With the holidays just about upon us…stress in every aspcct of life seems larger than usual. It is really difficult dealing with the added stress the holidays add to money, relationships, family and so on…remember to meditate, take care of yourself so the holidays don’t do you in completely.

Be sure to sign up for my three free stressbusting tips and also you can purchase 7 hot tips for lessening your stress from this blog as well. Click on the page with that same title and it can be ordered from there.

Healthful living is more that just diet. It’s important for people to get outside, exercise, listen to uplifting, calming music and do things they enjoy. Stop watching televsion. Television is very conducive to bad eating habits. The commercials entice people to want to eat more of the wrong foods. A person’s home should be clean and uncluttered.  The living environment should be condusive to health, healing happiness and vitality! As a family something we loved to do is sit outside, listen to the birds and eat fruit in the yard together! That is such a peaceful, yet simple and very fulfilling activity.

Music, candles, incense and aromatherapy are great mood enhancers and great de-stressors. These are a healthy way to decrease your stress and increase your quality of life. Music is inspiring and uplifting. Listen to music anytime you need a boost. Music increases your hopefulness and creativity. Music makes you feel good. Like exercise, it causes you to release endorphins which are the “feel good” hormone. It helps you forget about your problems at least temporarily.Candles and incense can be used to create a calming mood. You can use candle colors to further facilitate certain moods. Red increases vitality and energy, orange works as an antidepressant to make you feel happy and cheerful, yellow is uplifting, green promotes stability, turquoise eases tension and soothes, blue is for lowering stress and relaxing violet helps with concentration promotes love and self-confidence and magenta raises your self respect and dignity. Magenta is a confidence builder.Essential oils can be used for many things besides just relaxation and stress reduction. Essential oils are a healthy, reasonably priced, simple way to de-stress.  You can use them in a variety of different ways. They can be put into a spray or a diffuser for use in the air and you can also put them onto your body. Most essential oils put on your body need to be mixed in with oil, lotion or water, a few, however, can be used straight out of the bottle on you. The best oils to use for relaxation are:  Nutmeg, Marjoram, Lavender, Sandalwood, Clary-Sage, Geranium, Lemon, Chamomile, Rose and Vetiver.  Since this is just a short quick synopsis to give you some stress reducing ideas, I will deal primarily with Lavender as it is the most important and versatile oils. You can use Lavender oil to make a great room freshener/sanitizer. Take a small spray bottle, put a small amount of rubbing alcohol in the bottom (slightly less than ¼ of the bottle), fill with distilled water leaving just enough room for about 10 drops of Lavender oil, and shake. Use it in the house as an air freshener. There’s no need to buy those unhealthy air sprays at the store ever again!For headaches, you can rub some Lavender oil on straight on your temples and at the base of your skull. If your skin isn’t sensitive you can add a few drops of peppermint oil as well. Peppermint oil is very strong straight on your skin. I use it and I think it’s fine but each person would have to decide for himself if peppermint oil is tolerable.You can put a few drops of Lavender oil on your pillow to help you sleep if you have insomnia. You can also put it in a diffuser in your room to help induce a great night’s sleep. Baths are very relaxing in and of themselves, if you add essential oils ( a great relaxing combo for the bath is:  8 drops of Geranium, 8 drops of Patchouli, 8 drops of Sage and 8 drops of Lavender) and colored candles, you really have a terrific way to lessen the tension of the day.This is only a drop in the bucket. It’s a very slight introduction on the use of essential oils. They are worth exploring much further to enhance many aspects of your life.

The world is very demanding especially for women and even more so for single moms. It’s very difficult to juggle all your responsibilities and take care of yourself in the process. It is important to take care of and nurture yourself. I’ve put together information on 10 ways to nurture yourself so that you can be a healthy, happy woman. 

Two of the main things are eating breakfast and eating right. So many women skip eating in the morning because they don’t have time. In my opinion, you need to plan better and make the time no matter what. It will help your energy level all day and help you to not overeat later in the day. In the morning, eating “breakfast” is breaking the fasting you have been doing all night so it is critical that you replenish your body with some nourishment to keep up your stamina and vitality throughout the day. 

Healthy habits need to take priority in your life because without your health, you have nothing else. If you don’t voluntarily make time for your health now, you will be forced to make time for sickness later. It’s your choice. Once you get used to healthy habits, your quality of life will skyrocket and implementing healthy habits is actually becomes fun! 

Ten great ways to nurture yourself are:  1) Eat vegetarian at least three times per week—more is better so if you want to do it 100%, that is even better but do it at a minimum of three dinners per week, 2) Exercise 30 minutes per day—get a pedometer and then just walk, park further away, take the stairs, walk while blow drying your hair and brushing your teeth, 3) Meditate 20 minutes per day—find 20 minutes in everyday for quiet time completely without interruptions to go within and get inner guidance on what you need to do to reach your full potential, 4) Hydrate yourself—drink plenty of water, this doesn’t mean pop, tea, coffee or lemonade but actual water. Green tea actually counts but the iced tea you get is black tea and that doesn’t count as water. 5) Increase your intake of fruits and veggies by adding spinach and cooked chopped broccoli to everything, keep frozen fruit on hand to add to cereal and smoothies, add dried cranberries and raisins to cereal and oatmeal, 6) Spend 30-60 minutes per day doing something you love—you should make time each day to do something enjoyable, it could be playing in the park with your kids, watching a movie or reading an uplifting book, no one knows how much time they have so spend your time doing things you love, 7) Take a bath once per week—baths are very nurturing and pampering, get some nice bath stuff (special soaps, scrubs , body wash and so on) and treat yourself to a relaxing, exhilarating bath once a week at a time when you aren’t in a hurry to get somewhere, Cultivate Your Friendships and Support System—make time for friends and family and develop those connections and then when you need someone to talk to or help you , you will have a bunch of people to turn to , 9) Music, Incense, candles and aromatherapy—these four items can be used throughout the day in a myriad of ways and they will uplift your soul and nourish your spirit and 10) Pets—pets are very healing and a great way to unwind and de-stress, pets are great companions if they are part of the family,. Pets are forgiving, kind and loving while the humans you encounter, might not always be

What does your day look like? Today, my son is with his dad so I can actually veg out a little.  The great part about that is that this is the perfect time to nurture myself. I can spend time doing things I love, going places or just relaxing…I’m not a big nap taker but if I feel exceptionally tired, I could even nap!!!

Sunday Oct 28, 2007

I will spend the morning relaxing, writing and taking a bath and then alittle later, I will go shopping for some groceries. Later, my son will be home and then things will get really busy!

I will write what my whole week looks like as a single mom and maybe some of you could share yours…