5 Tips for Surviving the Holidays

 Good afternoon, beautiful people, Heather Gray here with Discovering Health. And today I’m going to give you five tips for surviving the holidays.

When it comes to mindset, food and beverage intake, not so much on how to handle your horrible mother-in-law or in my case, your own mother. LOL I digress.

1. Front-load your water. When you live in a cold, dry climate like I do in Colorado, folks here have a tendency to get a little bit more dehydrated during these winter months, It’s not like the summer months where it’s hot and we get thirsty.

We’re not getting thirsty like we typically do. There is a lot of dehydration throughout the winter months. And when you’re dehydrated, it actually causes you to have food cravings.

If you’re having cravings and if you’re having migraines and headaches, those are usually telltale signs that you’re not drinking enough water.

So make sure to get almost like more than half of, of what your daily intake should be in before noon.

That way you really make sure that you’re, you’re getting all the hydration in and keeping cravings down. Now, when you drinking water, make sure it’s from a good clean filtered source.

I have a Berkey filter. I absolutely love it. They actually make, Clearly water pitchers as well. I took that with me on our last trip.

I had a guy actually stopped me in the airport as I’m filling up our water bottles with my, with my pitcher.

He was like, oh my God, that’s a brilliant idea. I just threw to my backpack and it traveled pretty easily.

But the other thing you want to do is add a pinch of Celtic, sea salt, into your water to add for electrolytes that will help with energy and brain focus

2. Rest and digest. You hear about this a lot, but most folks don’t realize what that actually means.

So you’ve got fight flight, rest and digest. If you think about it, just even in the words, rest and digest, how many of us are actually resting to the point where we can digest, wrap your brain around that?

I know I don’t. I mean, I was a hairstylist and hairstyles are notorious for not actually sitting down and eating meals.

We are usually eating why we’re mixing up color or, you know, doing 10 other things besides being actually present with eating.

And it causes a lot of digestion issues because our digestion is not just our gut. It starts with our eyes actually seeing food and sending a signal to our brain, to our gut that hey, food’s coming start preparing for digestion.

So there’s this whole process that needs to happen to actually have good digestion. And most of us are skipping all of those and wondering why we get bloated and gassy and all the other issues that come along with not digesting your food.

I suggest a little breathing technique a couple of times before you eat each meal and it’s a 5, 5, 7 breath.

It is breath in for five hold for five and exhale for seven, do that two or three times before each meal.

And that’ll help get your body into that rest and digest mode, by the way, that’s the only place we heal as well.

So if you’re constantly on the go, go, go, and your fight or flight is constantly kicked in and you wonder why you can’t heal… slow down!

Also make sure that you’re chewing your food at least 20 times, that will also help digestion and also get your signal to your belly,you’re full, sooner than if  you are gulping your food down really fast.

3. Drink more tea, organic herbal teas, green teas, and black teas have a myriad of nutritional benefits anywhere from high in antioxidants andthey help with inflammation.. Green tea can help actually heal and sooth the gut where like peppermint and ginger actually help with digestion, bloating, you know, feeling bad after you’ve eaten something that you’re not supposed to. It can also help if you add a little  cinnamon tea to that as well, it will help balance blood sugar.

And add a little bit of Stevia, it can help with a sweet tooth, so drinking more tea, and that also help front-load your water.

So you’ve got number one and number three, actually helping each other out.

4. Walk don’t run during the holiday season, we have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends, right?

We’re staying up later. We’re eating things we’re not supposed to, we’re not planning properly. We’re not getting the right amount of sleep and we’re, we’ve taken on too much and our stress level is  just out of control, sadly over exercising when your body is already stressed out is an added stressor.

So during these times when you need to slow down and do a little bit more, self-care need a little bit more restorative movement.

Try to keep that to like walking, yoga, stretching, maybe some light weights, but high intensity cardio stuff really, really, really can be tough on the body.

Tough on your hormones. Tough on your cortisol, tough on your adrenals. So just do your body a favor and just take it back a couple of notches during this time, make sure to really just check in and see what your body needs and it might need, it might tell you, Hey, I need a break.

5. JUST SAY NO! there are so many food pushers out there. And they mean the best, I totally get where a lot of food pushers come from.

A lot of them, that’s like their love language, an act of service.” Look what I did for you. ” And they get super offended and sad when you can’t eat their food.

Now, if you’re anything like me and you’ve dealt with a lifetime of autoimmune diseases, mostly causing digestive issues, which then inflames my brain and causes cognitive issues. I have no problem saying no anymore.  I plan and I make sure to have on hand what I need.

I bring it ahead of a time or I make sure I can make it while I’m there. I set myself up for success.

I don’t let myself get to the point of starving. And then I grab whatever’s available because I know for me, it could easily, cost me three to four months of healing.

Because if you do have a gluten sensitivity, not just celiac, if you have a gluten sensitivity, if you have a dairy sensitivity and you get one crumb, it causes an inflammatory response in your gut, in your brain for the next three to six months.

So all the wonderful healing that you’ve done out the door, not completely back to square one, but it definitely does set you back.

So I have no problem saying no anymore. I have no problem asking questions. I have no problem asking what’s going to be on the menu,what the  ingredients, are. And if somebody acts like they’re having a tough time with answering my questions, I’ll make sure to bring my own and make sure not to take their response personally.

Yes, they’re going to get disappointed and that’s okay. Nobody died from disappointment. Let them be disappointed. At least you can go home and sleep that night, knowing that you didn’t Jack your body and your gut and your brain up.

So no is a complete sentence. No, thank you. So those are some of the five tips that I have for surviving the holidays.

Also, don’t forget to, I’m talking about slowing down, but slow down and be present with the people that you do love. Your friends that are in your life.

Take the time to be grateful for the things that you’ve learned this year, the experiences that you’ve had, right? Cause it’s not all bad.

And sometimes we have a tendency to think that it is, but if we take the time to slow down and get grateful. It’s amazing,

all the blessings that we truly do have.

  Enjoy your holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas. God bless.