It’s the holiday season. Lights twinkle, gifts get wrapped, and plans are in flux. You’re doing your best to keep up with your daily commitments and the extra effort it takes to navigate this season of celebration, gatherings, and giving. It can be a lot, both wonderful and overwhelming.

On one hand, you have extra time to be with your loved ones and take a break from your normal routines. However, there can also be pressure to say “yes” to all invitations, buy gifts beyond your budget, or overindulge in holiday treats. There are more delicious cookies around than usual. Oh, no!

While the holiday season can be joyful, it can also be stressful, making you feel anxious and out of balance. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Recently, I discovered some wonderful grounding practices in “Are You Made at Me? – How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You” by Meg Josephson, LSCW. These strategies help break the cycle of chronic stress, which negatively affects the mind and body.

Stress: “A Flirty Little Loop”

What is the stress cycle all about? Josephson explains, “The body naturally responds to stress – whether it’s real, remembered, or perceived– with tension, and this response keeps stress and tension going in a flirty little loop.” She describes the four-step cycle:

• Stressful Happening – This could be internal or external, such as “an anxious thought spiral or someone doing something to make you feel unsafe, whether or not you actually are.”

• Body Reacts – Your body responds by tensing up.

• Message Perceived – Tensed muscles send signals to the body indicating that “Something bad is happening! This is stressful.”

• Cycle Continues – “The tense muscles cue more anxious thoughts, more muscular tension, and more panic.” These reactions perpetuate the stress-and-tension loop.

Josephson says, “When the mind is tense, so is the body. When the body is tense, so is the mind. By first noticing that we’re tensing up, feeling stressed, we can immediately insert a pause into this automatic process and begin to soften our bodies. Being aware of the stress is what allows us to start to break the cycle.”

I will highlight my top five favorite grounding practices from the 14 that Josephson shared. These will help you reduce stress, feel more balanced, present, and calm.

“When the mind is tense, so is the body. When the body is tense, so is the mind. ”

— Meg Josephson, LCSW

5 Simple Grounding Practices to Reduce Stress and Nurture Balance

These techniques can be used at any time during your day when you feel stressed. It all starts with awareness—paying attention to body signals like tense muscles.

1. Increasing Exhale

Elongate your exhale by doing a few cycles where you exhale longer than you inhale. For example, inhale for a count of 4 and exhale for a count of 6. This technique stimulates the vagus nerve, which immediately activates the parasympathetic nervous system, or “rest and digest” mode.

2. Humming

Keep your mouth closed, relax your jaw, and breathe in and out through your nose while making a sound with your vocal cords. The gentle buzzing sound creates vibrations that stimulate your vagus nerve. Singing or chanting can also work because the larynx (the voice box) is connected to the vagus nerve.

3. Sensing with 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Use your senses to ground yourself by noticing the environment around you right now. Observe what’s nearby, and “Name five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.”

4. Using Your Hands

Research shows that “effective touch” is a stress reliever. This can include self-touch. Notice where you feel tension. Place your hand or palm on that area and breathe deeply. For example, if you’re feeling tension in your chest, put your hand there and breathe several times. This practice is calming and reduces stress.

5. Dancing

This practice feels especially fun during the holiday season. Of course, you can do it anytime. Dancing helps integrate movement and breath. It connects you to your body and takes you out of your head. Play your favorite tune and dance away.

How Do You Manage Stress and Invite More Balance?

It’s the season for joy and delight. But when you’re feeling stressed and off balance, accessing that joy can be difficult. Which of these five grounding practices resonates most with you? What else helps you feel grounded, calm, and balanced?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you feel overwhelmed, disorganized, stressed, or out of balance? Would you like to make progress? I’m here to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – Local feel with a global reach.

Let’s connect! I’m easy to reach.

• Schedule a Discovery Call

• Fill out the Contact form

• Email me at linda@ohsorganized.com or

• Call 914-271-5673

Getting organized is possible, especially with support.

The holidays are quite the time of year. The twinkling lights decorating the landscape cue us to this season of giving, celebrating, and reflecting.

You might be finishing this year’s projects or beginning new ones to continue in the new year. While joy-inducing opportunities are abundant, balancing the holidays, work life, personal plans, and life maintenance responsibilities can be stressful.

There are many ways to bring calm and balance into your life, and I’ve written extensively about them.

Recently, I read something valuable and relevant from James Clear, which I’ll share with you. I hope you find it helpful as you navigate your balance this season.

