Sound impossible?

It can be a challenge. The world around us uses Christmas as a marketing scheme. It’s all about money, gifts, and more, more, more.

But, you can be the one to change it. You can feel healthy, peaceful, and blissful this month. Here’s how:

4 Weeks of Health, Bliss & Peace

1. First, Focus on Health:

Keep a Health-Focused Mindset: Even during December, you can enjoy 4 weeks of health through a great diet and lifestyle. How? Realize that the “Holiday Season” is really only a few Holiday days. So, on those days, when getting together with friends and family, go ahead and live a little.

On the other days, keep practicing your healthy habits. You’ll feel so much better about any “cheat” days if your day-in day-out healthy habits are intact and consistent.

Healthy Holiday Eating: On non-Holiday days, eat according to the Beyond Keto plan. Eat plenty of vegetables, healthy fats, and lean proteins. Focus on seafood, extra virgin olive oil, greens, avocados, and other anti-inflammatory high-antioxidant foods. You can find the whole plan here.

Get Outside and Stay Active: Even in cold weather, it feels great to get outside! Make walking a habit. Or, find other outdoor activities you enjoy. Outdoor activity, even when brief, promotes improved moods and psychological well-being (1).

Don’t Quit on Health: It’s easy to think of December as a month to quit on your goals. To let yourself slide because New Year’s is just around the corner and you’ll refocus then. There are two major things about this mindset that really hurt you:

• One, you can completely sabotage all the amazing work you’ve done all year to lose pounds or get healthy in just a few weeks of “letting go.”
• Two, people who go into the New Year with strong healthy habits in place are much more likely to meet New Year’s goals than those who “quit” during December and then try to re-engage in January.

Finish the year strong with a healthy December!

2. Next, Embody a Peaceful Spirit:

Practice Gratitude: To start, look back at the year and think about all you have for which to be grateful. Think about any loved ones, family and friends, experiences, lessons, love, and God. Meditate on the good gifts from God you’ve received.

Then, write them down. Maybe you’re keeping a gratitude journal. Or, maybe you just like to think of things for which you’re grateful. Either way, focusing on gratitude is one of the best ways to end a year, celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, and move forward. Not only does it improve mental health, decrease stress and cortisol(2), it can also reduce the risk of depression, chronic diseases like metabolic syndrome and more (3). Gratitude brings peace to our minds and bodies!

Get Extra Sleep:  Adequate sleep also promotes peace in our minds and bodies. In fact, many studies now show that sleep is crucial for immune function, fighting chronic disease, and brain health (4). Most experts agree that you need at least 6 hours of high-quality sleep per night, and preferably 8-9 hours. Make sleep a priority this month.

Stress Less: Next, there’s Divine Health Stress Less Drops. This amazing formulation from Divine Health uses your body’s natural “stress-reduction” parasympathetic system to encourage calm moods, clarity, healthy energy pathways, better sleep, and balance. In fact, it’s made of liquid ionic trace minerals in distilled water that include 85 trace minerals harvested with care from Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

Lastly, Enjoy the Bliss:

Choose Optimism: Even if it’s not your natural tendency, choose to practice optimism and increase your bliss. Amazingly, God has given us a simple solution to longevity, health, and joy. It’s optimism. Believe it or not, studies show increased optimism practices actually equate to longer life, in both men and women. In addition, optimistic people tend to be healthier and happier during their lives with less depression and levels of stress.

If you are a naturally more pessimistic person, don’t worry….you can be optimistic that you can at least partly learn optimism. Studies have concluded that approximately  25% of optimism is genetic (9), leaving 75% to attitude and our choices. These same studies show we can create habits of optimism in just 2 weeks of intervention with prayer, meditation, journaling, and gratitude(10). Take joy in a positive outlook this month!

Focus on People: Despite the overwhelming focus on material things this time of year, you can choose to focus on relationships and people. Slow down long enough to find joy in the present moment. Don’t rush though. Don’t focus on materials. Instead, let those around you, rather than gifts, bring joy!

Remember that Jesus is the Reason for the Season: The best way to experience joy in December? Focus on Jesus. His birth, His life, His sacrifice, His forgiveness, and His promises. There is nothing this world offers that compares to Him. No matter what’s happening in your life, you can find forgiveness, new life, and joy in Him.

