3 Top Tips to Become a Stress Free Holiday Maker

The shopping centres are abuzz with activity and Christmas decorations are starting to appear everywhere I look these days.
As the mad rush of the festive season kicks off, Better Backs (your Bedfordview Chiropractors) give you a helping hand to make your holiday trip as stress free as possible.

1.) Organise like an Engineer.
Engineers are known for paying meticulous attention to detail so that they can manage various projects simultaneously while still meeting their forecasted deadlines. By planning your holiday effectively, you can remove the stress that comes with preparing for your holiday. Try these simple tasks to minimise your stress:

1. Make a list:
   Make a list of items to pack, 2 weeks prior to your holiday. This way, you will know 2 weeks before you leave, what items you may need to still purchase.
   
   
2. Run through a typical day:
   Run through a typical day from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep and record everything that you use or need. Add these items on the list, as it will ensure you will not leave anything behind. EG. Toothbrush, your favourite pillow, your son’s favourite teddy etc.
   
   
3. Use your smart phone:
   Put these lists on your smart phone. This way, when you come home again, you use the same checklist to ensure you don’t leave anything behind in the hotel. You can also keep this same list and reuse it over and over again for any future holiday you go on.
   
   

2.) Channel your adrenaline
During every day life, our bodies adapt and become so used to running on high levels of adrenaline because of stress, that it makes it hard to “switch off” when we go on holiday. Holidays never seem to be long enough to unwind because it takes our bodies and minds about a week to just “relax”. The best way to combat this is to exercise – swim, jog, play soccer, surf etc. This will channel your adrenaline and ensure that you can get that much needed peaceful sleep at night.

3.) Invest in your health
It is easy to fall victim to over eating and over doing it during the festive season. Try to keep to smaller meals – trade carbohydrates for a light salad or mixed vegetables. It is easier to maintain a healthy body than to try loose gained weight.

As we enjoy the hotter summer days, it is also easier to get sun burnt, especially since most of us hide in air-conditioned offices all day. Research shows that a maximum of 20 minutes in the sun without sunscreen is acceptable. Longer than that, it will increase your chances of getting sun burnt and develop skin cancer. After 20 minutes, apply sunscreen generously to the skin. Always reapply after swimming or after profuse sweating, but to be safe, try to minimise exposure to the sun. Sunscreen up to SPF 30 is the best. There are no proven additional benefits to using a sunscreen above SPF 30.

If you do happen to get sun burnt, having Epsom salts is handy. Dissolve 1 cup of Epsom Salts in a full bath of warm water and soak in it for 20 minutes. It helps to alleviate the sunburn and the irritation on the skin. It will also ease the discomfort.
These 3 tips are simple and easy to follow. Should you have any further questions or would like any more information, do not hesitate to contact us. You can find us at www.better-backs.com