Hello again and welcome to my post, I’m Zoé Lewis, Life Coach and Professional Executive Coach at Ladybird Life Coaching and in this post I’ll share my thoughts on Christmas with you as well as offering you some tips on keeping your marbles over the festive season!

For many, particularly us working mums, the festive season can conjure up feelings of stress and anxiety, when this happens our bodies release hormones, such as cortisol and we often experience a chemical imbalance, this can impact on our moods, lead to poor concentration and even cause headaches!

So, start your Christmas de-stress now, by recognising what your ‘weak points’ are when it comes to stress and identify ways of working around these, here’s a few suggestions:

· Shop on-line both for presents and groceries – saving you time, car parking hassle and charges, aching feet and limbs which resemble Mr Tickles Extraordinary Long Arms!

· Get people involved – talk to those with whom you plan to spend the festive season, ensure you share your views and they share theirs, work to find some common ground and agreements

· Too many cooks – if you are the one who usually does the cooking or the one who usually sits and waits for it to be cooked, this year agree in advance on who will do what on the big day. For example, Mum may love to cook the lunch and then have a rest and Uncle John may prefer to tidy up after lunch, but would hate to cook the Turkey! As much as possible work with people’s own choices – they’re much more likely to take part if they’ve chosen it themselves!

· Picture perfect – our minds are extremely powerful, use your mind in advance to visualise situations which may cause you upset and ‘watch’ yourself deal with them in a positive way, this tricks the mind into believing it’s already dealt with it so when faced with the reality your visualised response is more natural

· Have an ‘escape route’ up your sleeve, if things are getting too much, have a planned exit, this could be taking the dog for a walk, offering to ‘take the bins out’ or if you only have a few minutes, nipping to the loo! In this time follow these quick steps (jot them on a post it and keep in your pocket!):

1. Pause your thoughts

2. Take some deep breaths to calm down

3. Look at the bigger picture – this is one day out of 365

4. Laugh at the situation

5. Use positive statements such as “I am happy, I am calm and I am relaxed” and breathe between each feeling.

Then you’ll be ready to go back into the situation and see it in a new light!

Wishing you peace and happiness over this festive season.

Zx

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.