Episode 8: A Brief Less-Stress Holiday Pep Talk

This month I’m focusing on managing stress, and we all know holidays can be stressful. I threw out my notes for this episode in favor of a brief heart-to-heart. Health and wellness goals are serious, but sometimes we make them harder than they need to be, especially during holidays. Listen in for 5 quick tips for creating a healthy, stress-free holiday.

Download my free Less-Stress Challenge Guide here for 16 stress management tools and a monthly stress tracker.

Episode Transcript:

INTRO MUSIC: Welcome to The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. I'm Alex Treanor. I'm a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and I am so excited you're here. The wellness industry is full of do's and do not's, should's and should not's. But I like to take a different approach. I'll be sharing all things health and wellness from a joyful, real-life compassionate perspective. If you're ready to drop the cookie-cutter approach and create a life you truly love, while eating a cookie or two along the way, let's dive in.

Hey, friends! If you are listening to this the day it's released, Happy Fourth of July as well. Today is actually one of my favorite days. I don't really know why it's just always been that way. Probably because I feel like the Fourth of July is just the epitome of summer. You get to like swim, be with your friends, family, watch fireworks, just seems like the perfect summer day. So I hope you have a wonderful day today!

Before we dive in with today's episode, I also want to tell you about a challenge that I'm doing throughout the month of July. You may have seen it on Instagram, if you follow me on Instagram. And if you don't follow me on Instagram, what the heck?! Follow me on Instagram, let's be friends! So for those who aren't aware of it, I am doing a less stress challenge throughout July. For the details on it...we're keeping it super simple. The goal throughout July is to make time for proactive stress management on as many days as possible throughout the month.

For some accountability, I'll tell you what that means for me. I am aiming to take at least five deep breaths every day. I typically use a meditation app, but I kind of use it sparingly, on and off, so I'm really going to focus on it. Get that deep breathing in. That's what proactive stress management at a minimum looks like for me throughout this month. Feel free to decide what works best for you, and how you want to approach it. The goal is pretty open so that you can keep it flexible and do what you need to do.

I know the idea of proactive stress management is sometimes a different approach. Often we're used to managing stress after already feeling stressed, so being proactive with it can feel a little bit tricky, or knowing like, what am I supposed to do to manage my stress can be hard to decide. So I did also create a free guide for you. If you need some ideas to get you started. It has 16 different stress management tools that you can use. I also included a 31-day monthly tracker. You can use that throughout July, tally up all the days that you actively take care of yourself, manage your stress, so that you can see that all laid out for you a nice little monitoring tool (to tie back to last week's episode). I will include the link to that guide in the show notes. So if you want a copy, even if you don't want to do the challenge with us, or if you're not listening to this, when it releases, you can still get the free guide. So I'll put that in the show notes for you.

Being that July has the stress management focus for my coaching practice, I had this whole episode planned today on what stress is, how the stress response works, how cool your body is, all these like nerdy details about stress, which I may still use. But I looked at the calendar and I was like, oh shoot, this episode comes out on a holiday. And I had to rethink some things. Because over the 10 years, 10 plus years that I've been a coach, if there's one thing that I know, is that holidays can be stressful, especially when we have health and wellness goals. And even more especially if we are feeling immersed in that diet mentality.

So what I'm doing today, I'm throwing out my notes, we will wait on the nerdy stuff, maybe we'll do that later this month. I just wanted to keep today's message simple, from the heart, just a short, quick message for you.

So today's message is going to be around how to manage your health and wellness goals and celebrate the holidays at the same time and managing the stress that sometimes comes from that.

I just want to give you five simple ideas to keep in mind today as you celebrate. As always, these ideas are just suggestions for you. Take what feels applicable leave what doesn't.

The first thing I want to say is get in the pool. I don't know that you'll have a pool around you today. I don't know that it's warm where you are. I know none of those details. What I mean by getting the pool is to just do the thing. Be in the picture. Create the memory. Do the silly thing. Live today how you want to live today because so often we put this pressure on ourselves, and the stress of it all, and we prevent ourselves from truly living and participating in the experiences that are going to fill our cup and give us the energy, and vitality, and zest and all those things that we enjoy. So today, I hope that you get in the pool.

The second thing I'll say is to eat fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are always great. That's always good advice. But in particular, I feel like when we attend social events or holidays, we're so used to keying in immediately on the dessert table, or the things like "oh, I can't have that. I shouldn't eat that hot dog. I can't have that burger, can't have those popsicles". We immediately check all these restrictions that we need to give ourselves. So when I say eat your fruits and vegetables, I hope that for you, you can walk in and see one or two things, a fruit, a vegetable, that you are looking forward to having something that at the end of the day, even if everything else goes not according to plan, and you feel disappointed in other things...give yourself one thing that you can say, but you know what? I added those carrots to my plate, and I feel good about that. And that was progress.

The third thing I'll say, is eat the cookie. And I put this immediately after fruits and vegetables for a reason. Because I want to emphasize that it's not all or nothing. You can eat the fruits and vegetables and you can eat the cookie. And it's all good. It all works. There can be harmony in your food choices. It all can fit and it can all be part of a healthful, overall nutritious diet.

My fourth idea for you is to joyfully move your body. Maybe that is an early morning workout before the festivities start. Or maybe it's a walk at the end of the day, as you're wrapping up relaxing, getting ready for bed. Maybe it is getting in the pool, or playing in the yard with your kids or doing some kind of activity. But joyfully move your body, do something active, do something fun, not for the sake of burning calories or checking a box on your calendar that you got your fourth workout of the week in. Just for you. Do something fun to joyfully move your body.

And my fifth little tidbit for you for today is to practice self compassion, of course, did you expect anything less? So when talking about self compassion, take a moment to breathe. Holidays are fun because we get to be with our people. We get to maybe be with ourself. We get to have time that's different from the day to day routines that we get involved in. Soak that in. Be mindful. Slow down. Enjoy those connections. Enjoy the food you're eating. Enjoy the activities that you do. And remember that you only get to have today once this is That's it. This is your day; you have enough stress and you have enough pressures on you. There's no need to make today harder. No need to beat yourself up or to overthink things. It's okay to not take ourselves so seriously. I know health and wellness is serious. There are goals and goals are serious, but we can do them in a fun way. And it's going to be so much more sustainable if we enjoy the process. So be self compassionate, take that time to breathe. Take some time for you to really soak it in and enjoy the day.

That is all I've got for you today. Just a couple short things. I hope you enjoy your time. Maybe we'll get some nerdy stuff next week. And if you are interested in doing the less stress challenge with me throughout July, check out the show notes for that free guide and join us on Instagram so we can party together and become super relaxed together. I hope you have a wonderful week. I will talk to you next week.

OUTRO MUSIC: Thanks for joining me on this episode of the compassionate wellness podcast. If this message resonated with you, please share it with someone you care about. I'd love to connect with you as well follow me on Instagram @alextreanor.coaching, or visit my website alextreanorcoaching.com. And as a reminder, Treanor spelled kind of goofy, it's T-R-E-A-N-O-R. For any references mentioned in this episode, be sure to check out the show notes. I hope you have a wonderful day and don't forget to make time for something you enjoy.