It’s that time of year again and many of us have been decking the halls, shopping for gifts, and planning festive dinners. But the holiday season can also disrupt our diet, exercise, sleep, and hydration routines.
Balancing your Christmas and New Year’s Eve plans with your health needs can be tricky, and may raise the question: is it possible to keep in good health over the holiday period? The simple answer is yes, but there are things you can do to help.
Here are seven tips to hopefully help you feel happier and healthier over the next couple of weeks.
1. Plan ahead
The key to preparing for any likely disruptions to your health and fitness routine is to plan ahead. This can help you to feel in control of your health over the holiday season, while still treating yourself.
For example, alongside festive treats like mince pies and chocolates, you should also stock up on plenty of fruit and veg.
Equally, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t do well with sitting around indoors all Christmas (perhaps due to boredom or cabin fever!), you could also plan how you’ll incorporate some activity and fresh air into your day. This could mean getting the whole family to go for a woodland walk, or setting yourself up for the day by going on a morning run.
It’s also common to find that even elements of your routine like hydration and getting enough sleep are heavily disrupted over the Christmas break, which can leave us feeling less like ourselves. So, it’s good to be aware of this and plan ways to avoid these disturbances.
2. Remember that ‘treats’ are part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle
While it’s okay to want to stick to any health and fitness goals over Christmas, worrying about this may stop you from enjoying the festivities. For this reason, try to allow yourself plenty of time for fun too.
When it comes to your diet, it’s important to see treats as a normal part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Having a couple of glasses of wine, or a slice of cake doesn’t mean that you have to ‘start again’ the next day and punish yourself for the night before.
This is where having a positive mental relationship with your diet and fitness goals is necessary. Try to remember that while your physical health may be a top priority, your mental health is just as important – and that means being kind to yourself.
There’s no reason why you can’t enjoy the holiday and indulge a little. Give yourself permission to relax. Just keep everything in moderation.
3. Practise mindful eating
Christmas is probably the most challenging time of year when it comes to healthy eating. There’s often lots of food around and many of us have more time on our hands.
One way to enjoy delicious food without leaving yourself feeling stuffed and uncomfortable is to eat mindfully. This means taking your time when eating, savouring each mouthful, and properly chewing your food.
Portion size is another thing to consider. If we eat little and often, we’ll typically feel more energised and be able to better digest our food.
At Christmas this could be as simple as having two or three roast potatoes, rather than four or five, reducing your portion of Christmas pudding, or allowing yourself to have a couple of chocolates here and there, rather than eating through the box in one sitting.
4. Stay hydrated
Many of us will let our hair down and enjoy drinks with friends and family over the festive period – and while this is a normal part of Christmas for lots of us, it can also leave us feeling slightly worse for wear.
When we’re sipping wine, beer, or prosecco throughout the day, it can be easy to forget about drinking water and hydrating in between.
If this sounds familiar, there are small things you can do to help, such as remembering to start your day with a glass of water or having a glass of water in between alcoholic drinks.
If you struggle to drink water anyway, you could also explore other hydrating options, such as milk, peppermint tea (which is also great for digestion!), and juices. There are plenty more ideas in our article; 9 healthy and hydrating alternatives to water.
Staying hydrated can help us to feel more energised, keep our immune systems boosted, and improve the quality of our sleep – among other things.
When choosing alcoholic beverages, it’s also worth having an idea about which ones are higher or lower in calories. For example, a 125ml glass of prosecco contains 86 calories, a 210ml serving of gin and slimline tonic contains 155 calories, a pint of 5% beer contains 239 calories, and a long island tea has over 700 calories.
Choosing healthier alternative drinks when possible can make a significant difference to how you feel over the holiday season.
5. Consider ways to stay active
For some people, a break from their usual exercise routine over the holidays will be welcomed. But, for others, gyms closing over Christmas and a full social calendar disrupting routines will be more difficult to handle.
If you’re missing the post-exercise mental and physical lift, you could consider doing some home workouts – using weights or HIIT training are popular options. Or, if you don’t want to do anything too intense but feel the need to move in some way, you could make use of practices like stretching or yoga.
If you’re already used to home workouts, you may already have the equipment you need. This could include weights, resistance bands, and a yoga mat. Though, if you don’t have this equipment to hand, there are plenty of ways you can improvise; for example, by using water bottles as weights, or a towel as a mat.
And, the holiday season is a great time to get out and go walking – it’s generally quieter, and frosty (or even snowy!) conditions can create some beautiful scenery. Walking is also something that’s just as fulfilling to do alone, as it is with family and friends.
Check out our articles, 8 health benefits of walking and how to stay motivated, 17 creative ways to increase your daily step count, and 12 rewarding activities to do while walking, for ideas on getting the most out of walking.
6. Dance like no one’s watching
The holiday season is supposed to be fun, so why not get your family and friends dancing with your favourite party playlist?
Dancing can help to boost the party spirit, and is also a great aerobic exercise that’ll raise your heartbeat and get those endorphins flowing.
Vigorous dancing for an hour is a full body workout and even dancing for just half an hour can burn 200 calories.
If you’re alone, then why not dance by yourself? Some of the best dancing happens when nobody’s watching.
Or, if you’d rather take a more structured approach to dance, you’ll find plenty of ideas in our article; 11 online dance classes for beginners.
7. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep
It’s common for our sleep patterns to become disrupted over Christmas and the New Year.
So it can help to try to maintain as much of a routine as possible. Not only will this boost our mental and physical health, but it’ll also make us less likely to snack on sugary foods for extra energy.
If you can, try to give yourself a cut-off point to go to bed, even on nights you know you’ll be staying up later than usual. It can also be useful to set an alarm for a reasonable time the next morning. This doesn’t have to be really early, but it can help you avoid sleeping in until lunchtime, and pushing back your bedtime the following evening as a result.
The holiday season can also be a sad time for some of us, and this may cause issues with sleep too. In this case, offloading your thoughts into a journal before bed can help to ease strong emotions – or you might find it comforting to listen to an audiobook or podcast as you drift off.
For more tips and advice on getting a good night’s sleep, you might find it helpful to visit the sleep and fatigue section of our website.
Final thoughts...
We hope that you’ve found these seven tips for staying healthy over the holiday season useful.
Generally speaking, the holiday season is a time for enjoying ourselves and having a well earned rest after a long year, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t look after our health during this time too.
When it comes to feeling happy and healthier, the key to success usually lies in moderation and balance. Making an effort to stay active in between periods of relaxation, getting enough sleep, and drinking more water can make a big difference to how you feel.
Do you have any additional tips on staying in shape over the holidays that you’d like to share? We’d be interested to hear from you in the comments below.