Pray: Want more joy and bliss in your life? Pray. Connect with God. No matter what you are facing, the practice of daily prayer, and prayer throughout the day, can change everything. Prayer is a wonderful gift for spiritual health. Prayer is thought to increase the secretion of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine. These compounds decrease cortisol while promoting relaxation, joy, focus, and motivation.

Bottom Line

Let’s turn December from a whirlwind into a peaceful, joyous, and healthy month. Let’s start a trend of finishing the year in calm bliss rather than frantic stress. Use December to continue healthy habits and catapult you into next year. Don’t give up on health and peace this year. Instead, slow down and enjoy the most peaceful time of the year.

The post 4 Weeks of Health, Bliss & Peace appeared first on Dr. Don Colbert, MD.

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But, there’s great news! As you turn your eyes towards God, you can take steps to turn your stress into joy, and your ashes into rejoicing. Ready? Here are our 7 steps for summer joy.

7 Steps for Summer Joy

1. Determine What is Joyous to You

It can be very easy to try to keep up with the Jones every summer. The best vacations, the best kids’ camps, the best parties, even the best yards.

Instead of comparing your life with the highlights of others, first step back and decide what is truly joyous to you.

Is it time with family? Movies? Prayer walks? Gardening? BBQ’s and lawn games? Sunday evening dinner? Camping?

Don’t let the image of a picture-perfect life sway you. Decide on your own simple goals for the summer, without any input from social media which tends to induce depressive moods, not joy, in us (1).

2. Stressed? Name the Source & Make a Plan

Of course, just determining what brings joy to you is not the same as dealing with your stressors.

They’ll still be there. And likely, many will also be there. But here’s the thing about stress and anxiety: it’s easier to deal with when it’s brought into the light.

How do you bring it into the light? You name it. You talk about it with someone you trust. Even if you can’t make it “go away,” it can become smaller and less scary.

First, name your stress for the next few months. Maybe it’s:

• Finances
• Juggling kids and work
• Unrealistic expectations
• Allergies and/or sickness
• Loneliness

Take time to name your stress. Everyone has it. Here are also some ways to deal with it: Combat Stress with 11 Daily Habits, including Dr. Colbert’s Nano Glutathione Spray, calming breathing, and more.

3. Cast Your Cares Upon Him in Prayer

You’ve named the stress. Now, pray about it.

Why?

First, prayer gives control to God and releases it from you.

Second, while it may not change the situation, it will change your own heart toward it.

Third, it helps you focus on truth and the present. When we worry, our minds run amuck with concocted fears that will likely never come to fruition. This physically depletes our minds and our bodies.

Corrie Ten Boom said, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”

And truthful prayer? It does the opposite.

4. Give Yourself Grace & Positivity

In 2nd Corinthians Paul admonishes us to take captive every thought that stands against the knowledge of God. When you’re stressed, how do you talk to yourself?

Does it bring you toward God, or away?

So the kids are home and the house is a mess, you’re not accomplishing everything you wanted, and you’re too busy. Don’t berate yourself, but instead take negative thoughts captive.

Then, replace them with truth.

You can find truth in the Bible. Truth of God’s endless love for you. Truth for joy in your life. We’ve listed verses below, they are a great start.

5. You Don’t Have to Do Everything – Unclutter Your Schedule

If the summer season turns into a rushing-around do-everything season, choose to say “no” more often. Busy schedules almost always increase anxiety, in both children and adults (2).

When determining what activities to keep, decide if they are joyous for you and your family or not. You get to make this determination. Do what’s best for your people.

As for the activities you must do, try to find joy in them. Listen to praise music, pray continuously to invite God into the activity, and again, use these amazing Anti-Stress Daily Habits.

6. Practice Gratitude and Optimism

You’ve heard it before: practicing gratitude and optimism can decrease cortisol and anxious thoughts, while increasing joy (3).

How can you practice? Try writing down specific gratitudes each day. You can tell others. You can tell God.

What’s more, practicing gratitude helps to improve optimism. While some optimism characteristics are innate, others can be learned. And, as we discuss in this article, optimism might just be the fountain of youth!

7. Write His Words on Your Heart. Try Memorizing These Verses about Joy

God instructs us to keep His words, to write them on our hearts. It’s an amazingly powerful practice, and can give you the encouragement you need, right when you need it.

Consider finding a few passages or verses to memorize this summer. Or, try these verses on joy:

Psalm 16:5-11: Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;  surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Habakkuk 3:17-19: Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.

