It’s okay, in 4 weeks Christmas will all be over for another year! If that sentence just sent your blood pressure skyrocketing then this Blog is for you!
As if we didn’t have enough pressure on us during the rest of the year, the last 6-8 weeks of the year in Australia are absolutely crazy. Not only do we have all the Christmassy things being added to our to-do lists but we are also heading into the long summer holiday period over January and for that reason everyone seems to behave like the world is going to end on the 25th December! There are school concerts, carols, presentation nights, work end of year parties, relatives coming to stay for much longer than you might like, and on top of that all the people whom you’ve barely seen all year suddenly just have to catch up with you ‘before Christmas’!!!
Often the first thing to suffer with all this extra stuff happening is your sleep. Sleep is a super common wellbeing concern and for this reason I want to keep talking about it and providing useful information, especially when it’s going to help you get through the Silly Season without falling into a heap!
Not a creature was stirring…
Good quality and quantity sleep is absolutely imperative for good health, wellbeing and longevity. Your body, on all energetic levels – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – requires enough sleep to be able to function and requires good sleep to be able to perform well. The bottom line is that if you are not sleeping you are heading for dis-ease. If you have some time off booked for after Christmas you don’t want to be spending your holiday time feeling run down, or even being seriously ill because you ran yourself ragged in the lead up to Christmas!
There may be a Santa, but you’re not him
The problem when we are in the throes of the silly season is that you may tend to fall into your people-pleaser role – trying to get everything done for the multiple people who are putting demands on you – kids, boss, extraneous relatives and loosely classified friends! This inevitably leads to trying to squeeze more into each 24 hour period than is humanly possible, and the first thing to suffer is being in bed for long enough each night. Not only is the reduced hours of sleep a problem, but when you do get to bed your mind is often so overstimulated that you don’t sleep well. Even if you fall asleep easily you have vivid tiring dreams or wake frequently and immediately start mentally reviewing your to-do list!
I recently heard of someone who treats the 11th month of the year truly as NO-vember – making a conscious effort to say ‘no’ to people who ask her to do anything in that month. So that is my first tip for Surviving the Silly Season – even though No-vember is almost over – say no! Put sleep first! Suggest a January catch up instead to that person who you haven’t seen since June. Draw up a shopping and cooking roster for your house guests. Think of a different gift for your colleagues instead of the delicious but time consuming rum balls you usually make!
Silent Night
My other tips for getting enough sleep during the Silly Season are:
– leave your devices out of your bedroom, or at the very least out of reach when you are in bed
– use essential oils
– include meditation in your daily routine
– don’t eat and drink right before bed, a gurgling digestive system is sure to keep you awake
– don’t worry if you wake a couple of times during the night – humans are designed to wake every 45 mins or so to check for danger (NOT to check Facebook!). Waking during the night is only a problem if you have difficulty getting back to sleep and worrying about it is not going to help you do that!
– if you’re spending enough hours in bed but you are waking up exhausted then something else is missing from your energetic balance. Check the essentials – are you exercising, eating okay, drinking lots of water, avoiding caffeine and alcohol? Energy healing is very beneficial in this kind of situation as you don’t need to know exactly what the problem is in order for it to help. Energy healing will treat the underlying causes of your exhaustion without you having to really know what they are! It does this through balancing all your energies and allowing your body to be in a state where it can heal itself
Joy to the World
Remember we call it the Silly Season and part of silliness is actually fun! Yes, you are actually meant to be having some fun, enjoying the good things in life, taking pleasure in spending time with people that you love. If you are overtired it is hard to enjoy anything, and to be any fun to be around. Especially if you have kids, for whom this is a magical time of year, do everyone a favour and get enough sleep so that you don’t become Scrooge this year!
This article was originally published on www.evenstarwellbeing.com