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CENTRE YOURSELF: A morning ritual to help you stay healthy (and sane) this holiday season

Last updated: March 26th, 2019

The holiday season gets busy. And with all the added busy-ness, taking good care of ourselves is often the first thing we neglect to do. Many times in the past, the stress of the season has led to me getting sick right when things slow down after the holidays. But these days, I rarely get sick thanks to a simple, centring morning ritual that helps me manage feelings of stress while keeping my body healthy.

Here are five of the quickest and easiest elements of my morning ritual.

Upon waking, splash cool water onto your face and eyes – This helps to remove any feelings of grogginess and wakes up your nervous system, which in turn wakes up all the other systems of the body.

Scrape your tongue – Scraping your tongue helps remove built up toxins, not only on the tongue but also throughout the GI tract. This is because the tongue is reflective of the organs of digestion, so scraping the tongue helps to stimulate these organs to work more effectively. You can use a tongue scraper such as this, or the edge of a spoon works as well.

Drink a big glass of warm water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice – This flushes any built up residues in the GI tract while also stimulating your digestive organs to work optimally, so you can better digest those heavy holiday meals.

Practice 5 to 10 minutes of deep, conscious breathing – You can do this either while sitting or lying down. Deep breathing will keep your nervous system relaxed and help you to better manage the stress of the season. And when you practice this in the morning, it helps you take those peaceful feelings with you throughout your day.

Eat a wholesome, hot breakfast – This time of year, we want to begin our day with a breakfast that’s easy to digest and wakes up our digestive fire, such as this simple breakfast congee. This will lead to improved energy levels throughout the day as well as better digestion overall.

After doing these five things, go about your day as usual, and you’ll be more present to enjoy the blessings of the season!

Read more suggestions on how to effectively deal with the stress of the holidays in DREAMING HEAVEN: 6 tips on how to not get derailed this holiday season>>

[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]by Debby Anderson

image: Images by John ‘K’  (Creative Commons BY-NC-ND)