Sleep Well for Better Health

Sleep really is a gamechanger for your health and for your emotional wellbeing but even so, scientists are only just starting to begin to understand the biological role. I know that you know that everything looks better when you are well rested. It’s an essential function for everyone and lack of it can wreak havoc with all kinds of functions in the body, from your lived experience every day, to weight gain, lowered immunity, and increased risk for metabolic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease.

As far as we can tell, the purpose of sleep is for the body and mind to rest and repair, and that process in humans takes between seven and nine hours, which is where the idea comes from that everyone should get eight hours sleep a night. Perhaps you do, in which case I salute you, but many people don’t, and there are always consequences. Your mood, creativity and tolerance are lower than they would otherwise be, and your motivation to eat well goes out of the window.

There will be times when sleep gets a little patchy. However, if you regularly get less than seven hours a night (and it really doesn’t matter what you have convinced yourself you can get by on), I invite you to really look at the impact it might be having on your life.

Sleep has a terrible PR and can often feel like just another thing to add to your to-do list but – for one week – I invite you to really prioritise your sleep and throw everything you have at getting more of it. Then step back and see how you feel. Throughout this guide, I’ll be answering some questions I’m often asked about sleep, reminding you why sleep really matters and giving you some tips to help make sleep your health focus so you have the best chance of a restful night.

What happens when you sleep?

When you sleep, a series of physiological changes take place that allow your body to fully get into a state of rest so that it can repair and prepare for the next day. There are elements that scientists even now don’t understand but – through studying what happens when people don’t get enough – we know that sleep is an essential process. Research shows this time spent resting fulfils a vital function that keeps you healthy. Aside from other actions, sleep removes toxins in your brain that build up while you are awake, so small wonder getting your fill makes you feel more alive!

There are two main types of sleep: REM sleep and non-REM sleep, the latter having three different stages you’ll cycle through each night.

Stage N1 (non-REM) is a very light kind of sleep between being awake and asleep. Your heartbeat, breathing and eye movements slow, and your muscles relax although you might get the occasional twitch.

Stage N2 (non-REM) sleep sees your body go a little deeper into sleep. Your heartrate and breathing are slow, muscles relax even more, and brainwave activity slows. This is the most common sleep stage to be in.

Stage N3 (non-REM) is the deepest level of sleep and the most restorative. It’s the most difficult to wake from and, for some people, even loud noises do not rouse them. It’s here that the body repairs and repairs, builds bone and muscle and the immune system is strengthened. It is also the stage in which sleepwalking, night terrors, and bedwetting happens.

You’ll cycle through all these several times a night. The exact make-up will change from person to person and even from day to day. You’ll know this if you have a Fitbit or a smartphone app that measures your sleep cycles. Some days you’ll spend longer in those deep and restorative sleep cycles than others.

REM sleep is interesting because the brain is very active - brainwaves are very much like those that occur when you are awake. This is when your dreams happen, and it’s not usually considered a restful phase.

A complete sleep cycle takes about 90 minutes, and you’ll typically go through four to five cycles each night. The normal pattern is N1, N2, N3, N2, REM.

Why am I not sleeping?

There are a multitude of reasons, but here are some of the main ones that I see with my clients:

SLEEP

Too much stress is one of the most common reasons my clients struggle to sleep. It doesn’t have to be ‘big’ stuff like divorce, bereavement or a house move. It could equally be the relentlessness of daily life – like work issues, family or relationship worries or even traffic jams. Regardless of the source, stress triggers the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in the central nervous system and puts you in fight or flight mode; essentially, a sense of high alert. Prolonged stress means more stimulation of this HPA axis and, potentially, higher levels of stress hormones at night. If you’ve ever felt tired but wired (exhausted physically but your mind is whirring), this is it. Until you can dial down those stress hormones, you’ll have little chance of nodding off.

BLOOD SUGAR IMBALANCE

I’ve often seen clients with blood sugar imbalances created by consuming too much sugar, starchy carbs and refined foods, with poor sleep. They might find it easy to get to sleep initially but wake in the early hours. If you’re riding a blood sugar rollercoaster, your glucose levels can drop too low at night (a hypo) and, if you’re in a light sleep cycle, this can easily wake you up – even in those who do not have diabetes.

