Holiday Stress and What to Do About It

Let’s talk about stress. The holidays are prime time for stress between holiday shopping, holiday parties and events, traveling and more! Research indicates that more than 38% of people notice increased stress during this time of year, and as many as 53% of people experience feelings of financial stress during the holidays as well, regardless of creating spending budgets or scaling back on gift giving efforts.

An additional reason that stress is so high during the holidays is the unrealistic expectation and pressure of being “jolly” or “happy” during this time of year, stemming from the pressures of traveling, taking time off work, over-commercialization, the feeling of a lack of time, creating the perfect meal or holiday display and financial constraints. Another term for what was described, is called “the happiness trap.” When we set such high expectations for ourselves, we’re setting ourselves up to fail, and that stress multiplies.

If you feel as though you’re struggling with stress this holiday season, you are not alone!

New Sun offers some fantastic stress-relieving products that you may find will help you handle this time of year with ease and grace! All of our products are all-natural and safe to use whether they are supplements, essential oils or tinctures and can help to chase away the holiday blues!

Keep reading below to see our recommendations!

How to Help Your Cardiovascular System Help You

Your cardiovascular system works hard to make sure every part of you is functioning properly. When your cardiovascular system is working well, your body is getting the vital nutrients and oxygen it needs to survive. But when things go awry, waste can quickly build up in your body, causing long-term health conditions or even death. Here’s everything you need to know about your cardiovascular system and how you can keep it functioning at its best!

Your Cardiovascular System: The Basics

Your cardiovascular system is made up of four main components: your heart, your arteries, your veins, and your capillaries. Each of these has a very important role to play in distributing nutrients, blood, and oxygen through your body, as well as helping your body rid itself of waste.

Your heart is a fist-sized, four-chambered organ that contains three layers of tissue, the aorta, and coronary arteries. The heart works continually, usually beating about 60 – 100 times per minute. Each pump distributes nutrients and oxygen through your blood vessels. Your heart also helps carry away carbon dioxide and other waste. It employs your arteries, veins, and capillaries to do these tasks.

How to Stress Less So You Can Feel Your Best

woman sitting on pier Stress. Even seeing the word might cause your blood pressure to rise a little. By now, you probably know all the ways stress is bad for your health, so we’re going to take a more positive, less stressful approach in this article and tell you about all the GREAT health benefits that you can achieve when you take measures to reduce stress. Plus, we’ll give you some tips for reducing stress, some of which can help you start feeling better right away. Now, don’t you feel less stressed already? Read more How to Stress Less So You Can Feel Your Best ›

Obesity is Linked to Stress

Obesity and stress Obesity has become an epidemic, and is connected to cortisol, a hormone your body makes when under high levels of stress. We juggle careers, marital and familial needs alongside financial and social obligations. More often than not, we wish there were more hours in a day to check off the to-do list. These things, although usually positive, can still be sources of stress. Our bodies’ reactions to stress varies, but frequently include anxiety, high blood pressure, comfort food overindulgence, metabolic syndrome, obesity, and even increased head colds. But what can you do about this unintended weight gain? The most obvious answer to fight obesity is to manage stress.

Assess stress sources. Stress causes obesity, so what causes you stress? Having a job plus taking care of the kids and helping with their homework, cooking dinner, running errands, and cleaning house – all by bedtime – adds up to a stressful lifestyle. You may have medical or financial issues, a marriage on the rocks, or be starting or ending careers. You get the picture. Life throws stress at us by the bucketful. Make a list and then see if you can balance your obligations differently. Get help cleaning your house. Eliminate commitments that don’t really affect you or your family directly. Set a budget and then live by it so your finances improve with time. If stress causes obesity, then doing what you can to manage stress will help.

Exercise, sleep and diet. Cortisol, our “fight or flight” hormone, isn’t inherently bad, but high levels of it endured over time are linked to obesity. You can’t stop cortisol production, but you can incorporate a healthier lifestyle that is affordable. Increase exercise. Try yoga. Walk around the block or alongside any of this area’s many lakes and rivers. Make sure you are getting plenty of sleep. If you are sleeping six hours a night, make it seven. Or better yet, eight hours. Changing the diet when under stress is hard, but not impossible. Plan ahead. Take veggie sticks to work instead of chips. Start with a salad at dinner instead of the whole pot of mashed potatoes. (Hey, we aren’t judging! We love comfort food too.)

Natural Alternatives. After embracing the above ideas, you may still be fighting an uphill battle of stress-related obesity. Life is entirely a long run thing; keep trying. In addition to watching diet, sleep and exercise, natural supplements are helpful. Try Vitamin B-complex, which is a natural upper. Essential oils like lavender and STR (a natural sleep aid) are also good for stress management. Remember, if you can reduce stress, you are on your way to reducing obesity.

Recognizing stressors, plus managing diet, exercise and sleep are the first steps to fighting obesity naturally. New Sun is here to help you, but common sense says discuss new health regiments with your doctor before beginning your personal war on obesity.

Stress Affects Your Health

There are many sources of stress, which can negatively affect our health. It’s not just the negative ones like divorce, job loss or the death of a loved one, but the things that should be positive are stressful too. Marriage, moving to a new home or getting a new job are examples of good things that cause stress. Ordinary daily stresses can cause health issues such as illness, emotional problems and worry. When we ignore stress management, we become at-risk for obesity, heart disease, diabetes, dementia and depression. And that’s just the beginning. Modern medicine is linking practically every major health issue to unmanaged stress. It becomes an obvious conclusion, then, that taking time out of each day for destressing techniques is essential because they have a positive effect on the whole body.

Stress and the Body. Stress can produce heart attacks and strokes. Obesity is linked to stress. Headaches can turn into migraines, depression and anxiety skyrocket, and aging noticeably accelerates with stress. Furthermore, whatever health issue you may have, stress will exacerbate it. Its clear stress must be managed.

De-stressing the Body. You may not be able to control the things that cause stress, but you can change how you handle it. By embracing a healthy diet, drinking plenty of water, getting enough sleep and exercise, you can counter the stress in your life. Take a walk every day. Join a yoga class. Eat more fresh greens instead of starchy comfort foods. It’s really a lifestyle change.

Mental Health and Stress. There’s a link between stress and Multiple Sclerosis flare ups, dementia and Alzheimer’s progression. Those are physical responses to stress. What’s harder to assess are the emotional responses like depression, anxiety and anger that come with stress.
Self-Soothing the Mind. While taking a walk will help destress the body, it also helps with the mind. Other things that helps clear the mind as a counter to stress are listening to soothing music, meditation and prayer, learning breathing techniques, as well as herbal medications.

Spiritual Stress. It’s not surprising to learn that stress has a negative impact on us spiritually. After all, we are creatures that encompass the mind, body and spirit in one. Stress problems overlap. Feeling down and out is both a mental as well as a spiritual result of stress.

Spiritual Relief. Just as yoga stretches the body and provides meditative exercises that lower mental stress, it also relieves spiritual stress along the way. Soothing music, uplifting reading material, meditation and prayer also yield spiritual help when stressed.

Supplements for Stress. Just as vitamins help balance missing nutrients in diet, there are supplements that help balance how the body handles stress. These include, STR, Tranquility, Calcium, B-Complex, bee pollen and Max Relax.

Stress is usually an environmental factor we cannot control. Not every day can be sunny and 75 degrees, cruising with the sunroof down. We know stress affects nearly every aspect of our health. The whole-body approach to health, which includes physical, mental and spiritual health, is the most common-sense way to combat stress. My New Sun is here to help. Check out our website for more information.

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