welcome everyone to the get real get it love show I am your host Charlie Washburn and

before we jump into our topic I just want to say one thing it is November and it

is time to vote everyone who has this right to go out there and have your voice heard should

be out there voting we worked really hard for women to get this right and for blacks

and people of color just in general get out there and get your vote in

because that is the only way that you are going to affect change in America so with that said

I want to move on to our topic of the day which is all about dealing with loneliness during the

holiday season now I'm going to go over just three different things that you can do

right now to start planning ahead and also just to and as part of your

overall practice in order for you to maintain your health and wellness because loneliness is

an epidemic and it is a problem it is something that affects your health and the holidays in particular

you know conjure up a lot of loneliness and just mental health issues and people

do suffer but there are ways that you can mitigate that suffering in as much as possible but you need

to plan ahead and incorporate some things into your lifestyle to help you get through these

times and just for overall health these are things that you can do on going so I'm going to start

with number one and that is to establish a practice of gratitude now there is a study that

came out in 2019 that shows that gratitude of gratitude practice can actually improve your overall health health

and wellness and there's different ways to go about this it might be that you

get up every morning and you go over three things that you're grateful for you say them out

loud you maybe even do this before you get out of bed or some people incorporate this

into their meditation where you do 10 15 20 minutes however long you want to meditate and then incorporate three

things that you're grateful for and I also prefer that people Journal that you create a that you have a

booklet that you keep with you a gratitude journal and you write down three things every day that you

are grateful for this actually helps your health and your overall Wellness okay so trust me

this is really important another thing that you can do you know during the holidays if

you don't have plans if you're not going to go and meet up up with your family or if

you haven't put together a friends get together of people who don't have significant others or family in the area

which is something that you can do and you can start planning that now before Thanksgiving and Christmas if you

have a group of friends that are all single and maybe want to get together either on the actual holiday

or some other day that you can all celebrate I think that's a great plan to make and you

can right now everyone can bring something you don't have to take it all upon yourself you can invite everyone

and everyone Cooks a dish or or something so that it's you know less effort for everyone but that's something

that you can do but it's not another health benefit for adults is volunteering it has

an effect on your overall health and their different ways that you can volunteer you can start a

drive and you know get other people involved to to to create some sort of Drive where you're going to

give toys to Toys for Tots all these different things maybe food you can actually volunteer for

you know serving holiday meals to homeless people and homeless population you can maybe volunteer at a local

animal shelter or maybe even for ways to you know get together donations from other people yourself included in order

for you to help those in need and also another thing that a lot of people don't think about

but there are people living in assisted living situations that maybe don't have family visiting them

on the holidays you can actually volunteer or even write out some beautiful cart fell you know holiday cards that

you can in send to these people and that will actually help your overall health another thing

to do is if you haven't planned something with a group of friends or don't have these other things

in place perhaps go online and go through your meetup groups there are tons of needed groups and

some of them may have events coming up for people who again don't have a lot

of friends in the area maybe you move to a new location or you don't have family in the

area and you want to do something for the holidays there meetup groups that are available

you can go on Eventbrite and find events there and also just in general expand your sphere

of influence and you can do that through they have online and offline speed dating

events you know speed dating events you may not meet your person you can start

networking and creating more relationships with people that you know to expand your network reach out to

your old friends and family and have conversations whether it's on the phone or on

Zoom where you can see each other's faces and like I said before plan a friendsgiving event or a Christmas

or Hanukkah than where you can invite your friends and lastly I know that these holidays are about

gift-giving but you can give to yourself by that special something that you've been eyeing that you hadn't allowed

yourself to get in the past as long as it's you know affordable and something

that you really want give yourself that gift it's not always about getting gifts you can give

yourself the thing that you want as well and use this time of year as an excuse to

do so so these are just a few things that I can recommend if you

are alone and you're single and the holidays are here so that you can actually benefit

health-wise you know mental you know mental health wise and physical health wise but also you're doing something for others

if you're volunteering Etc and you're getting yourself out there and overall this is a great thing to do during

this holiday season Ian and that's what I have for you today and remember everyone

deserves to love and be loved and these things that you do with love to help others to help

yourself to get out there to make you friends all of this counts because all of it

can lead you to your relationship goals so that's what I have for you today I will see

you again next week bye for now