John 15:9-17: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.”

Bottom Line

This summer, joy can be yours. Look to God and His promises. Forget the fools’ gold around you of keeping up with others. Simple joy can be found each day this season.

The post 7 Steps and 3 Verses for Summer Joy appeared first on Dr. Don Colbert, MD.

For some, it’s not.

It’s estimated that 20% of all Americans worry that holiday anxiety may actually affect their health. This is especially true of women.

There are specific reasons experts believe the holiday season increases stress.

If it affects you, you are not alone and there is hope.

Here are 10 steps you can take to decrease holiday anxiety and choose joy:

10 Steps to Reduce the Holiday Anxiety and Find Joy

1. Name and define your source.

It’s difficult to move past any issue you can’t first identify or name.

Some common cause of holiday anxiety are:

• Extra financial burden
• Grieving a loved one
• Unrealistic expectations
• Stressful family members
• Loneliness
• End-of-year work stress

Take time to prepare this year. Figure out what worries you, and name it.

2. Turn your worries into prayers.

Then, pray about it.

Why?

First, prayer gives control to God and releases it from you.

Second, while it may not change the situation, it will change your own heart toward it.

Third, it helps you focus on truth and the present. When we worry, our minds run amuck with concocted fears that will likely never come to fruition. This physically depletes our minds and our bodies.

Corrie Ten Boom said, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”

And truthful prayer? It does the opposite.

3. Take negative self-talk captive, and replace it with Truth.

In Second Corinthians Paul admonishes us to take captive every thought that stands against the knowledge of God. Outward and inward.

When you’re stressed, how do you talk to yourself?

Does it bring you toward God, or stand against?

So the house is a mess, you’re behind schedule, and things will go undone. Don’t berate yourself, but take negative thoughts captive.

Then, replace them with truth.

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him….” (Psalm 103).

4. Focus on people rather than stuff.

Unfortunately, the holidays have been hijacked by materialism. If you find joy in giving gifts, that’s great. If anxiety, choose to spend time rather than money.

There’s no shame, and often more joy in this.

In fact, the finances surrounding the first Christmas were dismal. And the gifts?

Few, but heartfelt.

You can choose time together and only a meaningful few gifts.

5. Allow yourself time and space to grieve.

If you’ve lost or are separated from a loved one, grief may simply be necessary.

If buried, it can cause guilt, fear, and anger.

Allow grief to be and give this to God, too.

6. But, don’t go it alone.

Surround yourself with support. If you have loved ones available, reach out to them. If not, find support.

Loneliness is a true epidemic at any time of year, but local churches, small groups, pastors, and clubs can all be great support.

7. Unclutter your schedule.

If the holiday season is rush, rush, rush, choose to say “no” more often. Busy schedules almost always increase holiday anxiety.

The extra activities bring joy to some, and stress to others. If it’s stress for you, choose a simpler peaceful holiday season rather than a busy one.

8. Identify physiological reasons for wintertime depression.

The holiday season coincides with less sunlight, colder weather, and hormonal changes in our bodies.

What can you do?

First, daily, get outside for 20-30 minutes in sunlight. Sunlight improves moods and gives increases Vitamin D production, a vitamin linked to mood and health.

Next, if you live at a latitude north of Atlanta, you likely need supplementation.

In research, just 1000-2000 IU Vitamin D per day can improve blood levels, mood, and health outcomes (2).

9. Practice Gratitude:

As discussed in 9 Habits to Decrease Cortisol, practicing gratitude can decrease cortisol and stress.

In fact, keeping a gratitude journal is great practice for mental health during the Holidays and year round.

10. Define your joy based on realistic expectations and actions.

First, let go of the perfect Christmas images you may have from childhood memories, stories, or films.

Then, set your expectations based on your own life, in the present tense, and on things you can control.

You can’t control others’ actions, but you can yours. Attend a favorite Christmas service, spend time with a specific friend, or take time to be still and embrace God’s love.

Then, choose to define this as a joyful Christmas.

Simple, actionable, and realistic.

Bottom Line

This year, you can have a joyful holiday season even if you struggle with depression, anxiety or stress. Don’t let a busy schedule, materialism, or even dark days steal your joy. Your anxiety can be named, and given to God. Your joy can be based on a God who loves you.

The post Holiday Anxiety? Steps to Find Joy. appeared first on Dr. Don Colbert, MD.