Welcoming the New Year with a gentle change of rhythm and creating intentional rituals
I am welcoming the New Year with gentle intentions for creating more rituals in my day rather than New Years’ resolutions and enforcing routines that I feel I am still lacking the focus to be consistent with.
I feel more inclined to create space and calm and weave in simple key nutritional enhancements. I am definitely seeking positive intentions but craving a more gentle start and resisting pressure for a “NEW ME”. I believe many health goals fail at this time of year because the nervous system is in survival mode and I believe ritual signals safety and healing. This is about preparation and gently building with a focus on nourishment and nurture.
What do I mean by Ritual or Routine?
Routine = supportive structure.
Ritual = intention and mindful practice.
Winter is for repair, reflection and restoring our reserves.
I often get asked what is the quickest way my body can heal and I simply reply - “Prioritise repair and healing with better and deeper sleep and increasing nutrient dense foods and managing stress and calming the nervous system” There is no super supplement or medicinal herb that can do the magic of healing if the body is stressed, deprived of sleep, wired with stress hormones and in fight-and-flight.
Do you want to gently create good habits and lifestyle change without feeling the pressure? Are you looking to build vitality and energy ready for spring, when you are much more likely to be ready for deeper work and more structure and routine? This very much reflects natures rhythm right now that I am very happy to align with -How are you feeling?
Balance can be more consistent when the rhythm and timing feels right for you. When the body feels supported it calms shouting those messages of pain and inflammatory signalling - ie those symptoms. Good health thrives when the body knows what to expect and that can come simply from creating a positive balance between light, dark, rest and pause, healthy food choices, and gentle movement.
Creating your own rituals should be personal to you. What is right for you may not be right for me. What feels like coming home to your body is the best way to signal safety.
But if you are seeking inspiration then here is my framework to some foundational daily rituals that are simple to weave into your days. These come without pressure but bring balance and can build energy and vitality, so when you are ready for goal setting you will be in the right mindset. Getting these foundations right build a healthy framework to more personalised health goals.
Reflect the seasonal rhythm - we are still in mid-winter where, as in nature, the rhythm is slow with more time for rest. In winter nature draws in nutrients from the soil, refuels the reserves but conserves energy. Look to nature and mirror the focus of rooting down, coming inward, conserving and building energy, restoring your own fuel tank and repairing a frazzled nervous system. This is about building energy for the longer lighter days - which are now thankfully weeks away. We are planting seeds ready to bloom in spring.
My Rituals and Intentions have a focus on:
Resetting your natural rhythm
Aligning with the circadian rhythm - returning to nature’s clock by aligning yourself to doing more in daylight and being restful when it is dark to conserve more energy will help to calm the nervous system and reset your own natural rhythm.
Restoring and repairing
Focus on good sleep hygiene, prioritise deeper and more restorative sleep. Giving time for the body to rebalance and repair.
Refuelling - the body’s fuel tank with nutrients
Increase nature’s medicine with more plants, more herbs, and more minerals.
Resting and time for pause
Prioritise “radical” rest and create time for quiet pause and thought EVERY day.
Re-awaken the need for movement
Gently waking us from hibernation with slow movement in the body in whatever way you like. Just as in nature coming out of hibernation, gentle stretching tired muscles with slow poses with purpose will help to slowly wake the body from winters slumber.
So what does this look like and what you can implement to build healthy foundations?
Resetting our circadian rhythm
Our body doesn’t just run on food but it also runs on timing. Each organ actually has its own body clock. The rising and setting of the sun; the signalling of light and dark and regular mealtimes has profound and cellular signalling for the body.
Try and get some morning daylight exposure, even on cloudy British days. Whether that is a walk in nature or just layering up and taking your morning tea or coffee outside.
Dimming lights in your home and on screens after sunset to activate the pineal gland, stimulate sleep hormones and prepare for nighttime and rest. Turn off bright lights and switch on lamps, light candles, you might even want to keep those festive fairy lights on a bit longer.
Try and have regular time signalling by going to bed and waking at the same time each day and eating at regular meal times.
Having regular mealtimes signals predictability and with that comes safety signalling to our nervous system. When we eat at roughly the same time each day, we give the body a clear signal of safety and this helps to keep our circadian rhythm regulated and lowers the background stress alert in the body. Eating at regular times helps to get the body out of fight-and- flight and into rest-and-digest. The body can interpret meals that are skipped, delayed or unpredictable with scarcity and this can lead to blood sugar levels dropping, stress hormones rising and the nervous system staying on-guard. Consistency in eating around the same time each day tells the body that you are nourishing and nurturing yourself.
This is not about perfection of eating or sleeping by the clock but about creating a rhythm that the body can trust.
Restorative sleep for repair and recalibration
Restorative Sleep - allowing time for the body to restore and repair
Shift sleep higher up on your list of priorities. Helping your body go into deeper more restorative sleep can be transformational in healing.
Create a wind-down ritual in the evening to prepare the body for sleep. Setting up nightly cues will help to ‘remind’ the body that sleep is imminent. Whatever feels calming to you but it could be one or all of these or something that you feel works for you.
