Getting Ready for the Holidays: Relaxing

Feel Good for the Holidays:

Tips from Alternative Medicine—

  Healing Touch, Yoga, Massage, Reike, Acupuncture, and Sound Therapies

This time of year there are all kinds of tips to help us get through the holidays with less stress and more joy.  For many of us, there is so much to do that stress seems much inevitable.  With shopping lists and meals to plan, with work and relatives and traveling, we may want to give up before we even begin.  Wait--before you surrender, consider these tips from the vast world of alternative therapies including practices related to reike and healing touch, yoga and massage, and many others, to help you uncover your joys and dodge the strains and stresses.  If you can take the time and spend a little money ($60-$80 and up), I would recommend a full-body massage for detoxing the body and total relaxation.  Even a quickie shoulder massage at the shopping center can feel great.  Other treatments like reike, acupuncture, or reflexology may involve finding someone to fit your wants and needs, so you may want to explore them in the New Year.  For many people, getting a mani and a pedi can be enough of a break.  

Alternative Medicine: Vibrations, Energy Fields, and More--   The insights of alternative medicine have had mixed reviews in healthcare circles.  Although main stream Western medicine does not accept much of the formal evidence involving energy fields, healing/therapeutic touch, Ayurvedic nutrition, and related approaches, many medical centers are beginning to include alternative practitioners among their offerings.  For most of us, evidence is not as important as our own experiences and how we feel afterward.  In our hospice team, we have tried out some relaxation techniques from the traditions of energy medicine, visualization, and yoga.

Simple and easy is the key.  Ten Deep Breaths: Sitting comfortably, upright in a chair, take ten slow breaths in and out, eyes about half-open or completely closed, to restore your energy and send you back into your day with more hop in your step.  Take ten more and then sit for five minutes to listen to your heart beat.      

When relaxing, if something hurts, don’t do it.  Remember the goal is to let go and release tension and not to tighten up.  Soften your muscles; ease your mind. 

Listen to Your Own Vibrations.  Another of my favorite exercises is best done standing up.  You can bring energy to the body by using gently closed hands to pound lightly starting with the collar bones and moving slowly down the front and sides to your knees or feet.  If bending over is difficult, then pause at your waist or knees and go back up to the top.  You can also use your finger tips to press the tender spots on your face and head, chest, around the waist, and down over the hips.  Make a humming sound to hear your own vibration, or sing a silly song like Happy Birthday or Three Blind Mice to yourself or out loud.  Your own healing touch and movement will renew you.  Remember at busy times, take time to relax so you can enjoy the best of the holidays—the hugs and kisses of family and friends.   Nothing replaces the best of love and caring.