 While December might be the most magical time of the year, it’s also the most exhausting, stressful and booze-filled period. Here are our top 12 tips to stay physically and mentally healthy this holiday period:
1-Watch your spending – 37% of Australians start the New Year in debt due to Christmas overspending. 1 in 4 people will take 5 months to pay that back. Avoid extra stress by monitoring your finances and sticking to a budget. Consider a secret Santa instead of buying gifts for multiple people, asking guests to bring a dish of food and try to pay for most things outright rather than using credit card. 2 – Get your sleep - Missing a few hours sleep each night causes your body to release hormones that make you crave sugary foods and can lead to extra weight gain over the holidays. It can also make you more irritable and less tolerant at those family events. Aim to stick to your regular sleep schedule and try to limit your late nights to no more than 1 hour off your regular bedtime. If you’re sleeping in a different bed, take your own pillow for a more restful night and to help prevent neck pain while you sleep. 3- Don’t skip meals - To avoid a sugar crash and reduce the temptation to snack on treats, eat 3 main meals throughout the day. Eat a breakfast that’s full of protein and healthy fats to start the day off right. 4 – Don’t overindulge - The average person puts on between 0.8kg and 1.5kg over Christmas. It takes the brain 20 minutes to know if you’re full or not. So before you go back for seconds or reach for the next snack, wait this amount of time to see if you actually need it. 5 – Watch your alcohol - In Australia the weekly average alcohol intake triples over the festive season. Drinking too much can impact on your quality of sleep, cause you to eat bad foods and leave you hung-over the next day. To help, leave 2-3 hours between your last drink and going to bed and fill up on protein based foods, fruit and veggies before drinking to help you feel fuller for longer and give the body the fuel it needs to process the alcohol. 6 – Keep up your water - Excessive sugar, carbohydrates and alcohol can leave you feeling dehydrated and bloated. Aim for 2-3L of water per day to help flush toxins and reduce your hangover. 7 – Keep up the exercise – Staying active will help keep you energised, reduce holiday stress and mitigate the extra calories consumed over Christmas. Try to exercise first thing in the morning before it gets too busy and to beat the heat. Don’t forget resistance bands are easy to take with you anywhere and walking is a great way to see your holiday destination. 8 – Perform in seat exercises – Simple exercises such as ankle figure 8’s, shoulder shrugs, glute squeezes and neck rolls can help promote circulation and prevent muscle aches while you’re sitting in the car or on a plane these holidays. 9 – Use a lumbar support - Place a jumper or rolled up towel behind the arch of your lower back to keep you more upright and prevent slouching when sitting in the car for long periods. 10 – Avoid high heels –Heels place your foot in a downward position, increasing pressure on the balls of your feet and causing the hips and knees to shift forward. In order to maintain your balance, your back and neck must then shift in position too. All these changes cause poor posture, pain and tension. Reduce the effects of high heels by wearing a smaller and thicker heel or swapping to platform shoes. 11- Avoid social burnout - Social burnout occurs when people get physically exhausted and emotionally drained by repeated social events. To avoid this, try prioritizing the events that appeal the most to you. Or, if you want to attend more, consider just stopping by rather than staying the whole time. 12 – Save time to recharge – 88% of people feel the holiday season is the most stressful time of the year. Remember, Christmas is also a time to rest and prepare yourself for the New Year. Prioritise time to do things that help you relax and distress; log off your emails, finish that book you started months ago and get outside to enjoy the sunshine. Our Chiropractors wish you all a happy holiday season and a safe New Year!
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 The concept of Men’s health has come a long way in the last generation or two. Gone are many of the stigmas associated with mental health, gone is the ‘provider at all costs’ mentality and gone is the ‘me caveman, me stroooong’ stereotype… mostly.
These and a few other stereotypes that have overall brought down the health prospects of men and are probably the reason why the life expectancy of males is 4 years less than females (81 vs 85)1. So let’s take a look at the obvious things that help improve health; Drinking tips:
Food:
Exercise:
Now on the fun things, the reasons why, in my clinical experience, men suck at looking after themselves. Number 1 – Time. We’re all so busy; doing things, watching things, working things, family things that we forget about important things like, you know, looking after ourselves right. Well it’s pretty easy to fix this problem. Prioritise + multitask. It takes me 3 minutes to drive to work (I love Ballarat), or it takes me 10 minutes to walk. 7 minutes difference isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but if I walk each shift, 7 shifts total, to and from work… Bam, that’s 2 hours of walking done and most of my moderate exercise a week. If you can’t walk to work, park 10 minutes from work and walk the rest, it’s also amazing for headspace; being able to clear your mind on the way home so you can enjoy home life when you’re home, rather than taking work home with you! Number 2 – Planning. This one also trumps point number 1. If you plan your week, actually do yourself a timetable of what a ‘normal’ week looks like, divide it up into work time, me time, exercise time and family time, you can always find extra blocks of time for being active and looking after yourself. Hint, set your alarm a teensie bit earlier and go to bed 30 mins earlier. Changes your life. Number 3 – Focusing on physical health, neglecting the other 2. Mental and chemical health is really important. Like…REALLY important. There’s not a lot of point going to the gym, smashing out an awesome HIT workout then coming home, eating 2 large pizzas and staying up to 4am watching shows that scare the **** out of you. While you’re setting up your timetable, find out where you can fit in food prep for the week and in your ‘bedtime routine,’ find that watching just 1 less episode of Squid Game means you can do 15 minutes on the posture pole and do some proper breathing exercises. Number 4 – Lack of interconnectedness. Ever heard the saying ‘no man is an island?’ Well duh, you’re a man, not an island. But you don’t have to be alone, like an island is. Go for a run with a friend, invite a group over for board games, choose multiplayer over single player. It just works better. We’ve all become FAR too accustomed to doing it solo during lockdowns. It’s time to reconnect with mates. Back in the day it was the done thing to knock off work on Friday, head to the pub and spend hours with mates. That’s not so common any more, and whilst the pub + drinking bit isn’t the worst thing that could have been dropped, the social aspect has been sorely missed in general. So organise a regular catch up, make a messenger group and keep dropping the ‘who’s free next weekend for some hiking/lunch/card games?’ It’s REALLY important! Number 5 – It sounds like hard work! I get this a lot. Seriously, a LOT. And it’s really frustrating, because if you look at points 1-4, it doesn’t have to be. Plan your week, find the time that works for you, plan around friends + family and don’t forget about eating right and looking after head space. And there you go. The easy things and the things that we perceive as difficult. |
This is us.At Ballarat and District Chiropractic we know you want to be empowered when it comes your health so we want to help you by sharing all our knowledge about Chiropractic. Archive
December 2021
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