Peace Be With You

We all feel stress from time to time, but the holidays often present a dizzying array of demands including shopping, entertaining, baking, family conflicts, and other inevitable anxiety producing situations. Daily exercise and a fitness routine is one way to manage your stress and feel more hope, joy and peace this holiday season.

Physical activity is a healthy way to maintain mental fitness by: 

  • offering a break to take your mind off of worries that feed depression and anxiety. 
  • releasing feel-good endorphins that can enhance your sense of well-being. 
  • boosting self-confidence by meeting your goals and feeling better about yourself.
  • improving sleep which can be interrupted by stress.

 

Broaden how you think of exercise and find ways to add small amounts of physical activity throughout the day.

A few suggestions are to: 

Roll out the yoga mat. Mindful movement is linked to lower levels of stress. 

Take a walk. Burn off anxiety and melt away tension. 

Chill out with cardio. Get your heart rate up and your stress levels down. 

Identify what you enjoy doing, set reasonable goals, and don’t think of exercise as a chore. Regard your physical activity as one of the tools that helps you feel better. 

 

“Nobody can bring peace but yourself.”   Ralph Waldo Emerson