Making This New Year’s Eve Special

If your New Year’s Eve is not looking as fun as it was in previous years, try thinking of innovative ways to ring in the new year. It is important to celebrate with family and friends even though bars and restaurants are closed, and gatherings are limited. Luckily, with technology and a little creativity, you can still make this year memorable.

Connecting Virtually: The New Normal

Connecting with loved ones has become much easier thanks to being able to get together through a computer. This year create an event that gets a group or just one other person together to ring in the new year. Whether it is earlier in the evening, or right around midnight, it will still feel a little bit normal.

1. Games: There are so many free group games that everyone can download on their phone to participate in, even if you are not in the same room! Heads Up, Psych!, or Kahoot! are all fun, fast-paced, and free games that can be used by any Apple or Android user.
2. Dance Parties: To keep everyone moving, take turns having someone play a song or a snippet of a song every 20 or 30 minutes. This keeps the energy high and positive.
3. Cooking as a Group: Have everyone agree on making an appetizer, dessert, or even cocktail together. If someone has a specialty that they make, have them send out a list of ingredients, and during the call, have them give directions of how to make it. You will be able to enjoy the same food or drink together when the project is done! 

Cheers to 2020: In Moderation

As you may know, alcohol consumption has increased significantly during this pandemic. While this holiday is often surrounded by alcohol, increasing your consumption can likely normalize a bad habit that is detrimental to both your physical and mental health.  Here are some recommendations and important information shared by experts from Yale Medicine to help protect you from the COVID-19 virus:

1. The general recommendations for moderate drinking are one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men. One drink is considered 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.2
2. When David Fielin, MD, at the Yale Program of Addiction Medicine, was asked if alcohol is good for the immune system, he responded, “No. In general, because we know that alcohol has a negative impact on the lungs and the immune system, we believe it will be associated with more severe cases of COVID-19 disease.” He added, “Alcohol can damage the intestinal lining, which then allows bacteria to enter the body more easily. That can ‘rev up’ the inflammatory response, which is also a big part of COVID-19 disease.”²

Do not like to participate in typical New Year’s Activities? Do a good deed!

If you tend to have an early bedtime, or drinking and virtual activities are not for you, still try to make the most of this last bit of 2020! Make someone’s day by baking some treats and bringing them door to door through your neighborhood. Visit a loved one by knocking on their door and chatting with them from 6 feet or more distance. Do an outdoor activity such as sledding, skiing, or ice skating.

No matter what you end up doing this New Year’s Eve, make sure you make it special! Staying in touch with family and friends is so important for our health, even if we cannot gather in the same room as we once did.  We are all looking forward to saying goodbye to this challenging year and hope for a much brighter 2021.  Happy New Year!

In health,

Hillary Rotunda

Starting from when she was a little girl, Hillary’s passion has always been in living a healthy way of life through movement and eating right. She played many sports when growing up but ended up sticking with volleyball and softball through college at Concordia College in Moorhead. While at Concordia, she earned a double major in exercise science and nutrition, graduating in 2015. After moving to the cities from my long-time home of the Fargo area, she was not quite sure what her passion was until she started working as a personal trainer. She learned from brilliant personal trainers and physical therapists, which led to her discovery of corrective exercise being her passion. She has decided to finish up the classes needed to apply for physical therapy school, which she plans on doing soon! She is excited to be at Live Your Life Physical Therapy to learn as much as she can from Dr. Norman and all the physical therapist on staff!

References

¹Mozes, Alan. “Pandemic Has More Americans Turning to Alcohol.” WebMD, 29 Sept. 2020, https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200929/pandemic-has-more-americans-turning-to-booze#1

²Macmillan, Carrie. “Drinking More Than Usual During the COVID-19 Pandemic?” Yale Medicine, 4 June 2020, https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/alcohol-covid