How to Beat the After-Christmas Blues
by Susan Dunn, MA, certified Emotional Intelligence Coach

Christmas is an emotional storm, and next comes Valentines, so take a break. Move from emotion to thinking and action.

1.Start planning a Valentines Party, or Martin Luther King Party. If you were running a day late and a dollar behind for Christmas, learn from it. Budget and start sooner, but have the fun of another party on the horizon. NB: Planning is a cerebral activity, i.e., neocortex.

2.Get active - add an extra hour to your daily workout. This creates physical energy, clears the mind, and flushes out toxic emotions. The less you feel like doing this, the more you need to. If youre an introvert, tai chi, yoga or meditation may work better.

3.Clean your house til it shines, and do the work yourself. This is a tradition for New Years in many cultures, symbolic of getting rid of bad stuff and making room for new stuff. Buy a special floor cleaning product. Sweep toward the doors, or vacuum, then remove the bag and carry it out to the garbage. Out! Out! Clean the furniture with something like Murphys oil, a soap and water-based product, not oil. Then clean the floors with the special cleaning product.

4.Clean the yard, shovel away dirty snow, clean the gutters, wash the windows, rake the leaves. It will be time to plant the daffodils and prune the roses before you know it.

5.Take a vacation. Go somewhere warm like a cruise to the Caribbean. The sun will do wonders for an attitude adjustment, as well as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). At home, get outside more, sit in the sunlight in your house for half an hour a day.

6.Hunker down and last it out - read good books, curl up by the fire, sleep, dont fight it. Its a hibernating time anyway. Get massages. Take naps.

7.Start a new intellectual project at work or at home. At home, start a new physical project - building a greenhouse or painting the guest bedroom. It will give everyone a lift. Focus on thinking and moving, not feeling. 8.Kickstart your brain by taking a new course. If youre an extravert, go to community ed classes. If youre an introvert, enjoy yourself online with distance learning coures and take teleclasses.

9.Change your diet dramatically. Do a juice fast, or something very cleansing and healthy within the constraints of your physical condition. Get that sugar and alcohol out of your system and replace it with vitamins and minerals. Dont forget your vitamin C. If you live in an area where its peak allergy time (like texas, USA), watch your diet - its cumulative - the pollen PLUS what you eat PLUS the dust and mold in your house. Get youre a/C ducts cleaned.

10.Get rid of stuff. Grab a garbage bag and fill it with stuff. Put the bags in the garage or barn. Then clean the garage or barn, and get rid of it all. (Nice to donate to charity of course).

If you think you might be clinically depressed, please see your personal healthcare professional.

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