In this YouTube video, Ayurveda health coach Hadlee Garrison addresses common feelings of overwhelm, stress, and unhealthy habits that many experience during the holiday season. She frames the problem as a set of entrenched “old beliefs” about food, habits, willpower, stress, and social dynamics that lead to guilt, over‑eating, and emotional distress. Garrison then presents a corresponding “new belief” for each, offering a mindset shift rather than a set of restrictive tricks. The ten belief pairs cover: (1) keeping habits alive instead of discarding them; (2) moving away from all‑or‑nothing eating toward flexible, nourishing choices; (3) replacing food guilt with curiosity; (4) recognizing personal control over time and the value of alone moments; (5) letting go of the willpower myth and listening to bodily cues; (6) orienting toward ease rather than stress; (7) treating emotional eating as information, not shame; (8) decoupling self‑worth from family judgments and communicating boundaries; (9) expanding the holiday focus beyond food and stress to connection, gratitude, and spirituality; and (10) cultivating a holistic, joyful holiday narrative. Throughout, she suggests practical habits—daily movement, adequate sleep, journaling, meditation, mindful eating, and clear communication—to support these new mindsets. The video concludes with a call to action for her “Happy Healthy Habits” coaching program and prompts viewers to explore related content.
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Do you experience overwhelm and stress around food or your health during the holidays? If so, I'm here to help. I used to have a pretty crappy experience during the holidays. I gained weight every year. I was moody and irritable. I felt like I had no willpower when it came to food or when it came to other health habits, and I had a really hard time navigating my relationships with my family and my friends. So if you resonate with any of that, know that you are definitely not alone. These are really common things that I hear from people all the time, and I've got you. If you haven't subscribed to my channel yet, hit the subscribe button and the bell to be notified every time I post a new video about creating a happier, healthier mind, body, and life. I've been an Ayurveda health coach for the past 4 years, and it is my mission to help you become happier and healthier in your everyday life, and that includes during the holidays. I am not going to tell you tricks to help you stay fit this holiday season, though that might naturally happen when you start to use these mindset shifts. But my goal is to really help you have the kind of experience you actually want during the holidays, one that doesn't include deprivation or strict rules around food, but instead really creates an opportunity for you to feel really good. throughout the holidays and get to celebrate it in whatever way you really want to. Here are my top 10 holiday beliefs to shift this year to bring you the happiest, healthiest holiday yet. Let's get into it. Please note that if you have any of the old beliefs, there's nothing bad or wrong about you, and I'm not even saying that one belief is better than the other. I'm not really into assigning morality or labeling things as right or wrong when it comes to food or food behaviors. I just want to show you that there is potentially another way to think about these things, and that will create a different kind of experience for you during the holidays. Enjoy. Let's start with this old belief: the holidays are a time when my habits go out the window. New belief: during the holidays, my habits shift, but they don't need to go out the window. I can still start each day with some movement, Get into bed at a reasonable hour, even if it's maybe a little later than usual. And I could eat a nourishing meal as my first meal so I don't feel ravenous and overeat later in the day, right? These are just some examples. I also encourage you to get creative on this with any other health habits that are helpful for you. So maybe you journal each day in the morning and that's helpful for processing any family dynamics that come up. Maybe meditating helps you feel less stressed or less overwhelmed. Maybe eating or drinking something specific each day can make you feel better in your body. Old belief: the holidays are a time when I eat everything, or when I continue in my old patterns and plan to start over afterwards in the new year, or on Monday, or next month, or once I go back to work, or once I go back to school. whatever it might be. New belief: I don't need to do the all-or-nothing thing anymore. I can actually eat in a way that makes me feel good throughout the holidays instead of planning to change everything later, and then I can actually enjoy the holidays more too. I can also check in with myself and my body throughout the day to see if it really wants another helping, you know, how it feels, what kinds of foods it wants, Maybe it wants more or less of something, and I can eat holiday treats without having to also eat every single thing in sight. I never have to start over with my food choices or my habits ever again. It's really, it's all just data for me to take into consideration for my choices leading, leading forward. Speaking of which, number 3, I feel guilty when I eat certain things. I see foods as either good or bad. New belief, I don't ever need to feel guilty about food. Instead, I choose curiosity and I can take stock on how things make me feel as a point of reference and as a point of information rather than something that's good or bad. I have no control over my time when I'm visiting family for the holidays. I likely have more control over my time than I think during the holidays. I don't have to do everything with everyone in my family the entire time I'm visiting them. Leaving and taking some time alone isn't actually selfish. Instead, it allows me to come back feeling refreshed and able to connect with my family members or my friends, whoever I'm with, on a deeper level. I just don't have willpower around holiday food. I eat as much as I possibly can of my favorite foods because this food only comes around Plus, it's normal to feel uncomfortably full during the holidays. Doesn't everyone? Actually, I don't need willpower around holiday food. I remember that I get to have this holiday food every single year, or I could even make or buy it any other time of year if I really wanted it. So instead