6 Self-Care Tips to Practice During this Holiday Season While Living Through a Pandemic
The holiday season, for many, is a time filled with joy, laughter, family, friends, cheer, good food, and love.
For others, that reality can look a lot different.
Maybe you lost a loved one from COVID recently, and this holiday season is the first they will be absent from it.
It may be a more difficult time for those who don’t have the best relationships with family or friends.
It could also be that you suffer from seasonal depression, and this time of year is especially hard on you.
Regardless of the filter that you’re experiencing this through, this holiday season is going to be different for everyone.
In some way, there is comfort in knowing that we are all going through this season together.
With days getting shorter, nights getting longer, and the weather changing, leaving us chilled and bundled up, it can be so easy to slip back into comforting habits, yes, but not the healthiest for our mind or body.
Below, I’ve created a list of tips and tricks to help you combat the seasonal blues during this pandemic.
- Keep Your Space and Yourself Clean
Have you ever heard that saying that your surroundings are a direct reflection of how you feel on the inside? It’s because it’s true.
Science has proved this time and time again. There have been numerous studies on how your living space and the way you keep it, can directly affect the way you think, work, act, and feel. When you declutter your room/office/home, you will feel less stressed, more energetic, you’ll experience more optimism, and will have a clearer head.
The same goes for the opposite, when your space is taken up with trash, old papers, dirty clothes, dirty dishes, and a stench, you are more likely to suffer from depression, cloudiness, anxiety, and fatigue.
It’s amazing to think about the correlation between a clean and organized space, and its effects it can have on your mental state. But think about it for a moment. Have you ever done a deep clean through just your bedroom? Vacuumed or swept your floor, pulled out all that stuff from under your bed, cleaned your clothes and bedding. You hang and fold everything, wipe all the dusty surfaces down, you take a shower and lay in your bed, looking around at everything that’s in its right place. You appreciate it, even more so, you feel good, and you go to sleep feeling more accomplished, satisfied, and happy.
Make sure to shower regularly in addition to keeping your space clean. Showering can be a type of therapeutic practice as well. When you shower, imagine the day washing off of you. The conversations you had with people, the emotions you experienced, the things you did or didn’t do, all washed down the drain, leaving you fresh and renewed.
Keeping both your space and yourself clean is vital for maintaining good mental health. Especially when the anxiety of COVID and everything it brings with it can leave you feeling foggy and overwhelmed.
2. Home cook 90% of your meals
Que the list of excuses I used to make:
- I don’t have enough time.
- I don’t have the energy to do that.
- I am a horrible cook!
Listen, I have been there! I used to order fast food every single day on my lunch break because I lacked preparation and motivation. It wasn’t until curiosity led me to look at my bank statement and add up how much it had all cost me. My daily trips to Wendys on my workdays had cost me $248 that month! That’s the equivalent of what I was spending on groceries every month. After acknowledging how wasteful and unhealthy that habit was, I decided to meal prep one day a week. It took me 3–4 hours to cook all of my food for the week, and to me, it was so worth it saving that extra money.
It can be so easy to order food out. It tastes good, it’s fast, it’s easy, and when you’re already overwhelmed with 2020, thinking about what you want for dinner can sometimes just be too much. So you grab your keys and head for the closest burger or burrito joint.
Hypothetically, let’s say you do this 4x a week and are buying a meal for a single person. That’s around $55/week spent on fast food. Or $220/month. Or $2,640 a year. That’s the equivalent of taking 2 vacations that year!
Not only is it more expensive to order food out regularly, but it’s also significantly more unhealthy. When you are the cultivator of your meals, it allows you to see what goes into them, the ingredients, the spices, and seasonings. You are the creator of the food that will be going into your body, and once you get into the jive of cooking for yourself, you’ll start gaining a deeper appreciation for your body and what you feed it.
3. Move your body
Creating some sort of routine where you implement exercise is vital. Through movement, you can combat many mental illnesses that can become very prevalent during COVID quarantines and the holiday season.
Just by exercising once a day (taking a walk around the block even), you can lower your high blood pressure, and your anxiety and depression symptoms drastically. Not to mention that awesome dose of vitamin C you’ll pick up out there.
If you can’t walk, keep some weights by your couch. Anytime a commercial comes on, grab your weights and do a quick 5-minute pump session. Over the course of a movie, you just completed a full 30-minute exercise routine.
4. Start a gratitude journal
Make it a rule for yourself that you need to list 3 things you’re grateful for every single day. Keeping a notepad right next to your bedside table or breakfast table can work really well because it’s easily accessible. You know that once you sit down with your cup of coffee, or lay down for the night, you jot down your 3 things.
This might seem like something really small, but with time, you’ll notice a more optimistic view of life. When you are made to point out at least 3 things every day that you’re grateful for, it rewires your brain to scan for the good in things.
5. Make sure to get at least 8 hours of sleep
You can not function at your highest level with just 3–4 hours of sleep a day. Don’t listen to what all those fad people are doing. No, no, no. Your body NEEDS at least 8 hours of sleep a day to hit all stages of its sleep cycle. Without allowing your body that much needed rest, you’ll end up exhausting yourself both physically and mentally.
Some people may cap off at 7 or even 10 hours. Listen to your body.
If you have trouble sleeping, creating a nightly routine to help your brain and body wind down from the day can be incredibly beneficial. Light some candles, stretch your body, do some deep breathing exercises, moisturize your skin, and brush your teeth. Whatever routine you come up with, make sure that it’s not too stimulating so you can wind down easier.
To see what your natural sleep cycle is, set aside 3 days in a row where you go to sleep at the same time and wake up with no alarm. The amount of hours you slept is the amount your body needs. Get your sleep!
6. Maintain a Routine
Creating and maintaining a routine is the ultimate key to thriving during turbulent times. By creating a routine, you’re building trust and security within yourself; and who doesn’t need a little extra security through this wild year. Creating a routine you look forward to is the golden ticket you want to strive for. No one wants to wake up at 4 AM, work out for an hour, and drink kale for breakfast. That’s not the routine I’m talking about. Unless that actually sounds good to you, then, by all means, go for it!
To give you an idea, my morning starts at 8 AM (I also keep my phone in the other room to make sure I am only focused on the present). I wake up, change, and do 45 minutes of yoga. I then make coffee and write down my gratitude list, throw the ball to my dogs for 10 minutes, read 10 pages of a self-improvement book, and journal for a few minutes about something positive that’s happened to me over the last day. After that, I meditate for 5 minutes and then I get to work! It’s like clockwork. I look forward to stretching my body and having those quiet moments to start my day, and it allows me to collect myself and ground my breathing before diving into writing. Again, this is just what I do. I found what works for me, and I stuck to it.
Now you can do something really simple, like right when you wake up, stretch out your body in bed, drink a glass of water, and take the dog around the block. Or even having a cup of coffee or tea in silence before starting your day. It can be a routine that lasts 5–10 minutes. Whatever it is, make sure you enjoy it. You don’t want to end up resenting this practice you’ve created. You want it to make you excited to get out of bed!
It’s a little bit easier to cope with this when we remember that we, as a collective are in this together. Through taking care of ourselves and our loved ones, we can truly remember what is most important. Eachother.
Wear your masks. Social distance. Wash your hands. Take a breath. We got this.
For more stories like this, check out the blog on my website: https://www.dynamicduocopy.com/
