how to ditch the Holiday Blues

This holiday is magical for many with stockings, snow ball fights, santa's lap shots, and classic Chevy Chase movies. But there's a dark side to the season that some of the GetHSH community may be struggling with.

If you've been boozing and indulging in holiday treats the last three weeks you might be finding yourself with a hint of apathy masking as depression mixed with fatigue that heightens end of year anxiety. So here's a few steps that help me snap out of a cold weather, sugar binge, holiday party marathon coma and start to get back on track and hit the New Year energized & inspired.

1. Realize it's the food and the weather.

The sugar of the holiday season really throws our system off. We're already craving more fatty sugary foods with the colder weather trying to pack on our pounds to insulate from the weather. Add the abundance of treats and we can quickly find ourselves addicted to the insulin cycle which induces depression making us literally a victim of the SUGAR BLUES.

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2. Focus on your body when your head starts to run amok.

Start your morning connecting to your body. A couple morning moves make a big difference in starting the day right.

A)Grab your 3" massage balls, lay on your back, and roll out your glutes, sacrum, and spine. Sends blood flow to waking muscles, creates presence and perspective.

B) Hamstring Stretch into spinal twist. Lying on our back grabbing each calf. Then, grab one knee at a time and twist across the body to wake the spine and internal organs.

C) Ab Stabilizers: Lying on your back with your hands over your head pressing palms into the wall, lift one bent knee to 90 degrees slowly dropping it down to a toe tap on the floor and gently repeating on the other side. It wakes up the abs and reminds the brain of all the miraculous ways the body moves and stabilizes. It's the one move that gets me out of my head & appreciating my body.

3. Get back on the lemon water > Vitamins > Protein Shake > Greens train... Especially if you really don't want to

A two day cleanse of sugar and alcohol + 30 minutes of cardio & a little stretching do wonders for mood and jump start the will to power through the last of December.  .

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If you're like me and feel like a little waddling sausage thanks to past poor party food choices, email me at gethealthysexyhappy@gmail.com to be added to our accountability cleanse group through the end of the year. I need a reason greater than myself to put down the 10th bite of Christmas chocolate.

BREATH WORK is an energy booster the yogis use to increase life force / pranayama. Try breathing through one nostril at a time by closing the other creating a cycle of focused oxygen. Start with 10 breaths on each side for an invigorating reset. 

4. Don't overthink the New Years Resolutions thing.

A New Year does not need to equal a new you. You have complete permission to be just as unique and awesome as you currently are while slowly working toward meaningful goals. Let's get through December together, realize the winter blues are a fleeting thing and connected motivation will return, rock the holiday parties in sequined fabulousness, embrace the cheer of traditions, and get back on the sleep, nutrition, exercise, breath work train.

Because we deserve to feel good... damn it!

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GETHSH is a wellness blog dedicated to researching the variables in the formula to feeling good. All suggestions should be reviewed with your licensed practitioner and taken on your own free will.

3 treatments that keep your body happy through the Holidays

Let's reverse the holiday sitting, travel, extra stress, parties in heels, reduced sleep, extra sugar and alcohol and put our bodies back right.

1. Acupuncture: 

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Who would have thought that needles = bliss? Hold the heroin jokes, we're talking acupuncture.

While I can't tell you who decided to track the energy channels in the body or how they figured it out, I can tell you it works amazingly well.

After a consultation to assess what's hurting and general imbalances in your body based on your pulse, color of your tongue, and your verbal complaints, the acupuncturist places very thin needles along the energy channels in the areas associated with that ailment. 

Once placed, you lay back in your chair or massage table and chill / sleep for the next 30-60min. It takes 24 min to reset the nervous system so plan on reaping the extra benefit by getting a good meditative rest in while the energy blocks are being removed.

HEALING BENEFITS:   Nervous System Reset ... Neurotransmitter Building ... Reduces Inflammation

2. Chiropractic Body work

Our hips get out of alignment, our neck gets tight, our hamstrings lock up and pull on our low back. Life's rigors, can leave us tight and in pain. Chiropractors help keep our body supple with access to full healthy motion.  They get us realigned and ready to start fresh in a happy, unstuck skeletal system.

Finding a good chiropractor to get your body back on track is one of those lifes kills super savvy adults have mastered. While I'm not in love with the idea of my favorite practicioners being booked, I do feel obligated to share my 2 favorites in SF.

Dr. Natasha Barnes of Embrace Health in the Marina (Chiro Medical in SOMA until Dec 23rd) and Dr. Mike Lord of Avanzare Chiropractic Sports Therapy near the Presidio in Cow Hollow are my reset button. I can't say enough good things about their knowledge of the body, their positivity, their healing abilities, and their bodywork skills.

 At a chiropractic session, you can expect to be checked for misalignments, have your muscles loosen with massage, electrical stimulation, or heat pads, and then adjusted after being placed in various positions to gently move your bones back into position. The chiropractor will give you suggestions to strengthen the surrounding muscles to make the temporary fix more permanent. 

These skeletal adjustment stop the overcompensation, irritation, and misalignments putting the hiccup in our giddyup. I can't recommend these tuneups more and feel best when I go 2-4x/month and do my strength training so I don't slip back in to misalignment.