Quietening the noise, dimming the lights, being warm and cosy will all help to cue the body into rest-mode. Being warm - much needed in this winter chill - helps to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Reach for cosy socks, soft lights and warm blankets and a hot water bottle if needed.
You might like to include a soak in the bath and adding epsom salts and lavender oil can also help to induce a sleepy vibe.
Turning off screens and reading your book in bed or playing calming music (I like 432hertz music)
Doing a meditation for sleep can help to calm an overthinking mind.
A milky night time drink or sleepy herbal tea. Here are my two favourite combinations:
Nighttime milky elixir - warm milk or nut will with cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamon. Add a spoonful of ashwaghanda if you would like.
Sleepy herbal tea combo - Lemon balm, chamomile and passiflora.
Prioritising sleep as a must rather than something that gets in the way of doing and achieving is a necessity. Sleep is not passive but actually is our most healing state. We do most of healing and repair at night. Even our brain clears, detoxes and recalibrates only when we are asleep. Not getting enough sleep is absolutely detrimental to our health.
nutrient rich winter stew
Refuel the body with nutrient dense food
Increase natures medicine - how about a refocus on the 30 plants a week. Plants really are natures medicine and by getting a diversity of plants onto your plate you will get a diversity of nutrients that are much needed to refuel and rebalance the body. Choose seasonal plants as they naturally provide more nutrients which are needed at this time of year like your root veg and dark winter greens.
The fibre also helps to regulate bowel movements, improving clearance and detoxification from the bowels and improve our nutritional status with much needed vitamins and minerals for all cellular functions. An abundance of antioxidants to repair and support our immune resilience, plenty of polyphenols to feed the healthy bacteria in our intestinal microbiome and also dampen down inflammatory signally from the gut. Focus on colourful plates of food that are nourishing and nurturing; think soups, stews, stir fries and tray-bakes.
Embrace herbs and spices not only to add flavour but benefit from their nutritional benefits. At this time of year, I love the warming effects of ginger, paprika, chilli, cumin, coriander and fennel.
Minerals are like calming anchors to the mind and mood; calming the nervous system, supportive in building energy, helping to create hormones and supporting our mood and wellbeing.
Focus on minerals rich sources of plants for their grounding calming effect on the nervous system. Just as plants are rooting down to absorb the nutrients from the earth, we can replenish our resources too. Minerals are like a hydration call to the body.
This could like:
Adding in plenty of leafy greens to your diet.
Using good quality sea salt on your food or even adding a pinch to your water.
If you feel the need you could use electrolytes ( I like OShun). Just a pump or two a day in your glass of water.
Adding in epsom salts to your bath or using magnesium spray or magnesium balm massaged into your feet at night can help the body to absorb magnesium straight into our blood stream and help a more restful sleep.
Radical Rest
Why does rest feel radical now? In a society that sees busy as successful, we shouldn’t see rest as lazy or a waste of time. Rest could actually be the game changer in building vitality, conserving energy for repair and rebalancing hormones.
I’d like to invite you to make a small ritual in your day that has healing and mindful benefits. Look at your daily schedule and see where you can create a small space for a mindful pause in your day. Take time out of your day for stillness, reflection and time to signal to your body that you are safe. What could you do daily that tells your body that you feel safe? What ritual feels like you are coming home?
Doing this regularly can actually be transformative in your mental well-being.
I personally like to do this around the preparation of a herbal tea using the herbs as messengers. Carefully selecting a tea or variety of herbs that I know are calming for the nervous system such as:
Chamomile, lemon balm, passiflora, rose, or tulsi.
Take time out to drink your tea in peace and quiet and give opportunity for a sensory check-in with the body. Connect to the rhythm of your breath, bringing it into a softer, deeper pace. Check in with how your body feels, where are you holding tension; unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, rest your eyes, release the sense of holding it in and set the tone to letting go.
This is about grounding and calming the nervous system but also creating space in the mind for intuitive and inspirational thoughts that might guide you in the right direction this year.
Create space for thoughts to flow in and flow out. Allowing time for inspiration, receiving direction or aligning intentions.
Reawaken the need for movement
This is about listening to your body, connecting to what kind of movement you feel is right for you. Throwing yourself into intense workouts might actually create a stress response in the body. Enforcing intensity can actually play havoc with your stress hormones, stimulating cortisol and adrenaline peaks that might be just too much for the body right now.
Take just 5-10 minutes for intuitive movement. Stretch out your back with gentle spinal twists, hip circles, child’s pose etc.
Maybe bringing in some yin yoga practice, hip and heart openers, or doing some tai chi or Qigong or just moving your body into the shapes and positions you like and holding them just for that little bit longer, deeper and working with deeper breaths and slow thoughts.
Breathwork practices can be transformative - check out my dear friend Breathgal for breathwork inspiration.
Reflect on what feels regulating to YOUR body rather than what is forceful.
Consistency comes with kindness not forcing the body when you feel resistant. Slowly implementing change can help to anchor lifestyle changes into habits. This is about planting the seeds ready for blooming in the spring when we have built more vitality.