Essential Gifts for the Essential Workers In Your Life
If you’re struggling to find THE PERFECT gift to show your appreciation and fondness for an essential worker in your life, we’ve got you.
Anyone who provides critical services to the public has a tough job. The hours are long and the work, grueling. The last few years, the pandemic has required essential workers to risk their mental and physical health to care for us in extreme circumstances, and they are stretched beyond their limits. We’ve interviewed some essential workers in education and healthcare to get a peek at their Santa’s wish lists this year. Let’s show them that we are grateful for their sacrifices and that they deserve peace, love, and luxury!
For the Healer in Need of HealingMassageMassage
Physician Assistant, Stacey J. Delida, says she would love, “Pampering/self-care/to unwind, decompress, get refreshed with a spa day, mani/pedi, massage, or facial!”
Massage or spa service gift cards are a fabulous and flexible idea for the busy essential worker. Do your research and ensure that the business is convenient for her to access, reputable, and thriving, before you purchase.
Crucial Yoga Gear from Gaiam and Splits59
Speaking of flexibility, a yoga package might be just the thing to help your essential worker relax, and you can find them both in-person or onlineon-line. Make sure she has all the gear she’ll need, with Gaiam Yoga mats. Looking for extra comfy yoga pants? Splits59 is offering 20% off to our readers! Just use the promo code SEAM20.
Fitness Tracker
How about a fitness tracker that tracks so much more than steps? This comfortable ring also monitors sleep patterns and determines how run down/energized the wearer is, overall. It’s sure to help the caregivers in your life care for themselves!
The Ultimate Self-Care Kit
At the end of a long day, what’s simpler and more comforting than a home spa to soothe those aching muscles? At a wide range of costs, you can get foot baths, hand warmers, luxurious lotions and bath accessories. Grab her a luxury health and beauty item she would never splurge on for herself and make her feel like a million bucks!
After her bath, she’ll want to slip into something super comfy, like a Natori Loungewear Set or Girlfriend Collective Loungewear .
For The Hero IN NEED OF A Mental Health Holiday
Several of the essential workers we spoke to said that affordable, available psych services are what they need most, and what they’d most like to see for the community at large. Leslie Bruno-Kyritses, PA-C, says she sees a profound impact on patients’ general health when they receive therapy from social workers and psychologists in the nursing homes where she works as a Geriatric Physician Assistant. She says, “I wish someone would pay for psychologists to visit schools and nursing homes and do home visits to provide therapy for folks getting burned out!” What can we do to help with this? We can pay attention to legislation and encourage our leaders to pass laws supporting mental health services; we can also really listen to our friends when they’re expressing psychological distress and encourage them to seek help. We can remove barriers to them getting the care they need by offering childcare, transportation, and financial support. There are even gift cards for online mental health services. As always, it’s important to be discerning when finding a provider, and even the search for the right therapist might feel like too much to an already overwhelmed person.
The Unplug Meditation App
Even a few minutes a day of quiet meditation with the Unplug Meditation App can help the most stressed mind settle. Follow the link to save! She’ll need a comfortable way to rest her weary back while she meditates, so add a Gaiam Meditation cushion!
A Personalized “Lazy Sunday” Kit
They say that “A library is a hospital for the mind,” so help her be the patient this time with a subscription to a book-of-the-month club or e-book depending on how she prefers to consume books.
Precious Quiet
On top of their workload, things at home during the pandemic are sure to be…a lot. Wireless headphones with noise-canceling features are the surest way to steal a few minutes of quiet, or to listen to the books and meditation gifts she’s received! If you want to get her something really special, consider the total relaxation a sensory deprivation tank offers.
Or…
…Or, if you feel like she’s needing a safe way to release pent-up feelings, take her to a rage room where the breaking noises are oh-so-satisfying.
for the resT: REST (AND RELAXATION)
This holiday giving season, it’s important to remember that gifts don’t have to be things! Treat your friend to a night on the town! Whether that means you take her for Girls Night Out or you give her a date-in-a-box complete with gift cards to restaurants and entertainment, the key is YOU do all the planning, so she doesn’t have to. THAT'S a major part of the gift. She is exhausted from making difficult decisions all day, so take the mental load off! Be sure to handle adequate childcare and figure out all the COVID safety details of the outing, so she can just show up and have fun.
Weekend Getaway
If you want to really splurge, take her to a fancy hotel for a weekend! If she’s like veteran Michigan Kindergarten teacher, Katie Rahn, what she wants more than anything is “a weekend away to literally just sleep!” Upgrade with a resort pass! For those who are burned out on peopling and just need to get away to a quiet, peaceful place ALONE, a gift card to Airbnb can give her that!
Healthy — but, More Importantly, Mindless — Meals
Julie Tallent, PA-C works long hours in surgery and when she comes home, the last thing she wants to do is figure out dinner for her three kids. Take things off her plate by putting easy things ON her plate! Gift cards to meal delivery services, restaurant delivery services, or grocery delivery services, can salvage the roughest of days. Also, coming home to a clean house feels like a miracle. Consider paying to have someone else clean her plate with housecleaning services.
Essential workers do so much for us, it is the perfect time to do something special for them. Buy something special off this list and they will feel seen and sensational!
Sarah Zimmerman is a freelance writer in Northern California and is working on her first novel. In past lives, she has been a Physician Assistant in Women's Health and the owner of a vegan ice cream business. Sarah writes about marriage, sex, parenting, infertility, pregnancy loss, social justice, and women's mental and physical health, always with honesty and humor. She has written for Ravishly, Cafe Mom, Pregnant Chicken, and more and can be found at sarahzwriter.com and on Medium, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at @sarahzwriter.