5 Tips for Making the Most of the Holidays
For some people, holidays are that time of the year when you can let your hair down, go for a vacation, hold a fancy glass of juice and relax near the poolside. For others, it may be just relaxing at home while reading a book with a hot cup of coffee.
Holidays certainly are meant to let go off the pent up stress unless you realize that you are just running from one “must-see” sight to another. Your intention might be to go on a stress-free holiday, but it can turn out the other way round and leave you more exhausted than before. Everyone wants to make the most of the holidays whether it is to relax, explore new places or disconnect or all of them.
Here are 5 tips to make the most of the holidays:
1. Impossible to check off the complete list
One of the things that can put your mood off the track is exploring as many sights as possible in one day. We know you want to visit every “must visit” places of the destination but you should be realistic while doing that. You can put yourself through more stress and anxiety during the holidays as compared to before the holidays.
Your focus should be on quality over quantity and aim at gaining experiences rather than ticking off all the famous places from your list. Make a list of places you would ‘like’ to see from the places you ‘should’ see. This will help you to prioritize your time without pressuring yourself.
2. Open to learning
There is so much to learn from the places you travel to ranging from the local people, food, customs, to their lifestyle and culture. If you are willing to learn everything you keep your eye on, you will have a better time and will make the most of your holidays. You will be able to go back home with good experience and knowledge.
Wherever you travel, it will have history attached to it followed by monuments, and some famous things to see, making the place distinct. You should inform and educate yourself about the places you visit that will make your experience richer.
Traveling will equip you with experiences for life and will teach you what you can never learn from books. When you travel often, your perspective tends to become wider and makes you understand a variety of things from a different point of view. You will also be able to get a glimpse of the lifestyle of people living in different parts of the world and be grateful for what you have. Traveling makes you look at life from a very different perspective.
3. Be present
In order to make the most of your holidays, be present at all costs. Our thoughts tend to wander in the past or future. Being present is not as easy as it seems. When you are on a holiday, you should not be thinking about what your boss will say when you will come back, or the pile of files that will be piling up at your desk in the office while you are on a holiday. By doing this, you will neither be able to enjoy the holiday nor be able to go back to work immediately.
You should direct your thoughts on being present in the moment to extract and taste the juice of your holidays. Pause, notice the colors of the flowers and smell them, feel the vibe and energy of a particular place and sight. While eating the food, smell and taste it and understand the ingredients behind while linking it to the culture of the country and the influence of culture of the food. Enjoy, explore and understand to the fullest. When you live in the moment, you will learn to live a happy life.
4. Unplug
Keep your phone out of touch and out of sight while being on a holiday. Unplugging from the screens is not easy. The Internet and phones have a strong grasp on our lives which makes the most of our unproductive time. Try to avoid giving regular ‘check-in’ and posting pictures on your social media as what you will remember in the future is the time spent with family on the holiday.
Holiday is a time when you can put your phone on airplane mode without getting frowned upon, so take advantage of it. Disconnect from the stresses of work and home life and make sure to explore new places without being on the phone. Make the most of this break where you can take some time off being glued to the screens constantly and give rest to your eyes while soaking in the natural beauty.
You should focus on a technological detox allowing you enough time to be in the moment and explore the new places. Do not give in easily on your intention to stay away from the technology and do not let your phone control yourself, rather you should control it.
5. Eat good food
It is easy to let go of our healthy diet while being on a holiday. Ask yourself one question putting extra pounds on holiday which later you have to shred, or just maintaining the diet to avoid putting on weight? After getting your answer, you can follow this point where you have to focus on avoiding unhealthy while being on a holiday.
Also, eating unhealthy and unknown food can make your body go on a roller coaster ride which can lead to a bad holiday experience. Of course, you do not want to visit the doctor or be on bed rest on a holiday or reschedule your flight tickets. To avoid all this, you should keep a check on your diet.
We know it is difficult to cook during holidays, but you can opt to make your own food if you have a weak immune system or do not like the outside food. You can take some tips from Ayurveda and include ginger, pepper, cloves and lemon in your diet in order to stay healthy. Ayurvedic cooking classes in India is popular for their importance on staying healthy at all costs, whether in summers, winters or being away on a holiday.
Holidays are fun and refreshing if you can really keep away the stress factor. Refer to the 5 tips mentioned above and make the most out of your holidays.
