I am amused when someone asks, ‘Caroline, what are your plans for Christmas?” in September. We spend so long arranging Christmas, and it’s over in the blink of an eye! We look forward to the new year, our annual fresh start…yet months fly past so quickly, and here we are again at Christmas and New Year.
Christmas comes and goes. Take time to chill and relax despite the festive busyness. Amidst the clinking of glasses, vegetable peeling, cream whipping or the chorus of carols, find time to breathe deeply and ground yourself in the present moment. Take off your socks and walk on grass or sand and feel the sea on your feet. You can only be in the moment when the sea’s on your skin!
Christmas does not have to be centred around spending money. Embrace the joy of giving/receiving homemade gifts, knowing that the love infused in them outweighs shop-purchased products. Give something you’ve lovingly made, baked, or created, e.g., a card, cake, painting, or a Spotify playlist.
The list of homemade presents you can lovingly create and gift is endless. Send loving kindness and thoughts of health and vitality to people you haven’t seen in a while – post a card, email, or phone and arrange to reconnect (while you have the chance).
After Christmas, when the decorations and the house are cleared and your guests have departed, sit with the silence, and let gratitude fill the space where laughter and conversations recently lingered.
Make time to pause, rest, and reflect. Post-Christmas days allow the potential for personal insight. If you’re feeling sad or feeling lonely, it signifies the wonderful time you’ve had or post-holiday melancholy.Take comfort in knowing you’ve enjoyed yourself.
Take time to acknowledge 2023. Make space for introspection and prepare for what lies ahead in 2024. Journal about the learning and events of 2023, parts of which you’ll wish to bring into 2024, some of which perhaps you’d rather forget.
January is about taking baby steps in the right direction towards achieving your objectives. Make time for calm and reflection at the end of the year, and rather than resolutions, write your intentions for 2024. How do you hope to feel, or what would you like to achieve? It might be to play the ukulele, learn a language, or understand Quantum Physics. Write the plan for achieving your intentions and your mental, physical, and emotional wellness practices in 2024. Write about how you will feel when you achieve your dreams/goals/intentions.
Choose one habit you wish to cultivate and link it to an existing routine for better adherence. You might decide that relaxation will become part of your 2024 daily routine. Every time you enter the kitchen, inhale as slowly and deeply as you can through your nose. Hold that breath for a few seconds before exhaling slowly through your mouth – your new relaxation habit has officially begun!
This holiday season, may you find a balance between celebration and solitude, action and reflection.
Wishing you a season of serenity and a new year of living with intention.
www.carolinecrotty.ie
This Christmas will come and go. Take time to rest and relax despite the festive busyness. Amidst the clinking of glasses, vegetable peeling, cream whipping or the chorus of carols, try to make the time to breathe deeply and ground yourself in the present moment. Take off your socks, walk on grass or travel to the beach, walk barefoot on the sand and feel the sea on your feet. You can only be in the present moment when the Irish sea is on your skin!
Christmas does not have to be centred around spending money. Embrace the joy of giving and receiving homemade gifts – the love infused in them outweighs shop-purchased products. Give something you have lovingly made, baked, or created, e.g., a card or cake, a painting, or a Spotify playlist. The list of homemade presents you can create and gift is endless. Send loving kindness and thoughts of health and vitality to people you may not have seen in a while – why not post a card, email, or phone and arrange to reconnect (while you have the chance).
After Christmas, when the decorations and the house are cleared and your guests have departed, sit with the silence and let gratitude fill the space where laughter and conversations recently lingered. Make time to pause, rest, and reflect. Post-Christmas days allow the potential for personal insight. If you’re feeling sad or lonely, it can signify the wonderful time you’ve had or ‘post-holiday melancholy’. Take comfort in knowing you’ve enjoyed yourself.
If Christmas is lonely, which it is for many, remind yourself that you’re allowed to feel however you feel. Then do something that helps you improve your mood. Perhaps you might arrange to go somewhere new for a change of scenery. Rest assured that Christmas will be finished in a day so you might light a candle for people you miss, for those who cannot be with you at Christmas. Keep them in mind and reminisce on the lovely times you’ve had together (which is why you miss them).
Take time to acknowledge 2023. Make space for introspection and prepare for what lies ahead in 2024. Journal about the learning and events of 2023, parts of which you can bring into 2024, some of which perhaps you’d rather forget.
Make time for calm and reflection at the end of the year, and rather than resolutions, write your intentions for 2024. January is about taking baby steps in the right direction towards achieving your objectives for the future. How do you hope to feel, or what would you like to achieve? It might be to play the ukulele, learn a language, or understand Quantum Physics. Write the plan for achieving your intentions and mental, physical, and emotional wellness practices in 2024. Write about how you will feel when you achieve your dreams/goals/intentions.
