Tag: stress relief

Mental Health, Mindfulness, Seasonal - Holidays

Daily Candle Rituals for Stress Relief This Holiday Season

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Skip the expensive self-care products. This holiday season, strengthen your spirit with the oldest ritual in the book: lighting a candle.

Here’s why it works: the simple act of lighting a candle signals your brain that it’s time to pause. That flame becomes focal point, a micro-meditation.

The simple act of lighting a candle can ground us when holiday chaos peaks. And it’s my favorite way to bring some warmth and comfort into my home!

Your new daily candle rituals:

  • Morning reset: Light a candle while you drink coffee. Watch the flame for 60 seconds before checking your phone
  • Evening wind-down: Light a candle during dinner prep or while journaling. Let it mark the transition from “doing” to “being”
  • Stress relief: Feeling overwhelmed? Light a candle, take three deep breaths, and watch the flame dance

Lighting a candle is all about the intentional pause you’re creating.

Try this today: Buy a pack of tealight candles and light one during a transition in your day. Notice how it shifts your energy!

I bought cute little candle holders from the dollar store and 6-hour burning time tea lights from amazon. They bring me so much joy and help me slow down :p

Share your thoughts below!

Healthy Habits, Mindfulness

Box Breathing Technique

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Calm your nerves with this easy breathing exercise:

1. Breathe in for 4 seconds

2. Hold for 4 seconds

3. Breathe out for 4 seconds

4. Hold for 4 seconds

5. Repeat

Let it all go, relaxing deeper with each exhalation

Imagine your chest is a screen that allows feelings and energy to flow through freely

Use this technique as needed, no matter where you are

Goals

Spend time in nature

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Hi all! I’m writing to you from a tree hammock that I set up in Pennypack 🙂

I just finished up doing my daily mile – today was hiking hills!

The park is so refreshing with all the plants and animals, the fresh air is unmatched.

I always leave feeling happy and inspired.

Whether it’s a hike in the park, doing some gardening, taking a walk around the block, deep breathing…

Spend time in your inner world. Nature.

Goals

Find your sacred spot

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It could be a little nook in the corner of the house, your bedroom, a writing desk, where ever you feel relaxed and inspired.

Fill your space with things that bring you joy…

Plants, pillows, a candle, blanket maybe, some good books, incense, a journal.

Use your sacred space to set morning intentions, as a retreat to decompress, when you need a lift in spirits, when you want to ponder or create.

Play some Classical Relaxation or Native American Flute on Pandora to set the mood…

And enjoy this sacred place you created for yourself.

Goals

Legs on the wall

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Hi all! I’m currently writing to you with my legs up on the wall. 🙂

When we sit or stand for long periods of time, it can hurt our blood circulation. Our legs and feet can even become swollen, or worse…

So when we put our legs above our heart we are encouraging happy blood flow.

I love this pose and you can do it pretty much anywhere – floor, bed, couch, outside, etc.

No wall? No problem. Elevate your legs above your heart using pillows or something similar. Even a slight elevation will work magic.

Getting our legs up and moving them more…

Improves blood circulation, our lymphatic system, sleep, and energy levels…

Relieves pain, swelling, and headaches…

And helps with digestion, inflammation, and bloating.

The more you can do it the better.

Like when you’re reading, watching your shows / vids, creating content (me right now!), pondering about life, napping, & so on.

Leg health is real! Take care of those babies.

Healthy Habits

Breathing Stress Away

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Can deep breathing really help ease my stress? Yes!

When you find yourself getting worked up in a stressful situation…

Taking a few deep breaths is an easy way to calm your mind and nerves.

Deep breathing = natural stress reliever

Here’s how to utilize deep breathing to help reduce stress:

 1. Find somewhere quiet that you can sit comfortably – preferably in a low light area (or even better, a room with candles). 

2. Sit or stand as upright as possible, pretending there’s a string that’s connected the top of your head to the ceiling and pulling upwards. It’s important that you are in this lifted position as this will allow more oxygen to get into the muscle tissues and mind, helping to ease your stress. 

3. Once comfortable, begin to regulate your breathing. 

4. Take a deep breath in (4-5 count) drawing to yourself the feelings of calmness, serenity, tranquility.

5. Slowly exhaling (6-7 count) – imagine your inhale and exhale as one continuous flowing movement.

Deep breathing for stress relief can be done anywhere at any time. Even in a busy place, deep breaths will do just the trick to re-center your mind and ease your nerves.

My Experience with Deep Breathing

This technique has helped me so much through the years and has been a go-to tool for controlling allergy symptoms that I experience from time to time.

For two years, I would sneeze all day every day refusing to take allergy meds. I refused to believe that I had somehow developed allergies and I was searching for a natural way to figure this problem out.

I found what I was looking for when I realized that my sneezing was triggered by stress and dehydration. It took a lot of trial and error to get to this point of discovery (cutting out things from my diet, etc.).

So now, when I start sneezing, I do some deep breathing and drink more water, and my sneezing goes away. This combination works every time.

Maybe breathing will help you in some way too.

Happy breathing!
x Corie