Tag Archives: stress

8 Tips to Healthier Holidays

Christine Koh is the founder and editor of Boston Mamas, the designer behind Posh Peacock, and writes a personal blog at Pop Discourse. She
lives in the Boston area with her husband Jonathan and daughters Laurel (7 years) and Violet (8 months). She tweets about it all at @bostonmamas.

The holidays are, characteristically, a challenging time of year for many. Emotions often run high (e.g., due to missing loved ones or interfacing with family members with whom there is friction) and there are physical challenges as well — the abundance of sweet treats challenges even the most disciplined, and busy schedules and overwhelming to-do lists can shift self care to the back burner. In my opinion, it’s thus even more important to step back and reflect on your actions around this time of year. Here are eight things I recommend doing to enjoy a healthier holiday season – both mentally and physically.

1. Bring and/or serve alternative treats. One Christmas, my sister-in-law
brought healthier snacks as a hostess gift for my mother – items such as a prettily arranged dried fruit platter and yogurt covered pretzels instead of yet another tray of cookies or bowl of candy. And everyone gravitated towards these offerings because they provided a welcome respite to the super sweet treats! Consider healthy alternative treats as either a hostess gift or if you are looking to put out snacks at your own holiday gathering.

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Posted on November 25, 2023 by GuestBlogger

Compassion Meditation Can Lead to Healthier, Happier and Nicer You

Compassion meditation is a type of practice that can actually physically remodel the brain. The results of several studies confirm how practicing meditation can change your brain patterns to make you a nicer, happier person.

At the University of Madison Wisconsin, researchers tested the electrical activity of Buddhist monks during meditation compared with just sitting and doing nothing. The electrical brain waves of the meditators were off the charts, suggesting meditation has an impact on neurological occupation, versus just vegging out.

In another study at Emory University, a group of people meditated 30 minutes a day for two weeks. Results indicated key areas of the subjects’ brains had changed in addition to making them more generous. Researchers hooked up microphones and recorded the subjects at random times during the day and found they were saying nicer things to people.

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Posted on November 16, 2023 by Jill

Holly Mosier’s Tips For Managing Holiday Stress

At age 40, Holly Mosier felt like she had hit a wall. “[It was] hard to come out of my bedroom at times. I was a wife, mother, stepmother, trial lawyer… trying to blend a family and maintain some semblance of peace, joy, health and vitality, and I was failing miserably,” says Holly. She sought solutions everywhere she could think of to find tools that she could work in to her life despite being a very busy professional and mother.

Despite searching in books, seminars, classes, medical studies, experts, and television shows, as she looked for practical, efficient solutions, and Holly never found the answers she was looking for, she was able to develop her own set of tools to create a “lifestyle that balances the needs of the mind, body, and spirit in a practical, efficient way.” After working these techniques into her own life and seeing the result, Holly put them together in her book Stress Less, Weigh Less. Holly has now expanded her techniques to create the following tips for handling holiday stress.

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Posted on November 12, 2023 by Brooke Randolph

Be Grateful Before, During and Long After Thanksgiving Has Passed

The true meaning of Thanksgiving can easily get lost in translation when we are so focused on the wide array of particulars. Maybe you are the host this year and a dozen family members or more are about to grace your dining table. Perhaps it is you and your own family’s turn to pack up the Suburban  and trek across the country to be the guests of honor. However you live your Thanksgiving experience, it is easy to forget about thanks and giving. It is often not until grace is said, the wine glasses clink and someone passes the stuffing that we actually relax and feel some gratitude, yet this moment of pure thankfulness doesn’t have to be lost when the meal ends and grandma starts loading the dishwasher.

Whether we believe Thanksgiving Day marks a time when the pilgrims and the Indians set aside their need to fight over their differences, or feel it began as a simple celebration of the bountiful fall harvest, it remains a day that reminds us all to practice gratitude.

Each and every one of us can think of something we are grateful for yet our thankfulness is often overshadowed by our busy and hectic schedules before and after Thanksgiving Day. The following reminders will help you to keep feeling gratitude before, during and long after Thanksgiving Day has past so that the other 364 days of the year are filled with just the same amount of joy that being grateful brings.

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Posted on November 2, 2023 by Jill

Practice This Simple Guided Meditation to Reduce Your Holiday Stress

If you are feeling overwhelmed by your impending holiday agenda, read on.

Whether it’s a calendar full of parties, hosting responsibilities, or kids’ activities that have you running around like a chicken without a head, do yourself a favor and take just five minutes of your time to practice this guided meditation and refresh, restore and replenish your peace of mind. It will not only help you, it will help those around you. People will gravitate toward you because you will radiate with pure, inner tranquility, and that will look better on you than any facial treatment I know of.  Can you think of a more perfect way to be this holiday season?

Sit in a comfortable position away from external distractions such as the telephone, radio or television. Close your eyes and take several deep breaths, breathing in and out through your nose. Draw your awareness inward by tuning in to physical sensations throughout your body. Resist the temptation to judge these sensations, just notice them from an unbiased point of view. If you feel tension, fatigue or tightness anywhere in your body, just be aware for now. Try not to force changes.

