Given you likely don’t have the time, or the inclination, to ascend the nearest mountain, take up residence in a cave, and spend each day deep in meditation, how do you bring a sense of peaceful Zen into your life this holiday season? 

The good news is that there are other ways. 

To start with, there’s a good chance there are too many stress hormones floating around in your blood. These get in the way of remembering the calm centre within you. They are designed to give you a burst of energy and save your life in an emergency, but they just keep building up, increasing blood pressure and blood sugar, interfering with the digestive system, and collapsing the immune system. Most importantly, they mean you will approach holiday gatherings with a sense of exhaustion and overwhelm. 

It’s important to start thinking of this situation as a physical health issue, rather than a mental health issue. You need to reduce the number of stress hormones, and there are three steps you can take to achieve this: 

• Slow down your breathing. This stimulates the vagus nerve, and sends a message to your brain that you no longer need the stress hormones pumping around your body. Take a slow deep breath every time you’re waiting throughout the day (whether that’s waiting for everyone to join a meeting, waiting to pay for your lunch, waiting for the elevator, for example). Take one, two or three slow breaths every time.
• Move every day in a way that you enjoy. Movement (exercise) is essential for using up energy and bringing stress hormone levels down. Exercise also turns on our healing genes, to heal cell and tissue damage. It’s also important to enjoy the way you move so don’t join a gym if you hate gyms—find other ways to move.
• Meditate for a few minutes a day. You don’t have to turn off your thoughts or clear your mind. Being human means we have between 60,000 and 80,000 thoughts a day, mostly about the past and the future. Focus on the sensation of your breath moving in and moving out, and when you notice a thought gently bring your attention back to the breath. 

Once you’ve begun to bring down your stress hormones, you have a head start on managing holiday antics and expectations. 

Next, notice what’s going on in your mind. What are you most concerned or worried about? Perhaps it’s that you will run out of time, energy, money? Is it that you simply can’t face Auntie Jo? Thoughts like this should first be investigated for what’s in your control—what can you do to solve this problem? Once you’ve exhausted all avenues of what’s within your control, follow the next three steps: 

• Address your mindset. When you start to notice yourself imagining a negative outcome (like watching a movie play in your mind of some disastrous situation) mentally snap your fingers and say ‘that’s not my experience!’ (because it’s not). Take a deep breath when you’re doing this. 
• Come back to the present. Use your five senses to bring you back to the now. What can you see around you? What can you hear? What can you smell? Oh yeah, I’m right here now, not in the middle of that situation. 
• Investigate your thoughts. What is it that’s causing you such distress? If, for example, your thought is: “This family gathering will be a disaster”, use these questions from thework.com as a starting point: Consider. Is that true? Can I absolutely know that’s true? What’s it like for me when I believe that thought? How do I feel and behave? (I’m already frustrated, I feel tense, I withdraw, I’m angry before I get there.) What would it be like if it wasn’t possible for me to believe that thought? (I would accept that personalities are what they are and focus on the parts I can enjoy.) What’s the opposite thought? Is that at least as true? (I’ll survive the family gathering just fine.) 

Additionally, there are things you can do to support all of the above. Try to provide your body with the following:

• Sleep. Your day starts the night before. Sleep heals your body, has a direct impact on your mental health, and improves the way you manage stress. Practice good sleep hygiene and if you do find yourself going to sleep but waking up at 3am with racing thoughts, try implementing the above steps during the day for improved rest.. 
• Nutrition. Research is now revealing a direct link between what we eat and drink, and our mood and level of anxiety. In addition, 70 percent of our immune system is in the gut, so is directly influenced by what we eat. Practice mindful eating, however, if, or when, you find that you’ve overindulged this holiday season, don’t play the self-blame game. It’s like to happen, so let yourself off the hook, and gently come back into balance.
• A positive environment. Consider the things you let in. Avoid constant negative news. Do you spend enough time connecting with the healing powers of nature? On average we each spend over one month a year on social media and scrolling through apps. This holiday season, plan how you can treat yourself to some you time, doing things you enjoy—it’s not just about everyone else. 

How do you start? Choose one small thing from the list above to do today. Tomorrow, choose something else. Now you’re on your way to finding Zen this holiday season.