Holidays & Winter Solstice
It may seem like Winter is still some time away, yet Christmas is right around the corner. Christmas brings with it an abundance of Holiday parties, family gatherings, gift shopping, food, drink, and merriment.
Winter Solstice is a natural time for slowing down and doing less. It is the natural time for looking within & re-evaluating our priorities before the beginning of the new year. It's a precious opportunity that is often missed when our activity gets ramped up around the Holidays.
If we stay connected to the rhythm of Winter - which is still & quiet - we will notice the signals to go within, and get still & quiet within ourselves.
Here are a few rituals we can put into place for ourselves this time of the year.
1. Go to Bed before 10pm to Rejuvenate. Just this simple practice will go a long way towards rejuvenating & nurturing our body & mind. Ayurveda refers to sleep as "the wet nurse of the universe" Supremely nourishing & nurturing. Here's some suggestions for boosting the benefits of your sleep.
Sip a relaxing bedtime brew like Yogi Bedtime Tea or SleepyTime Classic Tea to relax your nervous system.
When our nervous system is relaxed, our body & mind relaxes and we get more restful & rejuvenating sleep.Listen to a Yoga Nidra recording as your lying in bed preparing for sleep.
Yoga Nidra is a guided deep relaxation practice that helps you to get the full restorative benefits of your rest through systematically relaxing the body & mind.Make your bedroom a peaceful haven you can retreat to in the evening.
It makes sense that when our surroundings are peaceful, we get better rest. Remove electronics, digital clocks, turn off cell phones, and trade them in for some calming aromatherapy like lavender or lemongrass & a book of poetry or spiritual inspiration.
2. Eat a Lighter & Earlier Dinner. When we eat a big dinner, or we eat too late before bed, we wake up feeling low energy and sluggish because our body is going against it's natural flow. Our body is designed to restore & regenerate our organs and detoxify itself during the night's sleep. A good sign that this is happening is that we wake up in the morning energized & fresh. If our body needs to digest & assimilate food at night we will tend to store the calories we take in at night as fat, and if our body isn't getting to detox & restore during the night then over time instead of feeling good, we will end up feeling tired, fat & toxic. Who wants that?
Optimum dinnertime is between 5-7pm or finish eating 2 hours before bed.
An evening walk after dinner is helpful for digestion & assimilation of dinner and to keep the body from storing fat at night.
In many cultures around the world the meal in the middle of the day is the large meal, and the evening meal is of much less importance. If we eat our main meal is the earlier day then it will feel attractive have a light soup in the evening, or a much smaller portion of what we'd normally have. If you are going to a party at night eat a large & healthy meal during the day so you aren't relying on party food, and if it's one of the holidays and you're doing a big meal with family, you can suggest the meal happens early enough that everyone can take a relaxing evening walk together afterward.
3. Yoga /Meditation/Nature. Even a half hour of slow yoga, or a half hour walk into nature, or 10 minutes of sitting in silence can make a big difference during the day in how in touch we are with ourselves, and how much peace we are or aren't experiencing during the Holidays. After all, is this not the season for Peace & Joy ? We do have the choice to focus on this sort of theme even when others around us might seem to be concentrating on other themes.
Look for opportunities in these shorter days to incorporate these practices into your routine. By doing so you are putting yourself into alignment with the natural seasonal flow. We feel better & experience more ease when we are in the flow because we are no longer using our energy swimming upstream.