PERIMENOPAUSE

Declining oestrogen in the transition to menopause can cause a wealth of hormonal issues, including night sweats and hot flushes, both of which are detrimental to a good night’s sleep. Oestrogen also helps promote deep sleep, while progesterone (another retreating hormone at this stage of life) has a calming and sleep-inducing effect. When their levels fluctuate, it can disrupt the normal sleep-wake cycle and lead to sleep disturbances. Add to that, hormonal fluctuations can also affect mood and increase stress levels. Anxiety, irritability, and mood swings are common symptoms during perimenopause. These emotional changes can make it challenging to relax and fall asleep, leading to an increased likelihood of insomnia or disrupted sleep.

SLEEP APNOEA

Sleep apnoea is a common sleep disorder characterised by repetitive pauses in breathing or shallow breaths during sleep. These pauses (or apnoeas) can last for several seconds to minutes and can happen multiple times throughout the night, waking you up from sleep and, therefore, disrupting your normal sleep pattern. They might be so brief you don’t fully remember them, but they can fragment your sleep enough that you wake feeling unrefreshed.

AGEING

As you get older, there is a natural shift in the ‘sleep architecture’. That means a change in the pattern of the different sleep stages discussed earlier. Typically, older adults would experience a decrease in N3 deep sleep and a higher prevalence of lighter sleep stages. These changes can make sleep feel less restorative and more fragmented. Age is often associated with an increased risk of medical conditions that can also affect sleep – like arthritis, respiratory disorders, and neurological conditions that can cause pain, discomfort, or breathing difficulties that interfere with sleep. Older adults would commonly take more prescription drugs, some of which have sleep disturbance as a side effect, such as alpha or beta blockers for prostate problems and high blood pressure, ACE inhibitors used for blood pressure and heart problems, some antidepressants, and corticosteroids for inflammation.

Work with nature

Have you heard of the circadian rhythm? The circadian rhythm is a finely tuned, natural biological process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle in humans. It is often referred to as the body's internal clock, as it controls the timing of various physiological processes, including sleep, hormone production, and metabolism.

If you want to improve sleep, you need to understand the role that the circadian rhythm plays.  Blue light is the most important factor in regulating the circadian rhythm. For millennia, these rhythms followed the natural daily light pattern, from sunrise in the morning to sunset in the evening. But, thanks to the invention of artificial light, electronics and our modern always-on society, this natural pattern has been disrupted.

Blue light has the greatest impact on the circadian rhythm. You need the right amount of it at just the right time to keep in balance.

You want more of it in the morning, when you’re bright and ready to start the day, and less of it in the evening so your body can increase levels of melatonin, the hormone that facilitates a good night’s sleep.

Most of your blue light exposure comes from the sun, which makes getting an early morning work in first thing an excellent idea. At the other end of the day, you can see why staring at blue light-emitting screens like TVs, computer screens and smart phones is a terrible idea. Too much blue light can, therefore, confuse that internal body clock. This is why that late-night YouTube or Facebook habit might not be such a great thing for your wellbeing.

You're probably now thinking, that's OK because you have the warm-light function on your phone, but scientists believe that it’s not just the blue light that is a problem with devices like these. Phones and tablets are excitatory for other reasons, too. Screentime activates dopamine, one of the ‘awake’ hormones that leaves you eager to find out ‘what’s coming next?’. That’s why your planned 10 minutes on social media leads you down the rabbit hole.

Make sleep really matter

Sleep is free and you could choose to get more sleep (in theory) at any time you like, and this is why people typically don’t make this a priority. The same goes for other free and health enhancing activities like drinking more water. If you are someone who struggles to sleep enough or wakes up feeling unrefreshed, I invite you to make sleep a REAL priority this week. Throw everything at it for a whole week - make it your number one job – and then see how you feel.

Most of the tips you will read in the next blog you will almost certainly read or heard before and for good reason. They’re established facts. The trouble is that it can feel mighty difficult to do them consistently. So, once again, do every single last one you can for a week and experience what life could be like for you.

Choose a week without much going on; just the regular stuff rather than a week filled with social engagements or a busy work week. Let’s call it the ‘sleep experiment’. Put it in your diary as though it were an important engagement. Getting into good habits (people often refer to this as ‘establishing good sleep hygiene’) is the of the very best gifts you can give yourself.

