holiday stress

3 Tips to Increase Your Inner Peace During The Holidays

November 28, 2016 by Kathryn 22 Comments

Staying calm, peaceful and balanced is hard at the best of times, but during the busy holiday season it can sometimes feel impossible. This year especially, stress is taking its toll on my well-being more than ever as we settle into a new house in a new city, prepare to shop for our forever home, get the boys settled in a new school and deal with the overall hustle and bustle of the upcoming holidays.

That’s why I’ve decided to take steps to reclaim my inner peace and find my Zen so that I can enjoy the holiday season to its fullest. And these are the three ways I’ll be doing that!

Early Morning Meditation

Daily meditation offers a plethora of benefits, including increased mental focus, improved immunity, reduced blood pressure and improved memory. But finding the time to meditate when life gets busy can feel almost impossible. That’s why I’ve started setting my alarm fifteen minutes early so that I can use that extra time to reflect and prepare for the day.

By meditating first thing in the morning, I don’t feel like I’m stopping my work flow or losing time. And those few minutes of self-reflection also help me to feel more peaceful and energized throughout the entire day. [Read more…]

Try These 3 Ways to Minimize Stress During the Holidays #ONatural

December 12, 2014 by Kathryn 58 Comments

As much fun as the holiday season is for families, it can also be stressful and not just for adults. I’ve noticed that for the last week or so my boys have had shorter tempers than usual as they prepare for Christmas concerts at school, rush around to their final activities before the holiday break and create crafts, cards and gifts for loved ones. And honestly, I have just as much trouble staying mellow lately. Between cleaning the house for the holidays, planning visits from family and friends and cooking up treats, I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. But I do have a few simple methods for minimizing stress, and these are my top three!

Aromatherapy

There’s nothing better than a soothing scent to help minimize stress. My personal favourite aroma when in the mood for relaxation is lavender but since it is the holiday season, I tend to favour more festive relaxation at this time of year! Vanilla, cinnamon and orange are all aromatherapy oils that are used to help reduce stress, and all are also common aromas during Christmas! When the entire household is feeling irritable, I’ll combine a few drops each of vanilla and cinnamon essential oil in a diffuser to fill the whole house with the peaceful, soothing scent. And when I just need a bit of balance myself, rubbing a drop of essential oil on my neck just behind my ears lets me enjoy the benefits of the aroma all day long. [Read more…]

Get Relief from Holiday Pain with Rub A535 Triple Action Cream-Giveaway

December 29, 2013 by Kathryn 373 Comments

Even though the holidays are lots of fun, they can sometimes cause a bit of a strain on the body too! With so much hustle, bustle and activity during the holidays, there are all kinds of ways to end up stiff and sore. Even when getting ready for the big day, my muscles were aching after days of running up and down the stairs carrying presents to put under the tree. And that’s just the start of the aches and pains you could face over the holidays! Rub A535 knows how irritating muscle pain can be, and they have a few ideas of their own about the aches and pains you might have encountered over the holidays:

You hoped for a white Christmas all month, but now that you’ve gotten one, you have to spend two hours shoveling to get the car out of the driveway. Ouch!
You lugged 30 pounds of holiday shopping bags around the mall for four hours because you couldn’t find the perfect gift for (insert impossible to buy-for relative here).
The acrobatics of retrieving gifts from various clever hiding places, most of them high up or down low so your sneaky family can’t find them.
You proudly served a turkey the size of a small automobile on a single platter, and then had to hold it aloft for ten minutes so photos could be taken.
Tripping over sprawled-out loved-ones as they recover from food-coma.
The in-laws are coming over to admire the décor and enjoy/judge your cooking. Outwardly, you are calm and collected but if there was any more tension in your shoulders, they would be touching your ears.
You are spending the holidays away from home, but your bags (and all of the presents you brought) haven’t made it to your destination.

[Read more…]