Between holiday commitments, year-end chaos, and, in this bizarre year, stress about the pandemic, about work (or the lack thereof) and about the world in general, December can be a bit of a circus.
No matter how well-organized you are, no matter what you may or may not be celebrating, it’s really hard to avoid succumbing to the ambient stress of this time of year.
In the past few years, I have helped reduce that ‘revolving door‘ feeling for myself by employing an easy and short mindfulness practice. It doesn’t eliminate the stress of course, but it gives me a little more space to deal with it and it helps me keep some perspective.
I’m hoping that will hold true for this strange and anxious year, too.
Here’s what I do:
On the first of the December, I choose an instrumental Christmas album and commit to listening to at least one song from the album each day for the month. I might do yoga, draw, colour, or just breathe while I listen but I can’t do anything that even looks like work while the song of the day is on.*
It’s only a tiny thing but it really does help.
This year, to amp up my self-care, I’m also adding a little extra movement to each day.
I *could* frame this as one of my beloved 30 day challenges but that would put it into the category of things I MUST do.
Instead, I’m trying to think of the extra movement as a gift to myself – giving myself a little more time and space to be more fully in my body instead of being mostly in my head.
A gift feels way better than being challenged at this point in the year.
If you like the idea of gifting yourself a little extra movement, I’ve rounded up a few suggestions for you:
Yoga:
Yoga with Adriene’s December Calendar – This year’s theme is ‘Honor’ (or, as we say in Canada, Honour) and is about hono(u)ring yourself.
Movement-based Advent**calendars:
Nutritious Movement’s ‘With a Twist’ Program – This will include daily movements and will likely have a sort of functional-fitness slant.
Darebee’s Full Body Advent Calendar – Both this calendar and the one below will feature short daily exercises and they include a timer right on the page.
Darebee’s Upper Body Advent Calendar – See above.
12 Day Plans:
If you aren’t jazzed about a full month of movements, maybe a 12 Days of Christmas plan will be more fun for you?
Participaction’s 12 Days of Fitmas – this is a link to the information about the program but I think you will need to download their app for the program itself.
*You might be asking: Why doesn’t she do this during the rest of the year with non-seasonal music? It’s because it literally never occurred to her until she was writing this post. Brains are weird, weird things.
**Speaking of things that haven’t occurred to me before: Why do Advent calendars start on December 1 instead of on the first day of Advent?
