Mindful Exercises for Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! Or is it actually merry for your teen? Holidays can be hectic with all the social gathering, buying gifts, cooking meals and lots of travelling. All these activities involve lots of physical and mental energy. Sometimes these things can make your teen feel like fast forwarding through these holidays, or even skipping them altogether. This is the last thing your teen would want to feel during the holiday season, which was supposed to be relaxing and full of happiness and cheer.

Prolonged stress affects every part of your teen’s body, which can include weakened immune system, stomach ulcers, and results in inflammation in the coronary system, which can lead to risk of heart attack. But with some practical tips, you can minimize the stress that accompanies the holidays. Your teen may even end up enjoying the holidays more than you thought they would.

Make a Plan

Some teens get too tangled up with changes with routine. When do we open presents? Have dinner? Visit grandma? All these things can create a lot of burden on their mind, eventually making the holidays a time of anxiety. It's usually best to plan ahead for any task which you and your teen are going to perform in order to keep a check on it and increase its productivity. Keep things simple and create a written checklist or schedule of the activities for the day. This will reduce the burden of figuring out what’s going to happen next. Moreover, creating a checklist has a positive psychological effect on your teen’s mind, giving them a sense of accomplishment.

Focus on Breathing

Often, teens will be so caught up in excitement (parties, gifts, big meals with the family) that they forget this simple act of self-care: breathing. When you breathe deeply, it sends a message to your brain to calm down and relax. The brain then sends this message to your body to decreased heart rate and lower blood pressure. Counting breaths also works to ground the senses and focus on one thing at a time. One of my favorite breathing exercises is 4-7-8 breathing:

·         Breathe in deeply for a count of four.

·         Hold the breath for a count of seven.

·         Exhale for a count of eight.

Set Aside Differences, Practice Gratitude

Teens might be overwhelmed with having to interact with family members who have different beliefs and values from them. This could cause your teen to want to isolate, manifesting as not talking and scrolling through social media. The best thing about this festive season is that it is a chance to remove those differences and practice gratitude. Make an agreement with family and friends that the focus will be on spreading joy. Instead of getting into arguments about various issues, challenge everyone to say something that they are grateful for. This will help everyone, including your teen, shift their focus to the things that matter and that make everyone feel fulfilled.