Do you love the silly season!? It can be a tough time – especially if you’ve got things going on like a difficult family situation. But love it or hate it there’s usually catch ups, parties (some fun and some potentially not so fun work dos), and always excuses to eat and drink crap. There’s also getting bombarded with cheesy Christmas carols every time you walk in a shop which most of us could do without…

It’s also usually a busy time of year when it’s easy to get run down and overwhelmed. Most blogs tell you how to cut down or ‘just say no’ to eating sugar, junk and alcohol (that philosophy’s been working well for Gladys and drugs at festivals!). I’m not going to tell you what not to do (especially when I’m unlikely to follow that advice myself!) but hopefully these tips help you get through feeling a little less rough if you do… 

1) Get outdoors – even just in small bursts
There’s plenty of research on the benefits of being in nature. The ideal is to plan 1 or 2 longer breaks of a few hours to break up the busy period and help you freshen up physically and mentally. If you can’t do that, even eating lunch outdoors or a 10min walk in the park wherever you can in will help.

2) Squeeze in some exercise
If there’s no time for longer hikes, try to squeeze in a hit out at the gym, a yoga class or whatever your preferred exercise is at least couple of times a week. You don’t even need to leave the house – a few reps of the stairs or a minute of burpees or running on the spot gets the heart rate up and the endorphins going. It’ll help energize you and stop you feeling so sluggish.

3) Sleep
Half the time after a night out, it’s not the booze that does the damage, it’s the lack of sleep. When you do get to have a night in, try to get to bed super early to catch up on some snooze. I know I just said to squeeze in exercise when you can but if you’re already sleep deprived, sometimes a sleep in the next morning is even more beneficial.

4) Hangover aids – sports drink
We still want to have fun right? If you do hit the drinks, of course water before, during and after the night out helps, but this is actually one of the few times I recommend sports drink. Most of us don’t exercise long enough or intensely enough to need sports drink and most are full of sugar, but they are specifically designed to rehydrate you which is just what you’ll need after drinking. So have some sports drink at home – hydralyte or gastrolyte work really well too and have less sugar, it’s a really effective way to rehydrate.

6) Hangover aids – Vegemite
Us Aussies have an advantage here, Vegemite has to be one of the very best hangover cures there is (though feel free to substitute for 2nd rate alternatives Marmite, Promite or Bovril). Alcohol depletes your B Vitamins and dehydrates you. Vegemite is full of B Vitamins and salt which when combined with water helps you rehydrate. If you still have alcohol in the tummy when you’re home and you want to soak it up, some Vegemite on toast works wonders. If you’re just keen for hydrating and B Vitamins I often just have a teaspoon full of Vegemite with a big glass of water and sports drink. Trust me on this one – might not taste great (though I think it does) but it really helps!

7) Coffee
They say a couple of cups of coffee a day doesn’t do you any harm and whilst it’s not great to rely on it all the time, how about an exception this time of year – an extra cup might just tide you over until that early night you’re getting tonight!

I hope you can enjoy the silly season, that you have some good times and I also hope these tips help you feel a little less knocked around if you get up to too much fun…