And if you’re continuing to have issues with your sleep, why don’t you get in touch for a free health review? We can look at what might be underlying and see if we can get you sleeping better.

COULD PRACTISING GRATITUDE BE THE ANSWER TO YOUR HEALTH PROBLEMS?

Feeling grateful is more than a nice feeling. The more you feel grateful, the luckier you feel and the happier you are. You’re less stressed and your outlook, more positive. And healthier, too.  Who would not want that? Let me explain how gratitude works and how you can tap into it.

First, let’s be clear what gratitude is. It comes from the Latin word gratus, which means "thankful, pleasing." Gratitude is a complex emotion that involves a combination of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural processes. At its core, it involves recognising and acknowledging the good things in your life and feeling a sense of appreciation and thankfulness for them.

“The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness; a warm feeling of goodwill towards a benefactor.” OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY

“What you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it. Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.” OPRAH WINFREY

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” ECKHART TOLLE

Here’s proof it works:

There is growing evidence that practicing gratitude can have a positive impact on physical health. Here are just a few handfuls of way.

• Better Sleep. A study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research found that individuals who wrote down things they were grateful for before bed reported better sleep quality and felt more refreshed in the morning.
• Improved heart health. In a study published in the journal Spirituality in Clinical Practice, researchers found that gratitude was associated with better heart health. The study found that people who expressed gratitude had lower levels of inflammation and improved heart rate variability, which is a marker of better cardiac health.
• Reduced pain. In a study published in the Journal of Holistic Nursing, researchers found that practicing gratitude helped reduce chronic pain. Those who kept a daily gratitude journal reported lower levels of pain and were more likely to engage in healthy habits like exercise and stretching, which further benefited their health.
• Improved sleep. The Journal of Psychosomatic Research found people slept better and deeper when they practised gratitude – so count your blessings and not sheep!
• Better relationships. When you practise gratitude, you are a better person to be around, and this has an impact on how others relate to you. 
• Lower blood pressure. In a study published in the Journal of Health Psychology, researchers found people who practiced gratitude had lower blood pressure levels than those who did not. The study found those who expressed gratitude had lower levels of stress and anxiety, which are known to contribute to high blood pressure.
• Lowers HbA1c (a blood sugar marker). If you’re a woman, being grateful can also lower your HbA1c markers, which is one indicator of diabetes. Specifically, studies show being grateful to God, but we can take a guess it doesn’t really matter what you are grateful for. The same reduction was not noted in men, but it has also been seen in adolescent type 1 diabetics.
• Helps you reframe situations. Want to reframe negative experiences in a more positive light? By focusing on things you're thankful for, you can shift your perspective and find a sense of meaning or purpose in difficult situations.
• Gratitude generates positive emotions like joy, contentment, and happiness.These emotions can have a range of benefits, including improved mood, increased resilience, and reduced stress.
• Improves social connections. Gratitude strengthens social connections and builds positive relationships with others. When you give love and appreciation, you’re more likely to receive it back.

So, now you know that gratitude is a good thing, I know you’ll want to try it for yourself. Here’s how. 

• Keep a gratitude journal. Set aside a few minutes each day to write down three things you're grateful for. This could be anything from the people in your life to the simple pleasures of daily life. By focusing on the good things in your life, you can start to build a more positive outlook. 
• Express gratitude to others. Take the time to thank the people in your life who have made a positive impact on you. This could be a friend who has been there for you during a tough time, a co-worker who helped you out on a project, or a family member who has supported you in some way. By expressing your gratitude, you can strengthen your relationships and build a sense of connection with others.
• Practice mindfulness. Gratitude and mindfulness go hand in hand. Take a few minutes each day to simply focus on the present moment and appreciate the world around you. This could be as simple as taking a walk outside and noticing the beauty of nature or savouring a cup of tea and enjoying the taste and aroma. 
• Create a gratitude jar. Get a jar or container and write down things you're grateful for on small pieces of paper. Whenever you're feeling down or need a reminder of the good things in your life, you can reach into the jar and read through the notes.
• Start a gratitude challenge with friends or family. Invite others to join you in practicing gratitude. You can set a goal of writing down three things you're grateful for each day for a certain period of time, and then come together to share your experiences and reflections.
• Practicing gratitude is a habit that takes time and effort to cultivate but the benefits are enormous. Start small and be consistent, and over time you may find that it becomes easier to focus on the positive things in your life.

