3 Ways to Pamper Yourself This Holiday Season
Guest Blog by Katie Poole
The holidays are typically stressful for many people, but especially moms. Though we try to remember that holiday time should be about taking stock of the year gone by, enjoying our families, loving mankind, and taking fun trips with the kids to see festive lights or visit friends and extended family, the reality of this time of year often also includes the stress of busy malls, the headache of online shopping, and the built-up anxiety from lists of to-dos that seem to be relentlessly neverending.
This holiday season, though, remember that if you don’t take some time to pamper yourself, you will not be able to show up in full force for your family or even your friends. Chances are you have spent a great deal of physical and emotional energy taking care of the people around you this year, and you deserve a bit of a rest.
If you can carve out an hour or two to treat yourself, or even if you only have a few minutes a day, here are three ways you can pamper yourself during the holidays and recharge for the exciting new year to come.
1. Schedule a Relaxing Facial
Maybe you don’t normally take the time to get a facial or would never allocate the funds to gift yourself any kind of skin treatment. Well, this holiday season, see what happens if you make your skin and relaxation a priority. Facials are a great way to rejuvenate your skin, leaving your skin glowing and your confidence strong for holiday events.
Though you will certainly find many different options for facials and can usually find specific versions to meet your needs, during the winter months especially, your skin can get extra dry, causing dullness or even extra oil production to compensate.
HydraFacial is a fantastic option to add moisture to your skin in winter. The treatment is both relaxing and therapeutic and allows you to see instant results while also allowing your products to penetrate deeper after the treatment is over for long-term benefits. Though HydraFacial is a medical grade skin resurfacing treatment, it is very gentle and perfect for even the most sensitive skin.
With each HydraFacial are steps that will cleanse, exfoliate, extract, and hydrate with specialty serums to provide antioxidants, peptides, and hyaluronic acid. HydraFacial will leave your skin instantly smoother and younger-looking, so you’ll have a holiday glow for any special event. If you fall in love with HydraFacial, you might even decide to make it a more regular pampering treat for yourself year-round.
2. Try a Five-Minute Meditation
Don’t have the money or time for a facial? How about five minutes for meditation? Maybe you’ve heard about the benefits of meditation and have wanted to try it, but if meditation is not already a habit or regular practice for you, the prospect of trying to sit still and calm your thoughts might feel daunting.
Luckily, even five minutes of meditation can be extremely beneficial for your mental and physical health; research suggests it can even change the way your brain is wired. By starting with just five minutes a day, you can get into a healthy habit of meditation and significantly reduce your stress levels while increasing memory and focus. Though you might think you will never keep your thoughts from racing, meditation is not about stopping your thoughts but merely allowing them to pass by, noticing them and then letting them pass without judgment.
You’ll be surprised what taking five minutes in the morning and five minutes before bed–or five minutes wherever you can find them–will do for your state of being. Even during the most stressful months of the year, meditation has the power to calm your nerves and clear your head to focus on living more in the present moment. No one is perfect or can be present all the time, but you’ll quickly find that by meditating you start to notice more moments when you are truly enjoying the little things in life–a laugh shared with your kids or spouse, the bright sunshine through a window, or a beautiful song playing on the radio.
We all need more of those moments, especially during the holidays!
3. Read an Inspiring Book
Do you remember a day, maybe a long time ago, when you were completely absorbed in a book, even forgetting what time it was until you were finished? Though finding time to read as a mom, a job that usually requires your attention and effort 24/7 whether you have another job or not, is understandably difficult, you can find even ten minutes to read a book before bed or during school hours or naptime and take your mind off of your own life to vacation within someone else’s story.
Reading offers several benefits, from memory improvement and stress reduction to increased knowledge and inspiration. Though finding a new television show to watch rather than a book to read might be tempting after a long day, you’ll be surprised how relaxing it can feel to sit down with a good book and really get lost in it.
Whether you enjoy fiction, historical non-fiction, self-help, or spiritual reading, focusing your mind for even a few minutes at a time will allow you to give yourself a mental break from all the to-dos on your list. Some books also have the power to change your mind or inspire you with new ideas, offering an exciting new perspective on the upcoming year ahead.
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The bottom line is: find some time for yourself this holiday season! You deserve it!
About the Author: Katie Poole is the content writing and marketing specialist for WIFH, one of the country’s first Concierge Medical Practices specializing in Laser Aesthetics. WIFH is a med spa located in Atlanta, Georgia and is dedicated to providing patients with the highest level of patient care coupled with the best results from skin and laser treatments.
