December Week 3: Surround Yourself With Pleasure Breaks

We are deep into the holiday season now and it’s a time that we easily get stressed out, overstimulated and then eat to calm down. As masters of weight, we are learning to move beyond this by setting ourselves and our environment up for success. That is what we will focus on this week, staying out of overwhelm and using our environment to help us do so.

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PLEASURE BREAKS

Our mind gets easily stimulated, then overstimulated and then overwhelmed. Research shows that overstimulation leads us to get more emotional, eat more, drink more, smoke more and more!

Research also shows that if you take a 5 minute break every couple of hours and breathe and change up what you are doing, you can calm your mind down and give it a moment to REBOOT itself, just like a computer needs rebooting.

This week, I invite you to challenge yourself to move past the voice that says “I have no time to take a break” and give yourself some holiday season pleasure breaks.  By stopping, taking a break and doing something pleasurable for yourself you are decreasing your stress, reinforcing a new belief that you are worth taking care of, and filling yourself with pleasurable and relaxing breaks instead of fattening holiday food and drink.

Here are some ideas to get yourself to incorporate these mini pleasure breaks in your day:

• Put a five minute break alarm in your mobile phone for every two hours over your day.
• Put a sign on your desk and on your fridge “have you had a pleasure break lately?”
• Put 4 post-its on your computer screen on the left side. Each post it has a different idea for a daily pleasure break…every time that you complete a specific break, move that post it over to the right side of your computer. The goal is that by the end of the day all of the post it’s are on the other side of your computer.

Here are some ideas for a mini holiday pleasure break:

• Go to Youtube and put on some serenity music. They have really relaxing videos that go with the music or sound. Last night, I watched floating candles for 5 minutes while listening to the sound of rain...blissful!
• Make a cup of tea and put your feel up and stare into space, enjoy the warmth of the tea and the quiet moment.
• Close your eyes and just tune into your breathing and think about pleasant holiday memories from the past.
• Dance around to holiday music. I love dancing to the Nutcracker Suite’s dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. It's a great way to burn calories and unwind.
• Take a nap - my favorite! All you need is 5-10 minutes and it resets your brain!
• Write out 5 things you are grateful for this holiday season.

Other ways to keep your pleasure high this season:

• Keep trigger foods out of your house.
• Stock up on veggies and healthy protein rich foods to reach for.
• Bake apples or roast vegetables instead of cookies and have those to reach for instead.
• Call family and friends. Invite them over to sing carols or go out walking and singing carols.

What are your ideas?

Have a wonderful break filled week and see how productive you can be when you are showing up for yourself with pleasure.