 If you’d like to take charge of your health, why not get in touch? You can book a free call with me here.

How to help your child cope with exam stress

The exam season is just around the corner and, whether it’s SATs, GCSEs, A Levels, or university finals, as parents we want to know we are doing everything we possibly can to help support our children through what could be a stressful period with lots of anxiety.

Don’t assume your young person is OK. There are some worrying statistics.

59% of UK teens say they feel stress about exams (National Citizen Service, 2018)

84% of further education students feel stressed about exams and a quarter say that stress had a significant impact on their mental health (National Union of Students, 2019)

So, what can you do? Having honest and open conversations about how your child feels a great place to start. Simply talking about feelings can make a big difference. Remind them about the support system that is in place – who they can go to apart from you – for help and that they are not alone in this.

To really understand some of the practical steps you can take, it helps to understand biologically what’s happening inside their body. The stress response hasn’t changed much since caveman times and, when we’re faced with a stressful situation, our bodies go into fight or flight mode – stay and fight the sabre-toothed tiger or run. The stress hormones kick in to make it easier to do either of those options. Sugar levels in the blood rise so we have the energy to run, heart rate quickens, palms get sweaty so they can grip better, our focus sharpens – but all functions not essential to the job of running or fighting get put on the back burner. The effect is that sleep is often broken, digestion slows, the immune system is repressed, and appetite vanishes. 

After the stressful event passes, everything should return to normal. But the long, slow approach to exam season, then the exams themselves can mean months of your child feeling in this heightened state. The more they worry, the worse they feel, so the more they worry. It’s a vicious circle.

How can you help?

1. Encourage a good routine. That might be helping your young person set up a good revision schedule and/or getting up, eating, and sleeping at similar times each day.
2. Make sure your child or teen or young adult gets enough sleep. Burning the midnight oil can seem a good plan for older children the night before the exam, but it will leave them feeling shattered the next day. If getting to sleep is a problem, look at sleep hygiene in the same way you would take care of your own – no screens an hour before bed, Epsom salts bath, a little light reading before bed.  You might also try calming teas like ‘night-time’ blends featuring chamomile, lavender and valerian. 
3. Encourage them to take time to rest, doing something they love to do to empty the stress bucket. Similarly, encourage exercise, which can be a great way to lift the spirits and boost energy levels. We’re not talking about intense exercise, which can add extra stress to the body, but moving more generally in a way that feels good.
4. Keep enough healthy foods in the house so they don’t have to pick at sugar or junk foods, which spike blood sugar levels and ultimately lead to a crash in energy later in the day. 
5. A diet that balances blood sugar levels is one of the best ways you can help them keep calm and healthy in exam season. Base meals around a good source of protein like poultry, meat, fish, eggs, tofu and other plant-based sources like chickpeas, lentils, and beans. 
6. Encourage eating plenty of omega 3-rich foods, as these are the building blocks of steroid hormones like the stress hormone cortisol. Find them in walnuts, chia and flaxseeds, and oily fish like salmon, fresh tuna, trout, sardines and mackerel. 
7. Older children should watch how much caffeine they drink, from colas and coffees to energy drinks. These can interfere with sleep, leaving them scrambling for energy the next day, resulting in eating more sugar and drinking more caffeinated drinks, and a vicious circle gets created. 
8. On exam day, make sure they have a good breakfast. Porridge or overnight oats with berries, nuts and seeds wins ahead of any cereal for releasing energy slowly and keeping them feeling fuller for longer. Or eggs on wholemeal toast.  
9. Encourage ‘happy tummy foods’ like probiotic yoghurt and kefir. During periods of stress, you might also consider a probiotic yoghurt to strengthen the gut. 
10. A healthy gut also relies on a variety of different plant-based foods – all the different good gut bugs like something different for dinner. That means plenty of fruits and veggies, pulses, nuts and seeds. Some children are compliant when it comes to eating their veggies, but others might need more persuasion. Consider hiding extra veggies in their favourites if they aren’t so keen. It’s amazing how easy it is to add peppers, carrots and mushrooms cut up very small into a Bolognese or cottage pie!