Choose one habit you wish to cultivate in the new year and link it to an existing routine for better adherence. You might decide that relaxation will become part of your 2024 daily routine. Every time you enter the kitchen, inhale as slowly and deeply as you can through your nose. Hold that breath for a few seconds before exhaling slowly through your mouth – your relaxation habit has begun!
May you find a balance between celebration and solitude, action and reflection.
Here’s wishing you a season of serenity and a new year of living with intention.
I find it fascinating that Halloween originated in Ireland. Ancient Celts celebrated the festival of Samhain when it was believed that the souls of the dead returned to Earth. Druids lit sacred bonfires, wild costumes were worn, and the Celtic deities were appeased with offerings. It was a festival of great fortune-telling and I’d bet there wasn’t a pumpkin in sight!
Perhaps you might select a local event this month, head out, and get involved. Connection is a vital element of feeling good about ourselves. Conversely, loneliness can have a profoundly negative impact on our health and well-being. Try to connect with others and embrace the fun aspect of October.
“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” (Jim Goodwin / Sydney J. Harris)
At work, I often ask, ‘how do you relax?’. People respond that they watch television, lie on the sofa or have a glass of wine. Whilst these activities are pleasant, they’re not relaxation skills. When we are healthy, we rarely pay attention to our breathing. However, controlling the pace of our breath is itself a relaxation skill. When we master breath control, we are better equipped to manage our worried or stressed reactions.
Humans encounter stressful situations. We cannot control the future or prevent unpleasant events, but we can learn how to relax our bodies and minds with diaphragmatic breathing. Because we differ, we relax in different ways. We owe it to ourselves to discover which relaxation skills best suit us as individuals, then practice and hone our favourite skills.
Diaphragmatic breathing can help improve focus and is used by singers, divers, and athletes
to improve lung capacity. Breathing too quickly can make us feel dizzy or even a little anxious. Taking slow, regular breaths can help us control worried or stressed thoughts and anxious feelings, and help us feel more relaxed and in control.
To control your breathing, place one hand on your chest and the other on your tummy. Inhale slowly through your nose, and imagine your breath is filling your abdomen like a balloon. The hand on your tummy moves. Some pause for a couple of seconds before breathing out slowly (I exhale through my mouth). The hand on your tummy moves as you exhale. The hand on your chest remains still. (This is where practice is required). Repeat this ten times twice per day. You don’t need to use your hands once you master diaphragmatic breathing. You can use this relaxation skill anywhere, anytime.
You’re breathing into your lungs while consciously engaging your diaphragm, focusing on your breath while reducing physical symptoms of anxiety.
This Halloween, enjoy doing something different, eating barmbrack, playing snap apple or apple bobbing, going trick or treating and practising your diaphragmatic breathing!
www.carolinecrotty.ie
And with anxiety, comes self-doubt. “What if I get a panic attack when I’m in the supermarket?”. We might try to visualise what could happen if we start to feel anxious in a public place? What will I do if I feel anxious at the hair salon or in a queue for a gig? Racing thoughts come with racing questions “What if I feel unwell?” “What if I faint?” “What will I do if I’m dizzy?” and, before you know it, you’ve worked yourself up into a frenzy of horrible thoughts accompanied by horrible anxious feelings and there is no sense of calm about anything. Sometimes the whole world can seem unsafe and scary.
Hot summers often render people feeling anxious. If I associate being hot and sweaty with feeling anxious then a hot summer is bound to be tough because your brain (and body) are trying to figure out what the heat means!
Our thoughts are crucial to how we feel. When we start thinking of worst case scenarios like not being able to cope when we are down the hair salon, the world can become frightening. We might become a little nervous about going too far away from home – just in case we need to come home in a hurry if we are not feeling great. Home is where we feel calm. Home is a “safe place” and sometimes when we are very anxious feeling that we are too far away from home, can mean that anxious feelings and anxious thoughts take over.
We might be nervous that anxious feelings might strike because we are away from home. This often leads to people not enjoying or living life to its full because they are nervous about feeling anxious in a public place.
Being fearful of fearful feelings. But, think about this – our bodies do not know where we are. If we were unconscious or under general anaesthetic, our bodies could be in Barcelona or Bantry and we wouldn’t know! Often, therefore, our thoughts contribute to our symptoms and feelings of anxiety.
When we have several thoughts or worries at once, that can signal our bodies to react. If our mind is focused on stressful thoughts, or on too many things at once, or panicking about potentially feeling panicky, anxiety levels in our body can increase and remain high.
Learning how to focus our thoughts on something calm/ or peaceful can help us feel calm and able to manage our anxieties more effectively. Rather than letting our minds wander off with worst case scenarios, we can focus on our breath.
Our breath is a great point of focus.
Focusing attention on breath and breathing can reduce the anxiety response in our body and help us remain calm and in control.
