaries is worthy of a blog topic all on its own. It is a true invaluable life skill that many of us simply do not learn growing up. It’s even harder to learn and sustain as adults. But with practice, and with the continuous encouragement and support of your life coach, you will get better at creating them, and reminding both yourself, and others of them through proactive action and open communication with those in your circle.
Help Foster Empowerment
Life coaching can help foster and nourish a sense of empowerment and self-confidence, by focusing on the individual’s strengths and potential. Through this positive, client-focused lens and approach, your coach will help you realise and recognise your power and capability to navigate and manage feelings of anxiety and stress. Through self-discovery, you are likely to experience a boost in your self-confidence which is one the key fundamentals to overcoming the challenges of stress following the holidays and in anticipation of the new year.
Learn how to Change Unhealthy Habits and Behaviours
Unfortunately, some of our deeply ingrained habits and behaviours can influence or enable our stress levels! A life coach will not only help hold you accountable and responsible, but they will help rewire your routine, habits and behaviours that might be contributing to these unwelcomed feelings.
Help Develop Resilience
A life coach can encourage and help you develop resilience. This is so important for being able to overcome and cope with stressful situations! They can help you learn to manage your thoughts, moods, and energy levels, as these factors can have a great impact on your daily functioning. There is simply no point in finding yourself stuck in energy-sucking stressful situations, where you feel unable to and ill-equipped to navigate your way through them. A supportive coach can help you understand and easily recognise how and when you might be unintentionally creating these states of mind that hinder your productivity and your ability to move through challenges. With increased resilience, we can tackle challenging periods in our life with stamina, endurance, courage, and a calmer composure that helps us remain in control. This will help you to respond better and reduce the potential of more stress.
Increase Positivity and Outlook on Life.
As a life coach helps you develop resilience, strategies to manage stress, ways to rewire unhealthy habits, and foster empowerment, you are more likely to establish a long-term positive mindset and positive outlook on life. You’ll simply be able to enjoy life a little more, appreciate the small things, and look forward to what is to come, without so much fear and anticipation. You can learn to love life. It doesn’t have to be all bleak. A life coach can truly help you learn to relax and enjoy yourself, both in the small moments and in the big life wins. Through gratitude, mindfulness, stress management tools and strategies, you can take back some control and learn. That can be wonderful and you do deserve to enjoy it.
Improved Relationships
With all the above said and done, as you move and grow through your post-holidays journey of self-discovery, self-confidence, resilience, power, and stress management, you will enjoy a more calm and relaxed composure around your loved ones. You will be more likely to feel empowered to speak up and address any conflicts, feel assured enough with what you want out of the new year, and better uphold your own boundaries. This will in turn, improve your relationship with those in your inner circle.
Conclusion
The wake of the holiday season can leave many of us feeling tense – with those dreaded knots in our stomachs. But the good news is, there are ways you can move through these feelings, unwind those knots, and learn to manage your stress levels as we approach the fresh start of a new year. A new year doesn’t have to be intimidating. It’s an opportunity to grow, to try new things, to learn. A life coach can help you navigate these feelings, and stressful situations, and help you learn how to prevent and cope with these challenging emotions and circumstances. 2024 is the year for brave new growth. You have got this!
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