Fill the season with joy instead of stress with these simple techniques.
The holidays are a wonderful time to pull together your past, present and future into a powerful ball of positive energy that will fuel you all the way into the new year ahead.
Your daily physical and mental patterns determine the quality of your experiences. For example, do you multitask or calmly do one project at a time? Do you take a moment to wake up each morning peacefully? Winter holidays are a perfect time to try out new techniques to regulate these patterns and bring more pleasure into your life.
Quality Experiences
Good energy facilitates quality experiences. When your energy is too low, it is hard to absorb the full vibrancy of the moment. You simply cannot pay adequate attention to the details that will ignite you. Knowing a little about how your physical and mental energy join forces to create experiences can go a long way toward making life even happier.
When you are happy you naturally gravitate toward more positive patterns in your thoughts, memories and feelings.”
When your brain is overloaded with negative or stressful energy, it is difficult to experience life’s joys. For example, say you have family and friends coming over for a holiday party and you discover you forgot a few food items you need. Next thing you know the stress is rising and your sense of organization is diving. To compensate, your brain responds with an electrochemical cocktail that reduces your stress but can sap your energy. Your memories, thoughts and emotions switch on and off daily, also affecting your energy.
When you are happy you naturally gravitate toward more positive patterns in your thoughts, memories and feelings, each one kicking in to spin more joy. When you are angry or disappointed, your mind starts uploading your top five or six annoyances. So if you’re feeling down, you want to flip the positivity switch as soon as possible to avoid winding up in a negative spiral.
How can you take better control of your energy and mood?
Energy Tips to Triple Your Holiday Joy
Becoming more aware of these pivotal mood-changing moments can work magic. Here are a few holiday do’s and don’ts that will show you how to recognize them and help you move your best energy forward into the new year.
Don’t
- Multitask. It lowers your energy, increases stress and decreases your ability to focus on the energetically rewarding details, so it lessens your daily pleasures as well.
- Let unwanted memories distract from your joy. Try this: Whenever you feel an uninvited nerve-wracking memory coming on, play a favorite funny holiday song, like Elmo & Patsy’s recording of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” Lou Monte’s “Dominick the Donkey” or Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song.” Every time you do this short-circuiting exercise, you weaken the negative memory trigger, until it eventually goes away.
- Use aggressive language. It can increase your anxiety and stress, as well as decrease organization and lower your overall energy. It will also extend its influence to others and into daily activities.
- Try to keep up a manic pace. In winter, nature’s energy cycle is waning. Slow down, get creative instead.
Do
- Gently transition to a new day each morning. As you wake up, your body and mind are affected by changes in hormonal and neural activity. You can help this transition by taking a slow, deep breath and emptying your mind. Make this a pattern. Send your memory as far back as you can to a warm and cozy holiday scene from your youth. Consider something you can do during your day that includes one of the details from your memory.
- Create a holiday playlist or set your radio to your favorite holiday music. Tunes that spark positive emotional memories from your past work best. Enjoy the uplifting and peaceful vibes. For an added lift, sing or dance along. Take a silly selfie—the sillier the better! Use it year-round whenever you need a mood shift.
- Make new memories on a holiday sightseeing trip with a friend, partner or family member. Take pictures so you can revisit this positive energy throughout the year.
- Create a new tradition such as donating to or volunteering at a food pantry, or learn how other cultures celebrate the holidays. Take an evening or late-night walk with loved ones.
- Incorporate soothing holiday fragrances into your festivities, such as scented candles, fresh plants or the scent of cookies baking.
- Place the energy of calmness between all your actions. How you enter and leave each daily experience is as important to creating joy as the experience itself.
Listen to our podcast: How to Master Body Intelligence With Joseph Cardillo
JOSEPH CARDILLO, PH.D., is an inspirational speaker and sought-after expert on energy teaching. He is the author of Body Intelligence: Harness Your Body’s Energies for Your Best Life and the body-energy classic Be Like Water. He has taught his methods to more than 20,000 students. Visit josephcardillo.com or follow him on Facebook or Twitter @DrMindFitness.
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