of feeling like a slave to the food that only comes around once a year, I can pay attention to what my body wants and needs and make choices with that in mind. So I can have deep gratitude for the abundance of food that I have available to me, and I can even take a treat home and have it later if I find that, oh, I don't actually want that right now, but you know, I know I want to experience it, have it at some point during the holiday season. So there are a lot more options than this You know, this is the only time that I'm gonna be able to eat this, so I have to eat as much as possible. I also never actually have to eat until I feel uncomfortably full if I don't want to, even if people around me do. I can choose that if I want to, and there's nothing bad or wrong about me if I do, but I can also choose something else if I want to experience something else. The holidays are so Stressful. I can orient to ease instead of stress throughout the holidays. I can ask myself where I can do less of what doesn't light me up and more of what does. I can pay more attention to everything I really love about the holidays and say no more often to things that feel draining. The more I say no to things that drain me and yes to things that light me up, the more I have capacity to serve and to give of myself. So again, it's not actually selfish to say no. I use food to cope with the stress of the holidays, and then I always feel so much shame and guilt about gaining weight once the holidays are over. I can shift my attention from weight after the holidays to feeling really good throughout the holidays instead. And when I do find myself reaching for food for that emotional eating or that comfort, I don't have to feel shame or guilt about it. Instead, I can ask myself what feeling might have caused me to overeat, and I can feel the physical sensations of that feeling. And then I can get really curious about what that emotion might be trying to communicate with me, because that's the purpose of emotions, to let us know what's working and what's not working in our lives. So thank you, emotion. And thank you, emotional eating pattern, for making me realize that, you know, there's some emotional need that isn't being met currently. Time to figure out what that might be. My family and friends don't understand me or my food choices, or they judge me for my current weight and how I look, which makes me feel self-conscious and pretty bad about myself. My worth does not come from my family's opinion of me. I get to make the choices that are best for me and my body and Whether that's eating something that they don't approve of or not eating something that they want me to eat or whatever, it's my body and I get to decide what I put in it. And I also have the right to ask them to keep their opinions to themselves. I don't have to be judgmental in return. Instead, I can just have compassion for them and recognize that the only way I can expect them to treat me the way I want to be treated is to communicate it clearly with them. If I don't eat certain foods or if I don't drink certain drinks, I'm gonna offend the person who made it or who wants me to eat it. One reason people might want us to eat the thing is because they want some sort of connection with us. Food is a really beautiful way of connecting with others, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other ways of connecting with them and potentially even on a deeper level. So if I have a food allergy or even just a food preference, or my body doesn't really want whatever is in front of me at a given moment, I can communicate that, but clarify that I really do want to connect with them and maybe ask a question about, you know, insert whatever topic might light them up. The other part of this is that I don't often even need to say anything at all. So I don't need to announce what I'm eating or announce what I'm not eating, especially in the moment. It might be a conversation to have before a meal when people are trying to figure out what to make and what to bring and everything, but once I'm there, I can quietly take the foods I want and just leave the rest. And often when we announce what we're eating or what we're not eating, people feel judged, and that might be the other reason that they might get afraid. Offended by us not eating a certain thing. So I only ever tell someone about what I'm eating or drinking if they press me on it. And honestly, people usually don't care that much. They might judge me for a second, but then they just go back to their own plates. And if my food choices still offend someone else, then that really doesn't have that much to do with me, and I can I stand in integrity with myself knowing that I made a conscious and aligned decision for me. The holidays are all about food, right? And maybe stress. I choose to make the holidays about more than food and stress. I choose to make it about deep connection with my family and friends, taking a break from work, reflecting on everything I'm grateful for, deeply enjoying the bounty of food and savoring the holiday treats that I really do love, remembering my lineage and the loved ones who have passed, celebrating tradition, connecting with my spirituality or my religion, reminiscing on past holidays, and really just soaking up the joy of the season. I take time to acknowledge my gratitude and enjoyment of the season, and I make that the focal point of the holiday. I might even introduce this theme to the rest of the people I'm with, having conversations that revolve around joy, around traditions, around the memories that are both recent and long past, and just really the gratitude that we feel. This resonated with you and you want a complete transformation in your health and how you go about your everyday life, check out my signature Happy Healthy Habits coaching program in the link below. This program completely transforms your life, your relationship with food and your body, your health habits, your capacity to show up in the way you want to show up in the world. If you want to finally achieve the health and the day-to-day experience of life that you've really been dreaming of, join us now. If you want to explore some other beliefs that might cause you to have a wonky relationship with food, check out this video next. And if you want more on creating a happier, healthier you, make sure you subscribe and hit the bell to be notified the next time I post another video. See you in the next one. Bye.
