In these days, I have received several messages with similar questions, so I’ll paraphrase a couple of them:
- ‘I’ll have my entire family at home, how do I keep myself from going crazy?’
- ‘I don’t know how I’m going to handle the holidays… I’m anxious just thinking about it. What oils can I use?’
As I’ve noticed this was a recurring question, I thought of responding through this medium, hoping it might benefit some more subscribers.
Let’s analyze the situation as we do in our sessions: We’ll identify the imbalances, look at possible causes, and with a clear objective in mind, devise a plan – in this case, one that could be helpful for most people.
1: Imbalances
Christmas often sells us an idea of peace, harmony, helping those in need… yet simultaneously, we face our own and others’ demons: fears, stress, sadness, and similar feelings tend to intensify during this season.
These conflicting feelings can manifest as anxiety, insomnia, or even transform into physical symptoms such as digestive acidity, lack of energy, and headaches.
2: Possible Causes
Unfortunately, we don’t have the TGC System results for each one reading this email, but I can share the most common causes we often encounter:
- Financial stress
- Stress from meeting family members with unresolved conflicts
- Stress from feeling like everything isn’t under control
- Sadness knowing that some loved ones won’t be present
3: Objective
The objective is to remain calm and eventually enjoy the entire process, free from physical discomfort, from preparations to family moments, and the return to the routine afterward.
Note: Some symptoms often appear and can be factors to improve, but they are NOT our objective. They don’t seek balance but rather compensate and cover the symptoms to ‘endure’ this challenging time – for example, having more energy (regardless of what your body needs), sleeping more hours (even if artificially induced), or quieting the mind (numbing thoughts).
4: Well-being Plan
First, we suggest engaging in some simple exercises to manage energy. You can try breathing exercises, meditation, Qi Gong, or some easy physical exercises according to your preference. Here are a few examples with Invidious links (YouTube without ads or trackers. I’ll also provide YouTube links just in case):
- Qi Gong routine for morning and night: Simple Qi Gong exercises to release anxiety and stress. (YouTube)
- Morning Reprogramming by Louise Hay in Spanish: Start your day with affirmations to balance your body and mind. (YouTube)
- Wim Hof’s breathing exercises: Oxygenates the body, reduces accumulated stress, enhances mental clarity… (YouTube)
Dietary changes will significantly help, especially considering that things might get a bit out of hand by the end of the year…
- Avoid processed and ultra-processed foods, commercial soft drinks, industrial sweets, refined flours. These pseudo-foods lead to fatigue, joint pain, mental dullness… among other issues.
- These pseudo-foods lead to fatigue, joint pain, mental dullness… among other issues. ry different infusions throughout the day, like chamomile or linden tea for relaxation, or some plant blends, rooibos, and green tea for toning. You can use the Budwig Cream for breakfasts and dinners; it’s an excellent choice.
- Consume vegetables like sweet potatoes, squash, zucchini, either roasted, boiled, mashed… These are comforting foods.
- Eat fruits like berries and citrus, aiding in feeling good due to their antioxidants and aromas.
We can also use essential oils to feel better during these festive times. Here are some suggestions that work for most, but if you have any specific situation, I advise contacting your TGC mentor or therapist:
- In a diffuser: Use essential oils that make you feel ‘at home’ like cinnamon, clove, orange, tangerine, chamomile, lavender… Pick 1 or 2 oils you like and add 2-3 drops of each for every 100ml of water in your ultrasonic diffuser. During the day, use a more energizing blend like laurel-lemon, mint-lemon, pine-eucalyptus, thyme-clove. At night, help your body and mind relax with lavender-tangerine, chamomile-orange, eucalyptus-lemon, or simply a few drops of ylang-ylang or chamomile.
- For topical use: Add 2 drops of Roman chamomile or lavender essential oil to your body lotion or 1 tablespoon of carrier oil, and apply it every night on your shoulders, abdomen, and soles of your feet before bed. This oil will calm your nervous system and digestive system, helping you feel like you’ve had a more restorative sleep in the mornings (by the way, if you feel it, it’s because it’s true).
Following these guidelines, you’ll notice your body, mind, and energy are less reactive, less defensive. But it’s crucial for you to be aware of the entire process. Try to become an ‘observer‘ of yourself several times a day. What are your thoughts like? How does your body feel? Are you tense or relaxed? When you notice tension, take a few minutes to breathe, smell your blend of essential oils, do a breathing exercise.. Or go to the garden, interact with your plants, pet your pet, or spend a few minutes playing with your children, without judging or thinking about anything else.
Many things happen around us every day, and during times like these, it seems the ones we fear the most accumulate. But we can’t control everything around us. Instead, what we can do is become aware of how we react to everything in our lives and set new guidelines so they won’t affect us as much.
Essential oils, exercises, or supplements are just tools. Their purpose is to help us compensate for what makes us feel bad, temporally However, the lasting solution to feeling good lies in our habits: from the most subtle, like our thoughts, to our diet and what we do with our bodies every day.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope you can spare a minute to reply to this email after trying some of the suggestions from this well-being plan, and tell me how it worked for you or if you have any other ‘tricks’ you’d like to share.
I only have left to wish you a happy year-end and may 2024 be one of the best years of your life.
Hugs,
Luis and the entire Te Gusta Cuidarte team”

Author: Luis Rodero
Fundador de Te Gusta Cuidarte