Home For The Holidays

Happy Holidays Friends,

I don't know about you, but I have enjoyed, for a change, a little more quiet simplicity this holiday season. I know many of us are finding the silver linings in many things this pandemic year. The plan is to be back at it next year, so why not enjoy this season at a bit of a slower pace? However, a bit of a slower pace seems to be a struggle for many of us. We are hard-wired to believe that slowing down is unproductive, and in terms of our overall well-being, a constant pace isn't providing the most health benefit. 

In the 19th century, Claude Bernard was the physiologist responsible for the breakthrough in understanding how living organisms remain in a state of balance despite external environment fluctuations, and he called it homeostasis. What it means is that living organisms make small internal adjustments to maintain an inner state of balance. When working with a coaching client, I support them in creating a practice in maintaining balance within their internal physical, mental, and emotional states.

Most are aware of the day's oscillation as the circadian rhythm or our body's 24-hour cycle. Within a 24 hour cycle, we are awake and active, and then as the light goes down, we rest and restore with sleep. However, built into this 24-hour cycle is a shorter cycle of about 90 minutes called the ultradian rhythm; this is a hum of energy as we go about our day in an activity/rest cycle. It's our energetic optimization and internal coordination of cellular processes, respiration, circulation, hormonal, sleep stages, and behavioral function. When you find your concentration and energy beginning to slow down, it's a good sign that you're starting to hit a low point in an ultradian rhythm. We are designed to recharge our energy throughout our day for optimal gene expression and stress responses. We are meant to take pause throughout our day, stop rest, and then go again. We build in this oscillation so that we don't accumulate fatigue and stress. When we don't have these activity/rest cycles built-in, an imbalance is created, and our energy rhythm is thrown off, making sleep, resilience, and cellular restoration more challenging. 

I am a frequent traveler to the United Kingdom, and one of the things I've enjoyed so much is making it a point to do as the British citizens do and that’s stopping to take tea breaks; tea is heavily built into their culture; these breaks happen throughout their day. Other cultures do the same by stopping midday to take official breaks or end their workday earlier. They enjoy extended vacations, maternity, and sick leave, and all of this is built into their economy. Now at home, I purposely pace my day with built in tea breaks and a little downtime. Our workday pauses don't have to be long, but they should be intentional. We aren't accustomed to stopping for a coffee or tea break before starting again in our western culture. We don't stop and have a proper lunch and then stop at the end of a typical workday. There is always something else to tend to, and we'll get to the food on the go. 

Resiliency is strengthened in many ways, and one important lifestyle component is to look at how our ultradian cycle is being managed. Are you deliberately building in sufficient mini-breaks into your day to let go, recharge and restart? As many of us have been working from home and saying no to more this holiday season due to covid, we have had the unexpected silver lining of the universe's gentle nudge to reset and honor our well-being.

I wish you all so much love and hope that you will appreciate and embrace being home for the holidays and when we kick back into gear to usher in a restart, and we will I hope that you'll remember that life is good and to stop more often to smell the roses and have a little tea!

Happiest of holidays and many blessings to you and yours in the new year,

XO Donna

Join me in January 2021 for a six-week series to get the head and the heart working together and live from a place of the heart's intuitive guidance as a powerful way to learn how to relieve stress and improve your mind and body's overall health. https://www.mindfullyconnected.org/group-series