What a si­nu­soidal roller­coast­er this year has been!

Now that 2021 is com­ing to a close, it's time to step on the brakes and give your­self the rest and re­lax­ation you and your loved ones de­serve. Giv­ing the gift of health and well­ness to your loved ones cel­e­brates them for mak­ing it this far and sets the tone for the year ahead. Health Plus picked out per­son­al rec­om­men­da­tions that are eas­i­ly in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to any self-care rou­tine, pro­mot­ing calm, re­lax­ation and good vibes all around.

1. DIY Herb Gar­den

This is a fun, easy, af­ford­able gift to cre­ate. Herb gar­dens are un­com­pli­cat­ed to grow, even for per­sons in cozy apart­ments. All you need is a sun­ny win­dowsill or an out­door ledge or ta­ble to set them on. Es­pe­cial­ly for per­sons who love to cook, fresh herbs are the key to big flavour with­out big ef­fort. Just a tiny hint of a fresh herb at the end of cook­ing can take a recipe from “pret­ty good” to “mind-blow­ing”. Or­der an all-in-one kit or head out to the lo­cal gar­den store for pots, soil and favourite spices and herbs. En­sure you choose a va­ri­ety of nu­tri­tious herbs such as basil, pars­ley, chives, thyme, and mint to name a few.

Health Ben­e­fit of Gar­den­ing: Us­ing herbs and spices can en­hance the flavour of food with­out the added salt. A low sodi­um di­et is es­sen­tial to a healthy heart, and home gar­den­ing can spice-up your cook­ing with herbs grown right at home. A study in New Zealand, sug­gests that gar­den­ing fights stress even bet­ter than oth­er hob­bies. Par­tic­i­pants com­plet­ed a stress­ful task and were then told to read in­side or go out­doors and gar­den for 30 min­utes. The gar­den­ing group re­port­ed bet­ter moods af­ter­ward, and their blood tests showed low­er lev­els of the stress hor­mone cor­ti­sol.

2. Fit­ness gifts

For your fit­ness en­thu­si­ast who ap­pre­ci­ates the gym and is mind­ful of burn­ing calo­ries, a sleek, so­phis­ti­cat­ed fit­ness track­er (watch) might elic­it the same ef­fect as a piece of jew­ellery! Well maybe not, but these thought­ful gifts sup­port­ing your loved one on his/her quest to meet fit­ness goals are rat­ed as the top gifts for 2021. Gym mem­ber­ships (even vir­tu­al ones), yo­ga mats, med­i­ta­tion cush­ions and funky wa­ter bot­tles are al­ways ap­pre­ci­at­ed as they are func­tion­al gifts. We be­lieve for most, health and fit­ness goals went out the win­dow in 2021 and these fit­ness gifts are per­fect for any­one look­ing to move more, drop the ex­tra pounds and gen­er­al­ly im­prove their health.

3. Jour­nals

For those who love to write and plan, why not gift them with a plan­ner that blends a jour­nal with it? There are many open jour­nals that fo­cus on well­be­ing, hap­pi­ness or grat­i­tude, usu­al­ly com­ple­ment­ed with an ar­ray of pow­er­ful mo­ti­va­tion­al quotes. Some are de­signed to help one blos­som through life with self-re­flec­tion ques­tions, ac­tion items, and in­ten­tion. Even bet­ter if they are neat and purse size, easy to car­ry around and per­fect for plan­ning the big and small as­pects of life, adding that ex­tra pep in­to plan­ning.

Health Ben­e­fit of Jour­nal­ing: One of the ways to deal with any over­whelm­ing emo­tion is to find a healthy way to ex­press your­self. Sim­ply writ­ing down your thoughts and feel­ings to un­der­stand them more clear­ly helps one gain con­trol of one’s emo­tions and im­proves men­tal health. And if one strug­gles with stress, de­pres­sion, or anx­i­ety, keep­ing a jour­nal is a great idea.

4. The Gift of Read­ing

Read­ing is a healthy night­time rou­tine for both par­ents and chil­dren. Make your child the star of his/her own bed­time sto­ry or turn a par­ent in­to a su­per­hero with a per­son­alised bed­time sto­ry. This is one of my favourite gift­ing op­tions as you can even cus­tomise the sto­ry, the moral, even the ti­tle. You’ll find time­less books about friend­ship, ad­ven­ture, class­room ca­pers and build­ing val­ues at spe­cif­ic age ranges as well. This en­cour­ages cre­ativ­i­ty of any young child and al­lows them to in­dulge their imag­i­na­tion. These are avail­able at Won­derbly:

https://www.won­derbly.com/

5. The Gift of Er­gonom­ics - a lap­top stand

Up to 42% of the world’s work­force has spent the bet­ter part of 2021 work­ing re­mote­ly, and sev­er­al stud­ies sug­gest­ed that many home of­fice se­tups leave much to be de­sired. Im­prop­er chair height and in­cor­rect com­put­er ori­en­ta­tion were among the er­gonom­ic mis­steps re­port­ed, and these could lead to back, neck, and shoul­der pain over time. Gift your loved ones, or even your­self a lap­top stand, which can be raised and tilt­ed un­til it’s in a com­fort­able, er­gonom­ic po­si­tion.

How to tell if your com­put­er screen is at the right height: The top of the screen should be right at eye lev­el. This is im­por­tant to pre­vent neck strain and eye­strain. With this gift your body will cer­tain­ly thank you!

If you are still try­ing to fig­ure out what to get your loved ones for Christ­mas, we chal­lenge you to think out­side the box and keep in mind that sweets are on­ly en­joyed for a few min­utes, but they have their health to think about for­ev­er!