Christmas is well and truly upon us in Dunboyne. Holidays from work spent indoors with family and friends, together with long evenings on the couch watching Christmas movies slows us down, so here are our 5 Physiotherapy tips to help look after your health and fitness during the festive season.
- Maintain some of your regular workout routine. If you find your gym closed or classes unavailable during the holidays, get some advice from your trainer this week on some home exercises to keep you going, until your back to your normal routine in January. Body weight exercises, such as squats, lunges and planks will help keep things ticking over until the new year.
- Go for a walk after eating. Its a given there will be extra calories consumed by most over the next 2 weeks. Instead of heading straight to the sofa for the evening, go for a short walk around Dunboyne after your meal to help aid digestion. Staying away from seconds will also help!
- Stretch. During an average working week, most of us are on the go, and perform some sort of exercise. This helps prevent stiffness building up in our necks and backs. Last January, a lot of my patients complaints were of neck and back stiffness from sitting on the sofa for 2 weeks! This Christmas, get the yoga mat out and spend 10 minutes stretching every second evening.
- Avoid excessive alcohol, and too many sweets. Easier said than done I hear you say! Drink some water before bed time to help prevent dehydration over night. A weakened immune system will lead to colds and flu, and an unhappy Christmas period.
- Keep up your intake of fruit and vitamins. Its easy to forget about keeping up your 5 a day with all the treats about, so get some fruit and vitamins into your body for breakfast and make a healthy start to each day. Mince pies don’t count! 🙂