Next, focus your attention on the base of your spine. Visualize a tiny flame there, flickering with a gentle glowing light. Feel a warm and soothing sensation emitting from this flame. Notice your hips, legs and feet relax completely.

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Posted on October 21, 2023 by Jill

Three Yoga Poses with Guided Imagery to Reduce Holiday Stress

It is no wonder people get sick, feel depressed, gain weight or have little energy throughout the holiday season. A change in your diet and exercise program, plus frenzied trips to the shopping mall can zap your vitality and well being faster than you can say, “Happy holidays.”

It is important to take care of yourself in order to maintain your health (and sanity) through this busy time of year. Eating right, exercising and getting enough rest are the obvious ways to combat stress. In addition, adding a few moments in your day to have absolutely no agenda other than to relax and practice the following gentle yoga poses will be an added bonus to further help you reduce holiday stress.

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Posted on October 13, 2023 by Jill

Stress Less, Weigh Less: Talking Mood and Food with Holly Mosier

Author and Yoga Teacher Holly MosierWhen most people set out to lose weight, they start by thinking about what they eat, and then about how much they move. Holly Mosier provides a different approach: deal with your stress levels, and the rest will come more easily. Mosier says that stress creates real cravings by releasing hormones that trigger us to reach for fatty, salty and sugary things.

In her book Stress Less, Weigh Less, Mosier lays out a plan that will not only help you eat and workout out better, but also to calm the chaos of everyday life. Mosier’s book is rooted in her own experience of overcoming mid-life weight gain and chronic fatigue. Today, she exudes positive energy and is in incredible shape, not just for a woman who recently turned 50, but for anyone.

In the process of finding solutions that worked for her, Mosier researched diverse stress-relief techniques from different fields and cultures, to find the most useful tools that could be easily incorporated into our busy lifestyles. “I boiled it all down to the most essential nuggets,” Mosier says. Her program for stress reduction includes meditation, yoga, deep breathing and tools for adopting a positive outlook.

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Posted on October 11, 2023 by Margaret

Banish Negative Thinking in Three Easy Steps

Negativity is a bummer. It can ruin your day whether it comes from you, a co-worker, family member or a spouse. It has the potential to increase exponentially, and spread rapidly from person to person like a contagious and deadly virus that kills hope and optimism.

Not only can a dose of negativity squelch your good mood, it can also be detrimental to your health. Negative thinking causes stress, and we all know that the ill effects of stress are many.

In order to stop negative thinking from raining on your parade, you must block it before you’re drenched to the bone with sodden pessimism.  The following steps can help.

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Posted on September 6, 2023 by Jill

Yoga for School Teachers

Teachers are educators, leaders, pseudo parents, heroes, friends and mentors. Their jobs are often thankless, yet teachers are those amazing people that help shape the future of our world.

Being a teacher takes a tremendous amount of commitment, and commitment requires a tremendous amount of energy. Presenting concepts, math equations and scientific theories while continuing to be a positive influence in the classroom can be challenging for the tired and overworked educationalist.

Thankfully, the magic of yoga can come to the rescue to refresh, rejuvenate and inspire before burn out ensues.

Bank a second wind well before you might actually need it with these simple suggestions that can be practiced in the teacher’s lounge or in the classroom.

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Posted on August 2, 2023 by Jill

Rumors That Kate Middleton Has An Eating Disorder Unhelpful

There have been rumblings and rumors recently that Kate Middleton and her sister Pippa may have eating disorders. Perhaps these rumors have been prompted by the fact that their pictures have been posted to pro-ana and pro-mia websites as thinspiration. So many parallels have been drawn between Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Princess Diana, who struggled with bulimia, that I am not surprised.

It is extremely common for us to be attracted to someone like one of our parents, which includes mental health struggles or irrational thinking patterns. It would not be surprising for Prince William to be attracted to similarities to his mother that he sees in Kate, including those things that might make her susceptible to an eating disorder. However, it could be a very dangerous message for the public to think that in order to be chosen by royalty one must have an eating disorder.

It was well publicized that Kate was working out prior to her wedding, just like most other brides. Her parents own a successful business and her in-laws are royalty, so it is not surprising that she would be able to dedicate a significant amount of time to working out and looking her best for her wedding. Losing weight prior to a wedding is not really enough to accuse anyone of having an eating disorder.

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Posted on August 1, 2023 by Brooke Randolph

Exercise to Boost Your Mental Health

A new study shows that those who do even a small amount of exercise have better mental health than those who do not.

An article in the New York Times examined a National Institute of Mental Health study that now gives better insight as to why physical activity leads to happier, less anxious people. Although it is commonly known that exercise releases mood-boosting endorphins, many do not know why it occurs or the physical processes of the brain during a workout.

Researchers at the NIMH experimented on both aggressive and even-tempered male mice to find the answers. The dominant male mice got their own private cages, and when they were integrated with the others, they used several intimidation techniques against the defenseless mice. After two weeks of living with their aggressive neighbors, the skittish mice were severely nervous and stressed.

But another group of even-tempered mice were not as intimidated by the aggressive mice. This experimental group had been given an exercise wheel and an exploratory tube in their cage. Although the mice were submissive toward the more aggressive male rodents, they did not appear to be nervous.

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Posted on July 27, 2023 by Jamie