Posts in category: Happier

Tips to De-stress This Holiday Season

The holiday season often brings two unwelcome guests — stress and depression. And it’s no wonder! The holidays present a dizzying array of demands — parties, shopping, gifting, baking, cleaning and entertaining, to name just a few. It’s exhausting!

With some practical tips, you can minimize the stress that accompanies the holidays. You may even end up enjoying the holidays more than you thought you would.

When stress is at its peak, it’s hard to stop and regroup. Try to prevent stress and depression in the first place, especially if the holidays have taken an emotional toll on you in the past, with these 10 easy tips:

1. Acknowledge your feelings. If someone close to you has recently passed away or you can’t be with your loved ones this season, realize that it’s normal to feel sadness and grief. It’s OK to take time to cry or express your feelings. You can’t force yourself to be happy just because it’s the holiday season.
2. Reach out. If you feel lonely or isolated, seek out community, religious or other social events. They can offer support and companionship. Volunteering your time to help others also is a good way to lift your spirits and broaden your friendships.
3. Be realistic. The holidays don’t have to be perfect or just like last year. As families change and grow, traditions and rituals often change as well. Choose a few to hold on to and be open to creating new ones. For example, if your adult children can’t come to your house, find new ways to celebrate together, such as video chatting, emailing, or sharing old photos.
4. Set aside differences. Try to accept family members and friends as they are, even if they don’t live up to all your expectations. Set aside grievances until a more appropriate time for discussion. And be understanding if others get upset or distressed when something goes awry. Chances are they’re feeling the effects of holiday stress and depression, too.
5. Stick to a budget. Before you go gift and food shopping, decide how much money you can afford to spend. Then stick to your budget. Don’t try to buy happiness with an avalanche of gifts. Get creative! Give homemade gifts or start a family gift exchange.
6. Schedule. Set aside specific days for shopping, baking, visiting friends and other activities. Plan your menus and then make your shopping list. That’ll help prevent last-minute scrambling to buy forgotten ingredients. And make sure to line up help for party prep and cleanup.
7. Learn to say no. Saying yes when you should say no can leave you feeling resentful and overwhelmed. Friends and colleagues will understand if you can’t participate in every project or activity. If it’s not possible to say no when your boss asks you to work overtime, try to remove something else from your agenda to make up for the lost time.
8. Don’t abandon healthy habits. Don’t let the holidays become a free-for-all. Overindulgence only adds to your stress and guilt. Enjoy the dessert! And then take an evening stroll through the neighborhood and enjoy the Christmas lights!

   Also, try these suggestions: 

   • Have a healthy snack before holiday parties so that you don’t go overboard on sweets, cheese, or drinks.
   • Get plenty of sleep.
   • Incorporate regular physical activity into each day.
9. Take a breather. Make some time for yourself. Spending just 15 minutes alone, without distractions, may refresh you enough to handle everything you need to do. Find something that reduces stress by clearing your mind, slowing your breathing, and restoring inner calm.

   Some options may include:

   • Listening to soothing music.
   • Getting a massage.
   • Reading a book.
10. Seek professional help if you need it. Despite your best efforts, you may find yourself feeling persistently sad or anxious, plagued by physical complaints, unable to sleep, irritable and hopeless, and unable to face routine chores. If these feelings last for a while, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional.

Toni Buchanan B.A., M.A., M.Ed.
ZOE Academy Director

Go for Your Goals
Start goal setting today

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”
– Tony Robbins

You are ready to make a change, good for you! Step one: set some goals. Committing to specific goals can be daunting for many reasons, including the fear of failure. It is normal to feel this way, but don’t doubt your capability. We are here to help you succeed.

What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to improve your overall health? Do you want to look and feel better? Do you want to feel more at peace and sleep better?

Think about reasonable, specific, personal goals you would like to achieve. Visualize them and write them down. Research shows that writing down goals increases the likelihood of achieving them. Under your goal, write out a checklist of small steps you can take towards accomplishing it.

For example, My goal is to lose 3 pounds this week, in order to achieve this, I will:

• Attend an exercise class three times this week
• Walk 30 minutes a day
• Ask a friend to walk or go to the gym with me
• Not eat after 7 pm
• Only drink 1 soda a day
• Ride bikes with my daughter twice a week
• Stretch or exercise every time I watch TV
• Read the ZOË inspirational packet

Tape your goal list on your kitchen wall, bathroom mirror, or a place where you see it several times a day. Leave room on the paper to add additional small steps as you accomplish more and more. These specific goals are important because they enable you to see that actual steps are being taken toward your goals. Even if you don’t accomplish all of these small steps, don’t feel discouraged, just check off the ones you did complete and feel good about the steps you did take so far.

Tell others about your goals. When you share your goals, you are more likely to be strengthened in your commitment. It also allows others the opportunity to show support or encouragement. Tell a friend, mentor, family member…they might be working on similar goals and you can encourage one another!