And if you’d like to discuss this further, why not book in a call with me here?

  

Setting goals that work

Having aspirations is a wonderful thing. We should all strive to better ourselves and realise our dreams. However, you need to keep your feet on the ground. If you set yourself the goal to learn how to play the saxophone with the aim of joining a jazz band, touring New York clubs and by next year, you may be overstretching yourself a bit – and that can be the exact opposite of empowering.
 

Although you may be a great talent, it is doubtful that you’d meet that goal, and realising that at some stage may put you off playing the saxophone altogether. Which would be a shame.

 

The fix: Set SMARTER goals

Research shows you are 80% more likely to achieve your goals if you:

• Make them SMARTER.
• Write them down.
• Make a contract to achieve them.

What are SMARTER goals?

Here are my top tips

• Be SPECIFIC - don't say 'lose weight' or 'get fit'. What does that even mean? What is more effective is to say 'lose 7lbs' or 'run 5K'.
• Make them MEASURABLE. How can you tell you've done them? Weight, waist circumference, minutes run, distance covered, weight lifted, etc.
• Make them ACHIEVABLE. As with the jazz playing, make sure it's something that you can actually do.
• Make them REALISTIC. Don't try to run before you can walk, or you'll be setting yourself up for failure. Set yourself up for success by making your goals realistic - do they fit with your lifestyle, time, other commitments.
• Make them TIMEBOUND. By when are you going to achieve them? By the end of January? By Christmas? Make a date and pop it in your diary.
• Make the goal EXCITING! No one wants to do something dull. Make it exciting. If it's not exciting in itself, think what will be exciting if you achieve it? Being able to run 5K, means you might be able to join a running group, for example.
• REWARD yourself for achieving your goal. What will you do if you achieve your goal? While the goal might be rewarding, actually having something to aim for can be very motivating. What would you choose? 

So, armed with this knowledge, what is going to be your SMARTER goal for this year? Let me know!  Get in touch if you fancy a bit of accountability. 

I'll wait to hear from you!
 

6 expert ways to beat stress at Christmas and feel calm TODAY

It’s meant to be ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ but the pressure of the holidays can often mean a stress overload.

Here’s what to do about it. 

Though you look forward to it all year, when Christmas arrives the experience can be pretty overwhelming. Trying to get everything ready in time can be incredibly stressful, especially for women – a third of whom feel more stressed in December than any other month, according to research. 

And small wonder.  Money worries, family tensions, pressure to socialise, and over-excited children on a sugar high is hardly a recipe for success. And, if you struggle to stay at your happy weight or often turn to food as a way of coping or rewarding yourself, being surrounded by treats and snacks over the holidays rarely has a happy ending. 

Managing stress levels is important for your health in the long term because stress is implicated in so many different chronic diseases, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, depression, gastrointestinal problems and asthma. 

If you’re thinking you don’t fall into the ‘I’m stressed enough to be making myself ill’ category, don’t be fooled. The drip-drip-drip of everyday stress can be as damaging as major life incident-related stress (such as death and divorce), so don’t wait to take action. 

It’s also worth considering that stress makes it very hard to lose weight, and you’re much more likely to store it around the middle. This is because the human body hasn’t evolved much since caveman times, when the extra energy was stored where it was most easily accessed, so it could be used to run away from the sabre-toothed tiger. 

Here are my top 6 ways to keep stress under control in the run up to the holidays: 

