How to Celebrate Your Mental Health Alongside the Holidays
Health: how is it defined?
health
/hɛlθ/
a person's mental or physical condition.
“Kurami focuses on promoting health through their nourishing, nutritionist-approved meal paths.”
Health has become a hot topic, especially this year. Although this is positive as it encourages more and more people to care for their physical well being, a large aspect of our health is usually ignored.
Health goes beyond one’s physical health. Although eating an abundance of spinach or a good amount of grains can contribute to your physical well being by supporting digestion and providing your body with iron, fibre, and an array of nutrients, if your mental health is neglected, you are yet to find true balance.
During the Christmas period, let us take the time to prioritise our mental health. To properly celebrate the holidays, we must first be able to celebrate ourselves. We can do this through simple practices of self-love and self care.
Here are a few ways that you can celebrate your mental health alongside Christmas:
Meditate
Meditation has been shown to deliver us the beauty of the present moment, allowing our minds to return into stillness. With the countless distractions of today, choosing to meditate is choosing to find peace, and uncover the thoughts or emotions that we may be pushing away subconsciously.
Additionally, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), mindfulness is recommended as a method to prevent depression in people who have had 3 or more bouts of depression in the past.
Practice meditation for at least 7 minutes every day. Start small, and work your way up into practicing longer meditations, and watch just how effective this can be for your health in the long run.
Dance to Christmas music
Bring it on, Mariah Carey.
If you cannot seem to stop yourself from dancing to “All I Want for Christmas is You” this year, don’t. Dancing has been proven to deliver a plethora of health benefits.
According to research, dance is able to improve cardiovascular health, balance and coordination, and reduce depression. Also, it's a great way to get your body moving!
Start a gratitude journal
Rather than focusing on writing out your wish list this year, it can be helpful to write out your gratitude for everything and everyone you already have in your life.
Why not aim to write a list of, at the very least, three things that you are grateful for at the beginning or end of each day? This is a beautiful way to transform your perspective on life, and support your mental wellbeing by encouraging more positive thoughts.
Set your intentions for the upcoming year
Although it is difficult to predict what is to come in 2021 following all that has happened within 2020, it is important to keep your visions and goals clear as we begin the new year, and more importantly, the intentions behind these goals.
Through setting intentions behind each goal that we have for the exciting new year, we not only are able to envision the outcome, but also the overall benefits of this outcome. This can therefore increase our motivation to focus on truly taking action. When we have intention, we have reason, and when we have reason, we have drive.
Overall…
Whether you are surrounded by family and friends at home, or through a zoom screen throughout the next following weeks, we hope you will also have a chance to spend time with yourself and care for your mental health.
When celebrating your mental health through mindfulness, you can celebrate Christmas with a clear mind and even more love to share with the beloved people around you.
Let this Holiday season be a loving, positive and nourishing one. Order your meal path today, and let us pamper you this Christmas with our nutritionist-approved and chef crafted meal paths. Or why not order our special, limited edition Christmas eve box? Click here to order today.
