The summer holidays can be a stressful time for many families.
While they are a lovely opportunity to enjoy the summer together as a family, parents and carers can find it hard to juggle having the children at home with work, household and general life commitments.
Naturally, during busy periods one of the first things to be pushed aside is healthy eating and taking time for ourselves to recoup and recharge.
We’ve put together some tips to help you get through the summer holidays and keep providing nourishing meals for the family – without going crazy.
Consider an early start
If you have older children who sleep well, you could try getting up an hour before they rise.
This gives you an hour of calm before the hustle and bustle of the day begins, you can use this time to get on top of the household chores, get ahead of the day’s work commitments, do some meditation to set you up for the day or just have your breakfast in peace.
Of course, this means going to bed an hour earlier to make sure you are getting enough sleep (seven to nine hours per night is ideal).
Meal plan
If you don’t already meal plan, now is the time to start.
Having a comprehensive meal plan over the summer holidays will really take the stress out of eating well.
We recommend planning for every single meal, including snacks, and have the plan pinned on the fridge for all to see.
To make it easier still, use the same meal plan for every week of the holidays, as long as you have varied meals throughout the week, there’s no reason why you can’t eat the same and it makes shopping easier, as it’s the same list each week.
Write a diary/plan
Writing a diary or a day planner the night before each day can really help lessen those feelings of overwhelm we can experience when life is busy.
It can also help calm and quieten your mind before going to sleep. You could group things into ‘urgent’ – those things that are priority and can’t wait and ‘can wait’ – those things you want to get done at some point, but if they don’t happen tomorrow that’s ok.
Above all, remember to not take on too much, and try to let the small things go as children can be demanding and take up lots of our energy.
There is plenty of information available online about free and local things to do during the holidays, so be sure to have a look and get out and about in nature every day where possible.
For more tips on how to stay healthy, sign up for our weekly healthy tips at www.heartresearch.org.uk/healthy-tips
To help keep your heart healthy, why not try out some of our Healthy Heart recipes from our website: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-recipes-2/
Or have a look through our Healthy Heart cookbook filled with recipes from top chefs, celebrities and food bloggers: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-cookbook