3. Massage

Two massages a month is considered preventative medicine for our overworked bodies. During the holidays, aim for at least 1 professional massages per month and 4+ ten minute roll out sessions per week.

I carry my $5 myofascial release balls (shown >) everywhere I go and leave a set in my car. They go slightly deeper than my beloved roller and are perfect for travel.

They release my glutes and hamstrings on long flights and car trips and allow for spinal, shoulder, and neck release against a wall or on the floor. The best bodywork store ACOLOGY in Santa Monica sells them in a variety of sizes along with every other massage tool you can imagine. Lacrosse balls are a harder version and tennis balls do fine in a pinch.

ninja trick:  tape them together with rock tape or kt tape for the the perfect spine release.

Massage not only breaks up tight stuck muscles that may be hindering proper alignment and kinetic function, it also summons healing oxygenated blood flow to the area. My favorite side effect is the natural pain relief / immediate opiate release. Touch is  a magical thing and we deserve to feel good.

 VIDEO on massage ball technique.

Local inexpensive subscription massage places like Massage Envy keep you accountable to getting monthly massages by charging you for the first one every month. We can roll unused massages over to the next month if we don't use them. SF & LA have some pretty fantastic in-home options as well if you prefer. MassageNow.co is a new service that lets you book discounted massages at luxury spas. Code RELAXNOW gets you 20% off the first one - though I haven't tried their service yet.

Let's look at our last 2 weeks of 2014, and book one Acupuncture, Chiropractic, or Massage Session- before our insurance resets to that pesky deductible.

here's to your holidays being painfree & pleasant.

You Deserve to feel Good

BONUS ARTICLE on holiday feel good products from GetHSH girl Caroline Jordan!

3 things I learned about food that changed how I ate

1. Food is information before it's calories

2. Sugar is the enemy in large amounts at one time

3. Thinking of food like an orgasm may help you indulge less and enjoy more.

1. Food is Information:

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When I realized food was  a coding message / language inside my body, I stopped looking at it as just calories for fuel.

Food is actually happy or sad, yes or no, messengers that turn certain hormonal release switches on or off. These switches are how our body stays regulated and how our systems talk to each other.  

 I stopped counting calories and started counting number of green things I ate. Even if I ate more calories in green veggies than I would in a single candy bar, I wouldn't be harming my hungry / satisfied switch (ghrelin / lectin) leading to me eating more later. Nor was I raising my inflammation levels by eating toxins that make it harder to lose belly fat or absorb nutrients.

2. Sugar is the key that opens up the fat storage container door:

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Keeping our blood sugar levels even throughout the day is the key.

When we eat too much sugar at one time, we force our bodies to release tons of insulin to handle this blood sugar crisis (to avoid Diabetic Coma). This insulin quickly shoves sugar into fat cells for storage to get it out of the blood.

way more sugar and fat get stored during these spikes. We can slow this fat storing process by eating less sugar at one time and by mixing fiber with our sugar intake.

This realization changed how I saw dessert or starchy carbs during a meal. Sure I could eat them, but not right next to or with a meal that had tons of fat.

Sugar alone would make me tired, foggy headed, moody, and up my chances for diabetes and other blood sugar imbalance disorders.. But sugar + fat, and I become an efficient fat storing machine.

Any meal that had lots of sugar and lots of fat present would have to have fiber involved and the portion cut in half. I feel better when i Have the butter or coconut oil but ditch the bread. (which has the whole gluten issue on top of simple sugar breakdown).

SIDE NOTE: SUGAR IS QUITE ADDICTIVE & YOU WILL FEEL A NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE BY CUTTING OUT ALL PROCESSED SUGAR AND STARCHY BREADY CARBS LEAVING ONLY FRUIT WITH PEEL AND VEGGIES IN YOUR CARB SELECTION.

SUGAR CAN BE HARDER TO DO IN MODERATION BUT FIBER REALLY HELPS AS DOES GETTING MORE SLEEP TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN CUTTING DOWN. IT TAKES MANY OF US FULL 3 DAY DETOXES TO CURB CRAVINGS AND GET BACK ON TRACK. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF IN YOUR PROCESS.

3. Eating Bad food isn't a deal breaker

I used to get hung up on being rigid with my eating as if that bag of cheetohs was going to end my self worth or future chance for happiness and success. This kind of pressure and cyclical thinking leads to the vicious eating disorder cycle.

Because we are freaking out about caving to a very normal craving, we then binge eat way more than is even enjoyable as we capitalize on our fallen angel status. This not only makes us feel badly about ourselves and worried for our future self control, it also spikes our blood sugar way higher than if we had just enjoyed our chips without the next 4 bags of sabotage.

I now treat food like an Orgasm. The first bite is awesome as is the second and third... Upon the 10th bite, it's not so awesome- so i stop.  I wait until I'm hungry again and can enjoy the awesomeness again maximizing food's pleasure.

Eating slowly & staying present to the pleasure allows us to get the most out of our "splurge food" choices and really maximize our experience while eating half the calories and avoiding a big spike. We'll enjoy it more and give our brain's time to release the "full tummy" signal saving the rest for later when we can love it again.

Don't aim for perfection- it gives food too much power. Aim to correct course as soon as possible & avoid the toxins when we can.

we Deserve to Feel Good.