There are very different types of Christmas experience.  Some are traditional family get togethers with activities organised around the Christian theme of the season: trips to Midnight Mass followed by celebration meals and family reunions.  This is sometimes held up as the ideal Christmas!

Many of us don’t have this type of Christmas and some of us certainly don’t want it.  So what alternatives are there to the traditional Christmas? What can you do to get some feel good hormones flowing?  Here are some thoughts!

Alternative Christmas Story

There are so many activities that you can do on 25^th December that don’t involve Christian worship, huge amounts of food or getting together with people who you maybe really don’t like! We know certain activities release delightful endorphins in our brains leaving us feeling calmer and happier. So why not focus on an endorphin releasing activity that you can do rather than focussing on what you can’t do or perhaps don’t have.

Exercise but not extreme exercise!

Do you remember the Wombles of Wimbledon Common? If not, they were children’s cartoon characters from the early 1970’s! One character called Tomsk sang a song “Exercise is good for you. Laziness is not” It turns out he was well ahead of his time!

We know now that gentle exercise stimulates the brain to release our wonderful feel good hormones – endorphins! This happens whether you are doing exercises sitting in a chair, going for a gentle walk or running a sprint.  What matters is that you do exercise appropriate to your level of fitness. It is meant to be gentle and comfortable not painful!

So, over the festive holidays try to up your exercise. If you normally do chair yoga once a day try it twice a day. You get the idea!

Get a bit of nature

The connection between good mental health and nature is a well proven fact.  There are many studies about this.  Lackey et al wrote a systematic review and found that “contact with nature generates an increase in positive emotions and feelings of vitality, and a decrease in negative emotions: it also provides relief from negative tiredness and an improvement in our attention span” 

So, it is a fact that being in nature is good for us. It calms our nervous system down reducing anxiety and depression. But did you know that simply viewing nature can boost your mood and reduce negative feelings. Even if you can’t go out simply look at pictures of trees, flowers, birds – maybe on TV – this will help lift your mood.

If you can go out, do! Whether you live in a city centre, the suburbs or the countryside try to get out for a walk.  The streets will be quieter, and you can wander at leisure taking in your surroundings.  If you can walk to an area with trees, grass or plants even better. Take time to notice the sensations that your five senses are picking up. What sounds are around you? Can you hear bird song, music or children playing? What does the air feel like on your skin? What can you smell? What can you taste – maybe take a flask of coffee with you and stop for a warming drink? What can you see?

While you calmly observe nature your brain is releasing feel-good hormones. You might even be driven to a smile – and that’s a whole new level of feeling good!

The power of a smile

It’s a fact that smiles are contagious.  If you approach someone with a smile on your face the chances are they will smile back.  There’s chemistry in a smile.  When you smile the very act results in the release of endorphins – feel good hormones.  So, by smiling you are making yourself happier and spreading that happiness to others.

Here’s the smile process

1. The brain reacts to a positive stimulus by releasing endorphins
2. The brain also sends a signal to our facial muscles to contract and smile
3. The contracting muscles fire a message back to the brain to say “Wow we are feeling good”
4. Our brain then releases more endorphins, and we feel even happier!

So, we have this positive feedback loop

You can fake this message too.  If you just smile, without any positive stimulus, the smile process still occurs. So simply by contracting your facial muscles and smiling you will feel happier!

Random acts of kindness – give and you get

Random acts of kindness are well documented.  We know that we feel good if someone does a kind act for us. But did you know that giving also creates a feeling of positivity in the person doing the gifting?  This doesn’t have to be a monetary thing.  Giving can be a simple as helping someone across the road, checking in on a neighbour or volunteering for a charity.   

The science behind kindness

There has been plenty of research about the effects of kindness.  To be clear the researchers define kindness as more than behaviour. “The art of kindness means harbouring a spirit of helpfulness, as well as being generous and considerate, and doing so without expecting anything in return. Kindness is a quality of being. The act of giving kindness often is simple, free, positive and healthy.” (Mayo Clinic Health System)

So you can’t do one random act of kindness each day and then be mean spirited the rest of the time – you won’t get the same results. Kindness has to be your philosophy.   But get this, “Kindness has been shown to increase self-esteem, empathy and compassion, and improve mood. It can decrease blood pressure and cortisol, a stress hormone, which directly impacts stress levels. People who give of themselves in a balanced way also tend to be healthier and live longer”

So having kindness as our philosophy, how we react to situations and face daily life, can actually make us healthier, happier and we’ll live longer.

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible”. Dalai Lama

To summarise

Whatever you do this festive season don’t judge yourself against others just focus on getting a good blast of endorphins each day. You can’t go wrong! 

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