Everyone can learn how to focus on breath and breathing whenever we feel that we are getting a little anxious. That is very powerful – to be able to control how we feel simply with our breath. I find this fascinating and encourage everyone I know (everyone who will listen to me that is) to practice calm / deep breathing because, in my experience, it is life-changing.
Focusing on breathing can help us stop focusing on anxious thoughts. We can learn how to slow down our breath, helping us stay calm.
Most often, our anxious thoughts and busy lifestyles mean that we breathe as if we are only using the upper parts of our respiratory system. This is an overly simplistic way of explaining this but the reality is that as adults, we rarely breathe so deeply that our tummies move. We might even hold our breath without realising it. Newborn babies breathe with their tummies rising and falling, however, as adults we rarely do.
Calm/Deep breathing increasees the volume of breath that enters our lungs. Calm / Deep breathing helps alleviate anxiety by slowing down our heart rate, relaxing our muscles and allowing us the opportunty to think more rationally and clearly.
So how do we breathe deeply?
Sit or lie down comfortably. Close your eyes. Place one hand on your tummy which will help you feel your tummy rise. Place your other hand on your chest or heart. Imagine a round balloon in your tummy with the opening at the top, close to your lungs. Inhale. Imagine your breath filling that balloon. As you inhale, your tummy will rise. Think about your breath filling your lungs from the bottom up (in the same way that an empty bottle fills with water from the bottom up). When you are ready to exhale, allow the air out of your body from the bottom up, emptying the balloon first, then your lungs and upper chest. Repeat this until it feels comfortable.
Initially, deep/calm breathing can feel a little weird and you might even begin to feel anxious. This is perfectly normal and it happens because you are not accustomed to breathing in this way and your body/mind are trying to figure out what’s going on.
The more often you practice this new skill, the more familiar it becomes. Take your time, practice calm/deep breathing when you are at your most relaxed so that you will be able to use it when you are not relaxed. Inhale through your nose. Exhale through either nose or mouth particularly as you are learning how to do this.
Anxiety tips: Tell someone you trust about how you feel. Sharing a problem and worry can give you perspective. Don’t face your worries alone. Counselling, psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can be effective for treating anxiety symptoms / anxiety disorders. Eat well and regularly. Reduce caffeine and alcohol and cigarettes. Exercise: anything that increases your heart-rate and gets you sweaty helps alleviate anxiety!
www.carolinecrotty.ie
Christmas is almost here! Some of us will be thrilled with this and some of us, less so. Christmas can be a time of great joy or huge stress (or both)! Christmas can be a difficult time, particularly when it is the first Christmas without a loved one or when there has been a change to the family composition. Every first is tough following a life change so aim to do things at your own pace and remember to be kind to you.
Here are some “dos and don’ts” for Christmas 2018.
Don’t overdo it and exhaust yourself – remember to make time for breaks, rest and relaxation.
Don’t try to do everything yourself – delegate and ask for help.
Don’t rush. Slow down; taste, smell, enjoy and savour every moment.
Don’t assume everyone shares your expectations for Christmas. Respect that others may not have the same plans or traditions (‘each to their own’).
Don’t drink too much alcohol. Enjoy moderation. Same goes for food – a little of what you fancy does you good.
Don’t react. When something is upsetting you, bite your tongue and come back to chat about it when you are in control.
Don’t get into debt because of Christmas. Spend within your budget. Santa loves bringing one present to each child, perhaps with a surprise!
Don’t get too distracted during the holidays by fussing, tidying, cooking etc. Be present for your loved ones.
Don’t hold grudges. People make mistakes. Forgive easily so you can enjoy Christmas in each other’s company.
Don’t stress about Christmas. It will come and go but what memories will you have?
Don’t argue with family, friends or with anyone – it’s not necessary. Discussion and debate are fine.
Don’t take things too seriously – have fun, laugh, play, smile.
Don’t expect perfection. It is not attainable. Good enough is good enough.
Do take responsibility. Whatever you do or say and how you behave – these are all within your control and are your responsibility. You are an adult, be accountable for your actions.
Do engage in activities that you enjoy with people who are easy to be with.
Do say you are sorry when you get something wrong. Own up. Apologise readily, especially to your children.
Do pay attention to your feelings. If you are not in great form, ask yourself what you can do to improve your mood and act.
Do try to disconnect as much as possible from technology and reconnect with friends and family.
Do write three things every day for which you are grateful. Count your blessings, not your problems.
Do ensure you get enough physical exercise to help you remain calm particularly at what you know will be potentially stressful times.
Do remember that although it takes two people to argue it only takes one to stop. If you are right about something, there is no need to prove someone else wrong.
Do face each day with a positive outlook. Look for the things that are right and good.
Do speak positively about and to others.
Do something today and every day this December for which your future self will thank you!
Every best wish for Christmas and beyond xxx
www.carolinecrotty.ie
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