Look after yourself

Christmas can be a hard time, bringing loneliness, sad or bitter memories of times past and people lost.

Or maybe the Christmas season just reinforces your sense that your life isn’t what you wanted, with the ‘perfect’ Christmas day always on the TV, but not in your own home. Forgetting things, being disorganised and out of control, losing the plot and having a major falling out with someone in the family – these are all surprisingly common experiences right now.

If that’s how Christmas affects you, you need to make this a time to take care of yourself with space, patience and kindness. Often in these circumstances we are harsh self-critics, beating ourselves up what we should have done, why things have turned out like this. Perhaps we judge other people too and constantly replay why they acted in such a way. All of this thinking pulls us into a downward cycle of negative thought.

New research shows that being kinder to ourselves has powerful effects on how we cope with life’s stresses. By accepting that we will make mistakes, by forgiving ourselves without judging, we can feel soothed and calmed.

We know self-care is important, but self-care often gets pushed to the bottom of our priority list. Part of the problem is that when people think of self-care, they think of things like massages - which are great - but they are also expensive, and time-consuming.

Great tips

Self-care can be short and sweet, simple and cheap so try one of these:

• Snuggle up under a warm fuzzy blanket and just sit. Daydream. Wonder. Think.
• Savour a warm cup of your favourite tea or coffee.
• Take a short nap.
• Give yourself a gentle hand massage with a Weleda hand cream.
• Put on your favourite music and dance, sing or do both.
• Bake something that smells and tastes yummy.
• Go to bed early.
• Take a bath with a Weleda bath milk. Or take a long hot shower with a Weleda body wash.
• Organize a drawer or closet in your house that’s been driving you crazy.
• Do something crafty — draw, paint or make jewellery