The holidays are here! Learn how to keep your sanity and enjoy your gatherings with less tummy aches and weight gain.

Last week, I posted on the benefits of gratitude and the gifts of the season, including the ones found in our essential oils bottles. The holidays can be a time for relaxation and time to enjoy our loved ones, but they can also be stressful.

To help guide you through the coming weeks, I’ve been blogging on tips to get through the emotional turmoil and to modulate stress, so it won’t hamper your health or mood into the coming year. I also discussed how to handle the junk food cravings that begin with a scare in October and end with a resolution on January 1^st.!

Of course, using our oils to modulate our appetite can help those who struggle with the dessert tray. This is due to their aroma and physiological, biochemical, and emotional properties. Literally, we may find that if we apply a “stress free” blend, it can act as a “secret weapon” to tame our inner “cookie monster” that can take over during the holiday season.

Something that may also help you in your gathering is to honor your own and others’ peaked sensitivity to triggers and events during this time of year. All of our bodies and brains have unique biochemical and biological differences which modify how we perceive and react to our environment. This means what may appear as a “nothing event” to you, may cause havoc in your sensitive spouse. Providing support and cutting ourselves and our loved ones “some slack” during these times can help mitigate some potential heated discussions. In other words, we can learn to not take others emotional outbursts personally, yet respectfully take care of ourselves and our needs.

Dr. Northrup offered a beautiful guide on how to navigate through the holidays while nurturing ourselves. Her short article provides tips from avoiding the food wars to dealing with difficult personalities.

Some of My Favorite Holiday Recipe Resources for the Health Conscious of All Types

• Gluten Free and Paleo – stuffed turkey breasts with butternut squash and figs, seriously, are you drooling?
• JessicaRuthShepard.com–  this is loaded with tasty treats. Besides the 25 page PDF on the homepage, her recipe section includes almond flour shortbread cookies: a delish gluten free holiday treat.
• Dr. Mercola’s Recipes–  check out the flourless almond torte  on the main page and the festive fermented cranberries recipe.
• Eat Right for Your Type Recipes – this is a great find for appetizer ideas. I like the spinach-artichoke dip!
• 50 Paleo Thanksgiving Recipes– some links here are broken, but you don’t want to miss out on the garlic mashed cauliflower!
• 18 Tastiest Vegan and Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipes– I haven’t tried them personally, but 7 words- “vegan/gluten-free cornbread muffins & stuffing!” If you try it, please share. FYI, sent the link to my mom as a little hint. (Thanks mom!) 😉
• Holiday Favorites Made Healthy – a free E-guide from a group of leaders in fitness and health! You have to sign-up for it, but it looks like a great compilation. (I do write for the Natural Path, so there is a little bias here…just sayin’.)

Now, click here for some of my favorite blogs this month from various sources. They are short and sweet and provide you with some more tips from different authors’ viewpoints. You may want to bookmark this page and come back to it throughout the week for a “sanity check-in.”

Happy, Healthy, and Yummy Thanksgiving to all!!