First, The Back Story

Are you familiar with James Clear’s “3-2-1 Thursday” newsletter? Each issue includes three of his short ideas, two quotes from others, and one question to consider. One of my clients told me about it, and I signed up immediately. I enjoy receiving his weekly wisdom in its easily digestible format.

Two Simple Rules

In a recent newsletter, Clear shared this:

“Two simple rules:

1. You get better at what you practice.

2. Everything is practice.”

He encourages observing yourself and others to notice what we’re practicing. He reminds us that where you focus is a choice. For example, are you practicing…

• “Getting mad on social media?”

• “The fine art of noticing how they have been wronged?”

• Stressing over being stressed?

• Saying “yes” to the point of being overscheduled?

• Not following through on commitments?

• Engaging in negative self-talk?

• Not sleeping enough?

• Accumulating more stuff?

One Insightful Question

Bringing awareness to your practices is essential for changing where your time and energy go. Clear asks, “What are you practicing?”

Do you want to “get better” at nourishing practices? If so, focus on those while reducing harmful ones.

“What are you practicing?”

— James Clear

Here are several of my recent practices:

• Overcoming the fear of doing it wrong

• Meditating and journaling daily

• Reading in the morning

• Connecting with my loved ones

• Enlisting help for a new project

• Setting boundaries

• Writing

• Respecting my energy levels

• Working with virtual organizing clients

Which Practices Will Bring You More Balance?

You have an opportunity to create a better balance this season. What will you focus on during the last few weeks of the year? Which practices can you let go of that no longer serve you? Which ones do you want to invite in?

You have choices. I’m excited to see how this idea can shift your balance. I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support decluttering, organizing, planning, or creating more balance? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – A local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Organization, balance, and ease are possible, especially with support.

Perhaps now, more than any other season, it’s a time of giving. Enticements to shop, spend, and find those perfect gifts, along with increased solicitation requests to make charitable donations, fuel our urge to give. We feel good and balanced when we give. I’m not just talking about physical or monetary gifts.

In the last few weeks, I’ve experienced how giving comes in many other forms.

7 Types of Gifts Your People Will Love

Gift of Time – Recently, my husband and I were invited to share a lovely, home-cooked meal and leisurely conversation with wonderful friends. After dinner, we went to a reading of a new play sponsored by the Hudson Stage Company. We continued our evening out with dessert and coffee at a local restaurant. The gift was in the time spent together.

Gift of Teaching  – My daughter, who is an excellent cook, gave me cooking lessons for my birthday. She is the teacher. Allison created and placed a list of her favorite cooking sites and recipes on a flash drive. The gift includes purchasing the ingredients and making five main dishes and desserts that we’ll cook together. So far we’ve had two lessons. She’s a great teacher and a fabulous company. Cooking, smiling, talking, and wine drinking, all while learning from my daughter.

Gift of Repair  – There are always things that need fixing. I feel lucky that my husband happens to be pretty darn amazing at repairing things when he has the time. Of course, time is what’s in the shortest supply. Recently, he fixed an overhead light by installing a new socket. It’s a light I regularly use that had literally been on the blink for a long time. Every time I turn it on, I think of Steve. I’m grateful for him and his expertise. This was a simple, yet love-filled repair.

Gift of Music – We were at a recent holiday party with live Cajun and Zydeco music. Being that many of the guests were also musicians, they brought their instruments so they could jam together. As they played, sharing their gifts, I listened and danced. It was joyful.

Gift of Warmth – At that same party with the live music, there was also an outdoor fire going. At one point, I found myself outside in the cold air, entranced by the fire. It gave off such warmth. And it wasn’t just the heat. As I sat there, watching the flames swirl and roar, different people came and went, sharing stories, conversation, and laughter. I was warm from the fire and the good company.

Gift of Donating  – Like you, I’m sure there are many local and international charities that you regularly support. We can donate time, money, or both. Some of the charities that I regularly give to include the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, National Association of Professional Organizers, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, Temple Israel of Northern Westchester, and the Croton Caring Committee.

Gift of Gratitude – There is so much to be grateful for, like our family, friends, health, work, and well-being. I’m thankful for my amazing clients and the trust they have in me to help them with their organizing challenges. I’m in awe of their perseverance, creativity, intelligence, and warmth. To express my appreciation, I just launched a Client Loyalty Program, which automatically rewards Oh, So Organized! clients for their ongoing loyalty and trust. To find out more, click here.

It’s the giving season. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to be on both the giving and receiving end. Ben Carson said, “Happiness doesn’t result from what we get, but from what we give.”  I suspect it’s a bit of each – a balance between giving and learning how to receive. What resonates with you? What are you noticing this giving season?