The year is quickly drawing to an end, and while we’re all running around preparing for the festivities, wrapping up the last projects at work and preparing for the new ones awaiting us in the new year, we run on pure adrenaline. It’s our bodies’ way to get us through positive and negative stress and is often a sign that, once this wired energy subsides, we find ourselves feeling drained and exhausted. No wonder, really, since we spend all year pushing onwards and upwards without much time to reflect and take a break.

Now that the holidays are upon us, consider setting your New Years’ resolutions aside for a moment, and focus on what you want from your time off instead. Scrap all the plans you had to work from home or attend networking events – this is your time and you need to use it wisely so you can enter the new year with new energy, ideas and a fully recuperated mind and body.

Here are five reasons why the holidays are a great time for self-care.

Reacquaint Yourself with the Concept of “Home Sweet Home”

Our home might be our haven, but how much time do we truly spend in it? Time to appreciate its swaddle-like effect, its decorative beauty and all the love you’ve poured into it? We’re usually out the door early in the morning, return home late at night, and then only have a few hours to truly feel at home until we’re due to go to bed and start the whole process again the next day.

During this holiday, make a point of reacquainting yourself with the concept of “home sweet home” – i.e. don’t treat it like a crash-pad but your fortress of peace, harmony and warmth. Spend a day just lounging around your living room in your pajamas or your bed, sit back and read in your favourite little nook of the house and take on any light, decorative projects you’ve been meaning to get around to, to beautify your home.

Cook Up Some New Recipes for the New Year

Another thing that tends to fall to the wayside when we’re working, is a healthy, balanced diet and the simple joy of cooking. There’s no fun in rushing home after work and whipping something up quickly – cooking should be a wholesome experience, just like the food, and unfortunately, it’s a difficult one to embrace with our busy schedules.

Use this holiday to dance around the kitchen trying out all the recipes you’ve been meaning to try but haven’t had the time to explore fully and eat your heart out. Depending on the types of recipes you’re trying, you might even be able to cook big batches and freeze them, so you’ll have at least a few delicious meal options waiting for you at home when you return back to work.

Treat Yourself to a Spa Day

Make up for all those rushed manicures and pedicures, quick showers and hair appointments that caused you more stress than relaxation due to an overbooked schedule, by treating yourself to a spa day. If it fits into your budget, round up your girlfriends and head for a weekend away to a nice spa hotel or wellness resort. If you’d rather stay in or are strapped on cash, turn it into a luxurious at-home spa-day. Paired with your closest friends, a good movie or dreamy tunes, it’ll be a real treat to the mind, body and senses.

We all have wonderfully fragrant, nourishing and relaxing body products we’ve collected or have been gifted over the years, but they simply don’t have the same effect when used on the quick. The best body and self-care happens when we truly take the time to appreciate our products’ effects on our skin or hair and seeing as we never really have the time when we’re working, the holidays is the best time to carve out quality time.

Dress Up

We make an effort to look good and professional on the daily, but are you really rocking the clothes that make you feel like yourself? There’s something very freeing about switching your work clothes for your own personal wardrobe when you hardly get the opportunity throughout the year. It’s a way to reconnect with your own style and fashion sense without having to worry about how it may be received by colleagues or bosses.

Make a point of dressing in all your favourite clothes this holiday, even if it means showing up at your friend’s casual Christmas-do totally overdressed. This is your time to show off the real, fashionable you!

Spend Quality Time with Friends & Family

The fuller our work schedules get, the less time we have to spend with our loved ones. And while we’re always surrounded by people and are constantly forming new professional relationships, nothing quite compares to spending time with the people who truly know you and love you, and vice versa. Quality time with friends and family is healing for the mind and soul, it’s a chance to let loose, have a laugh and relax in a familiar environment that does not require you to act in any certain way or be someone that you are not.

Without compromising your well-deserved and much needed alone time, be sure to use this holiday opportunity to catch up with your besties, distant family members and anyone else that makes you feel good, welcome and relaxed. Arrange leisurely brunches with your friends, take your mum out for a ladies’ night, treat your nephews and nieces to an afternoon at the cinema or take your dad out for a beer at the local bar/pub.

Taking this time to be with the people you love is not only a practice of self-care, it is also a practice in gratitude. With so many things going on in our hectic lives, we often forget what’s really important – and the holidays are the best time to remind yourself of that.