A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail entitled A Gentle Warrior’s Guide To Embracing The Holidays. It felt like a sign, it was exactly what I needed. To sum it up, it talks about how stressful the holidays are and how we can change that. It spoke to me particularly because I’ve been trying to make self-care a priority, and taking it easy is exactly what we need during this busy time of year. We need to learn how to relax during the holidays.

I know the holidays will look different for lots of different people, but I thought I would still take the time to share my best tips on how I’ve been finding ways to relax despite all the hustle and bustle.

Limit Your Visits

One thing that I always find overwhelming is the amount of people you need to visit during the holiday season – especially when a lot of them live far away. As much as I love all my family and friends, travelling during Christmas is one of the most stressful part of the holidays. This year is a bit of an exception because we are attending a wedding, but we’re still limiting how many people we will be seeing during our visits.

Limit Your Spending

Yes, you should limit your spending on gifts, but you should also be limiting your spending on other stuff too. With all the travelling you’re probably doing, you are surely spending more money on gas, on snacks, on eating out, on coffee, etc. We always try to limit our spending (regardless of the time of year) by prepping for trips – that means making tea or coffee before we leave, making sandwiches or bringing food from home.

Make Time For Yourself

THIS! This is the one thing we have finally prioritized this year. We decided it was necessary to make time for ourselves, so we booked in a couples massage for today – and it was AMAZING! I can’t even begin to explain how relaxing it was to spoil ourselves, to just do something we wanted to do, and not something we needed to do. I’m not saying you need to book a massage to make time for yourself, but if you want to, Nakai Spa gave us incredible service today – highly recommended. And if that’s not your jam, find something that is, that you can do just for you.

xo