Home » How to Stay Calm at Christmas – 5 Best Tips

How to Stay Calm at Christmas – 5 Best Tips

Wondering how to stay calm at Christmas? Afraid to Burn-out this Festive Season? Micro-dose on Self Care!

Micro-dose on self-care throughout your day over Christmas to help prevent overwhelm and burnout.

 

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

Life can feel like hard work – layer on the demands of Christmas and you may feel totally overwhelmed with the never ending ‘to-do’ list in the lead up to the big day.  Busy schedules mean that you are at risk of exhaustion, but when it comes to looking after your own health and wellness, we can actually feel stressed trying to figure out how to fit it in!   Consequently, self-care quickly falls by the wayside as you continue with the daily grind.

It’s vital you take some time to nurture yourself – both mentally and physically. But when we are so busy how can we squeeze this into our hectic days?

The answer is: micro-dose on self-care. Just 10 min is all you need to press pause and give your mind a little break.

Even though it may seem like the right thing to do, routinely dismissing your own needs can have an adverse effect on your overall health. It can make you irritable, fatigued, stressed and susceptible to a full-blown burnout. So, in order to save your health (and sanity), make time for self-care!

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

Here are your five go-to micro self-care tools for how to stay calm at Christmas

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

Breathe – That is How to Stay Calm at Christmas

Stop what you’re doing and take a deep breath.  Do not underestimate the power of a deep breath.  These precious seconds may be the difference between losing your cool and responding calmly; between feeling overwhelmed and staying focused.

I honestly believe that energy boosting breathwork can be better than caffeine. Use the power of breath to create an incredible feeling of energy, clarity and focus through your body.

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

If you’re not breathing optimally, you’re robbing yourself of energy. The way you breathe may be causing you to feel tired, fatigued, foggy, and uninspired. This is because proper, controlled breathing ensures an optimal oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange. This is vital for high energy and mental alertness levels. Since oxygen is the breath of life, it’s rocket fuel for the body and mind.

With this exercise, we’re focusing on deep, diaphragmatic breathing.  This means we’re not using out chest or upper body to breathe. We are engaging our lower belly as we inhale and exhale. On the inhale, your lower belly should rise outwardly. On the exhale, the lower belly moves inwardly, towards the navel.

These movements draw air into the lungs, and not just the upper lungs, as in chest breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing fills every part your lungs, including the lower parts.

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

Do this simple breathing exercise twice a day or whenever you feel yourself losing steam:

  • Deeply exhale with a whoosh sound
  • Deeply inhale through the nose for 4, hold for 7, exhale through the mouth for 8
  • Repeat for 4 breaths

You can integrate breathing into your daily living very easily — you simply have to be conscious of it. When you wake up in the morning, think about it.

When you go to sleep at night, think about it. Instead of yelling at a red traffic light to change, focus on your breath. When someone is talking to you and you have no interest in what they are saying, turn your attention to your breathing! When your toddler is driving you mad….you get the jist!

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

  1. A Cup of Calm is How to Stay Calm at Christmas

When you start feeling a little overwhelmed, this is a great ‘2-minute’ self-care tool. Mindful meditation doesn’t need to take a long time, just 2 or 3 minutes can be enough to give you a little space to slow down, press pause, re-connect and re-energise for the rest of the day. So if you are feeling a little stressed, just a couple of minutes to practice this ‘cup of calm’ mindful moment …

Make yourself a cup of your favourite warm drink and sit down. Notice three things in this moment – the colour of the drink, the weight of the mug, the feeling of the chair. Then consciously breath into your shoulders, try and relax them down a little and enjoy your cuppa – savouring the flavour.

Return gently to the senses whenever you notice the mind straying into thought. Be open to your senses, rather than try to analyse what’s happening.

 

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

3.      Say no more! How to Stay Calm at Christmas

As a mum, you can often feel like you’re pulled in a million different directions trying to please everyone in the family. You might even feel guilty about saying no to certain requests from family members, children or friends. But you shouldn’t!