1. The 10-minute mind trick: Set aside 10 minutes a day for meditation. Simply sit down in a quiet room with your back supported and eyes closed. Try to clear your mind of all worries. Don’t worry if thoughts bubble to the surface, as this is completely normal! The more you resist the more it will persist. Simply bring your attention back to your breath and continue until the time is up. If you’re new to meditation or need more support, find a guided meditation app or CD to lead you through the process. 
2. Eat regularly: Erratic eating times and skipping meals can lead to a dip in blood sugar levels, which leads to the release of the stress hormone cortisol. It’s difficult when routines go out the window, but try to stick to three meals a day and your digestion will thank you for it. Base all your meals and snacks on protein (meat, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts, beans and seeds), fruit and vegetables and smaller amounts of complex carbs (brown rice, wholemeal bread or pasta). 
3. Cut back on alcohol and caffeine: I know it’s hard, especially at Christmas when socialising revolves around drinking, but try ditching (or significantly reducing) your alcohol and caffeine intake. Caffeine causes a release of stress hormones from the adrenal glands - the last thing you want if you are already stressed! At first, alcohol might help to relax you when you’re stressed out (by promoting the release of GABA, the calming neurotransmitter), but it is quickly metabolised to sugar that can lead to a restless sleep, which leads me onto my next tip. 
4. Prioritise sleep: Get into a sleep routine that includes relaxing practices such as taking a warm bath with Epsom salts, light reading or stretching. Introduce a digital detox at least an hour before bed (that means no phones, no TV, no laptops or tablets), so as not to disrupt melatonin production (the sleepy hormone). A light snack such as an oatcake with almond butter or a banana may help to support undisturbed sleep. 
5. Eat magnesium-rich meals: Magnesium relaxes the nervous system and muscles so eating foods rich in this mineral, such as leafy greens, avocados, sesame seeds and spinach can help reduce stress.  
6. Get to the cause: Look at the root cause to any stress in your life, and think about how you respond to it. If the effect of stress or just general busyness gets in the way of your efforts to stay healthy and you’d like to do something about it, I warmly invite you to book a FREE 30-minute health and energy review with me here.

Set Yourself Up for Holiday Success

In life, we have many agreements – explicit agreements with others about the things we will do or not do and the implicit agreements we make with ourselves about all sorts of things, including how we will eat and live our lives.

When we honour promises to ourselves and others we feel good.

 

Every time you break one of these agreements (including those to yourself) you cannot help but be impacted – even if you feel it’s not such a big deal. But over time, these broken promises build up and, before you know it, you’re just not feeling great about life. You start feeling life is hard or you haven’t what it takes, and your motivation to eat well dips. 

Holidays are often very different to your everyday life and this is why it is critical to create a new set of agreements around what you will or won’t do on holiday. 

That way, you get to keep your word to yourself, and everything is great. When you don’t – and you’ve, therefore, broken ALL your rules - you are likely to find yourself in the nutritional wilderness, continuing to make those ‘holiday choices’ when you return. 

So, the first thing to do is to work out what your new agreements are. You will need to choose whether you have an ‘anything goes’ policy for the duration of the holiday with the explicit intention of returning to your regular pattern when you return. 

Or you take a view on the kinds of things you don’t always do but you want to do more of on holiday. 

The important thing is to be clear which of these paths you are taking. If you do not actively choose, you are in a grey area, which will ultimately end in you feeling unsatisfied because you’re likely either feel deprived or that you have over-indulged.

Be clear on what matters most

If you are choosing to stay close to your plan but you don’t want to eat all the food and drink all the drinks and have to deal with the fallout later, you’ll have to consider what matters most to you when it comes to holidays - and do that but no more. 

Work out what’s important when you go on holiday, what the dealbreakers are that – if they’re not part of the holiday – you will feel it’s incomplete. 

You might love most about holidays is the freedom of not having a specific schedule, catching up on sleep, reading a few of those books you’ve been promising yourself all year. And it might mean a great suntan, letting your hair bleach in the sun, spending quality time with your partner, and having someone else do the cooking. 

When you look back on your summer, it might feel great to know you’ve really rested and recharged, that you’ve laughed every day, and that you’ve enjoyed special family moments. 

You might reflect that, although your summer holidays normally include an ice cream every day just because everyone else is having one, really you’re not that fussed. 

It may work for you to bring a snack with you (nuts are very portable wherever you are) and to enjoy these while others are having the ice cream because that’s what you choose to do. 

Ask yourself these questions:

• A holiday is incomplete without…
• When I look back at my holiday, I want to feel…
• I don’t want to feel…
• When I go on holiday, the most important things for me are...
• Things I normally do over the summer that don’t work for me or I’m not that bothered about…
• I will know I’ve had a great summer / holiday when… (how will you measure it?)

If you are clear about what you want from your holiday – and what you don’t want – you can put a plan in place that works for you and allows you to get the most out of your holiday. And don’t forget to plan for when you get home. How long would you like these holiday rules to apply? 

And if you’d like to know more, why not download my free guide – The Ultimate Holiday Eating Strategy.