How to Stay Motivated

As Zig Ziglar wisely noted, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

Much like daily hygiene, motivation demands regular attention. Today, let’s delve into the art of sustaining motivation throughout your wellness journey. Envision this journey fueled by motivation as a train; it starts deliberately and slow, full of huffing and puffing. Yet, once in motion, it becomes an unstoppable force!

From starting small to finding your driving force, discover the tactics that keep your momentum unstoppable.

Find your Why behind the “What”:

Begin with the purpose of your journey – what propels you forward? Why are you doing this, and for whom? Identify the driving force that makes this transformative journey worthwhile. Take a moment to jot down all the things that excite you about the goal and the journey itself – be it a desire to feel better, look better, a commitment for loved ones, or simply the yearning to build a new skill and health habit. Avoid using the end result as your sole motivator; instead, tap into a more innate drive.

Pro Tip: Try convincing someone to do something you don’t like, and you might end up convincing yourself! According to research by Elliot Aronson, persuading someone else to do a task you dislike can increase your own enjoyment of that task. Pinpointing the positive aspects and then telling someone else can shift your own perception and feelings towards that task.

Write, and Re-write that Daily Reminder:

Surprisingly, don’t stick that reminder on your mirror to see every morning. Your mind naturally adapts to its surroundings, just like your excitement about a new couch fades over time. Similarly, a motivating note or magnet on the refrigerator has an immediate impact, but you’ll get used to seeing it as part of your surroundings. It’s no different than a shirt you keep forgetting to hang up – “Oh, right… I’ve got to get to that.”

Instead, a more effective approach to stay motivated is to write a new reminder each morning. For a constant reminder, consider moving it to different places throughout the day: from your mirror to your car, to your computer screen.

Visualize Your Success AND Your Failure:

When you’re feeling hyped up and ready to crush it, take a few minutes before diving into the work to push you further towards your goal. Clearly picture the sweet taste of success – hitting the goals, sharing with others that you reached your goal, and what that final success looks and feels like. This sets a positive tone for the effort you were already about to make.

And what about those days when you’d rather skip the workout, avoid cooking a healthy meal, or find that thing you’re trying to quit looking really tempting? When motivation is nowhere to be seen, imagine instead what your failure will look like. Spend some time thinking about every negative consequence and feeling that could come with not meeting your goal – the self-talk, the admission of giving up, the abandonment of your “why.” This approach nudges your nervous system, releasing an abundance of chemical helpers – epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine – giving your motivation the kick it needs.

Don’t Let Comparison Steal your Joy:

Comparing yourself to others is natural – it’s literally in our nature. Our instincts to compare ourselves became a way to identify weaknesses for improvement and strengths to enhance our chances of survival. Think of the animal kingdom: animals competing for food, shelter, resources, and even mates! So, while we obviously tend to compare, we can use our consciousness to decide what to do with the comparisons.

If you find yourself comparing to someone close to you, consider reaching out to them for a conversation! You see a strength in them that you’d like to have, and they may have insightful advice on how to get there. Who knows, they may see something unique in you that they strive to have also! Most of all, own your success story as it’s completely unique to you. Celebrate the journey you’ve covered, avoiding the trap of measuring against others as a way to invalidate your progress.

Lastly, Reward Yourself… Randomly:

Ever wondered how social media keeps you scrolling? They call it “random intermittent reinforcement” – a random release of dopamine that your body and mind can’t predict but ensures you keep going. We suggest using that same technique to hack your own motivation! Once you hit milestones, like finishing a run or losing another pound, flip a coin. Keep pushing on if it lands on heads, and reward yourself with tails – a splurge, a night out, a day in, or something out of the ordinary. You’ve definitely earned it!

So, there you have it – our secret sauce to keep that motivational engine running smoothly on your wellness journey. Keep the momentum alive, continue the good work, and move forward with the knowledge that with every action, you’re writing another page of your success story. Stay motivated, stay unstoppable.

Staying on Track

What happens if you cheat while on the ZOË Wellness Program?

Losing weight is not easy. In order to lose weight, you have to really commit to the ZOË Wellness Program and follow the steps. With that being said, we realize that no one is perfect (we’re all human!), so we’ve developed a few strategies to help you overcome any minor setbacks you have while on the ZOË program so that you keep progressing towards your goal.

When you come in for your follow-up appointments, we will compare your new body analysis to your original. We’ll look at what has changed and we’ll ask you questions to see if you have been following the protocols and then tweak a few things to make the program work better for you. We will offer you a solution that fits your needs and is based on your personal strengths and weaknesses.

When you have your 30-day weigh-in, we will focus on ways to reintroduce the things we restricted while you were on the program as well as teach you OUR cheating system. Yes! We actually have a system specifically designed for cheating. No person should feel they have to deprive themselves all the time in order to keep the weight off.

Going on vacation? Want to have cake on your birthday? No problem! We have a very simple 3-day plan that will help you compensate for any weight gain that happened during your “cheat” so that you are able to keep the weight off while enjoying your life to the fullest!