It’s okay to say no sometimes, and to not take on extra work on your plate when you don’t think you can manage t or it will stress you out. Remember to look after yourself as much as you look after others around you, or you could be in danger of burning out.

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

‘No’ is such a small word yet so hard to say! You can say no and still be a good friend, colleague, sister, person. Sometimes you’ve just got to take care of YOU.

Saying no is empowering. Saying ‘no’ is a massive self-care gift to yourself. Even saying ‘yes’ to things you are ‘meh’ about means you will be out of time and energy for the things you want to give a big fat YES to. So if it’s not a hell yeah – it’s a no. Design your life around the good stuff, make space for that first so that the not so good stuff slowly slips away.

 

Here are a few ways you can say ‘no’ to help you stay calm at Christmas

  • While my heart wants to say ‘yes’, the reality of what’s on my plate right now makes this a ‘no’ for me at the moment. Thanks for thinking of me.
  • I am really touched by your request, and although it’s hard for me to say ‘no’, it is so necessary. I’m grateful that our relationship allows me to be honest about where I am.
  • This sounds wonderful and as much as I would love to be involved, I can’t give it the attention it deserves right now. I am cheering for your success!
  • No, thank you. (sometimes it can be as simple as that!)

 

 

  1. Develop an attitude of gratitude that’s how to stay calm at Christmas

Gratitude is a fantastic little mindset makeover tool and something that you can practice throughout the day as you go, so it doesn’t add anything extra to your ever-mounting ‘to do’ list.

Just try and slow down just a fraction, just enough to briefly ‘press pause’ and just try and be in the moment of whatever you are experiencing and mentally note down what you are grateful for in that moment.

So for example – a child’s laugh. Just be in that moment and mentally note down how grateful you are for that magical laugh. DONE! That’s it. Try and rack up as many of these as you can throughout your day.

This micro self-care tool will help you embrace the everyday magic amongst the chaos and whirlwind of motherhood. Magic moments, are all around you if you can just try and tune into them – and if you can you are going to feel more positive, happier, grounded, calm and in control. You will shift your mindset into a positive ‘high vibe’ zone – and you will start to actually subconsciously train your brain to see more positivity all around you and in return this will attract more positivity into your life.

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

  1. How to Stay Calm at Christmas with a Thought shake

Do you sometimes need a thought shake? If you are feeling a bit low or a bit flat, seek positive inspiration from others. It helps to shake your thoughts up – replacing any negative chatter in your head with positivity instead.

This might mean grabbing a quick coffee with a great friend, listening to your favourite music, listening to an uplifting podcast, or reading an inspirational book.  If you choose a book or a podcast; set an alarm for 10 minutes, read/listen away and then you will come away feeling much more positive and ready to get on with the day again.

Sometimes our minds just need a little break and a good dose of positive high vibes to reboot and help us keep going! Learning to be in-tune with your mood and noticing when your mood starts to dip, and then having some simple tools to hand that work for you is a real game changer.

 

calm wordsearch

 

Try this calm wordsearch from my book Create Your Own Calm to help kids stay calm at Christmas  (and the perfect stocking filler)

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

 

Stay Calm at Christmas by being creative

Crafting is another great way to stay calm at Christmas why not have a go at making an origami bookmark?

Maybe you could try these Christmas colouring pages for adults?

 Or maybe baking is your way to chill – if so why not try these lovely stained glass biscuits to hang on your Christmas tree and gift to your guests

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas with mindfulness

Louise Murray is a Holistic Health Coach with the qualification from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and a Mindfulness Teacher. ‘

She takes a truly holistic approach to health and wellness by nourishing people ON and OFF the plate by coaching them with nutrition advice combined with lifestyle and behaviour change, healthy habit formation, mindset tools, mindfulness and self-care practices

http://www.livewellwithlou.com

@live_well_with_lou

 

How to Stay Calm at Christmas

 

I do hope you have enjoyed this post on how to stay calm at Christmas – you might also like my post on ideas for a digital Christmas

 

Further reading on How to Stay Calm at Christmas

You might also like my post on Christmas gift ideas for an anxious child

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