Jan 20, 2014 / by Ann-Marie Giglio / No Comments

This week officially begins our nation’s 6 weeks of absolute excess. I’m not sure how it morphed into this, but this is what we do. We over-indulge in everything, and try to share the bounty with everyone we know. This can become stressful. My house will be filled by 3 large dogs, a cat, 2 teenagers and 4 adults all week. And I’m working. I feel the stress even when I’m at the studio! But I have some strategies that help me through. I’d like to share them with you:

First of all, mark Thursday, December 5, 4-6pm on your calendar, grab a friend, and come to our de-stressing “One-Year-on-Canton Street Celebration!” Sweet! Roswell and CoreMatters are co-hosting this event. We will have appetizers from The Mill, lots of beverages, live music and more! This is strictly a party. We want to thank everyone for their support. Come raise a toast–our treat–and relax. Leave your business cards at home!

Get as much sleep as possible. Nothing is more important than sleep. That’s when your body gets to recover from whatever challenges it faced the day before. Try to stay on the 90-minute sleep cycle: get 6 hours, or 7.5 hours, or 9 hours. Don’t wake yourself up in between these cycles! Ok, this is wishful thinking, but aim for it!

If you are enjoying any alcoholic beverages, match each one with a glass of water. So if you enjoy a glass of wine or a martini, be sure to drink a glass of water before you have another one. This way, you can mitigate the dehydrating effect of the alcohol (also known as a hangover). Also, try to eat some food with the alcohol so it doesn’t turn to sugar immediately and get deposited you-know-where.

Take a walk. You can take your whole crew out to one of our lovely parks. But this doesn’t have to be fancy. You can simply step outside your front door, walk 5 minutes in one direction, and 5 minutes back to your house. Either way, you get the benefit of bringing oxygen to your brain and the rest of your cells, use a few calories, and clear some of the stress chemicals from your body. It’s all good.

Get up Thanksgiving day and before you do anything else, work-out for 10 minutes. Do 1-minute of squats, 1-minute of some kind of push-up, do jumping jacks for 1 minute. Repeat in order until you’ve worked for 10 minutes. Work hard and you’ll be calories ahead, so that’s one piece of pie that won’t be sticking around. And your muscles will demand that some of that circulating glycogen (sugar) be shuttled in (by insulin) for use. It’s all good.

It’s as simple as that. Do one of these, do all of these. It’s better than doing none. If you’d like more easy to use wellness tips, work with us. Keeping it simple is one of our Core Values.