Do you struggle to be positive in January? You are not on your own. January has been dubbed the most depressing month with the 3rd Monday of the month being called Blue Monday.
In this post I will suggest at least 3 things you could do to help you manage January and yourself better at this time. There are perfectly good reasons as to why January can be a very rough month and they mostly have nothing to do with empty bank accounts, though they can add to the stress! But first, let me offer some reasons why life can feel so hard at this time.
New Year – New You
It doesn’t help that you feel under pressure to reinvent yourself on New Years Day – the very time when you need to be allowing yourself to rest and re-energise gently. This is not the time to be hitting the gym hard, especially if you haven’t been for a while. This is not the time to be putting pressure on yourself to be all things to all people. It is the time to continue to reflect, review, retune, so you can step into spring in February.
Nature Calls You To Hibernate!
There is so much going on at a natural level. You are a seasonal being – we all are. That means you are very much affected by the seasons and that is how it is meant to be – it’s the natural order.
In summer you get lots of sunlight. It’s the season to be most active and energetic. You stay up late. You tend to get out and about more, be more adventurous in lots of ways. Your energy is being fed naturally through the sun, all the colours around you, the smells of flowers, etc. You can feel strong and able in summer.
In winter it is darker, damper, colder and wetter. This is to call you into hibernation. It is a natural time to rest, while nature hits its reset button. Some plants die off in winter and some reset to come back in spring…
You are no different, you are meant to hibernate and reset, recharge, renew and retune your whole energy system.
But, humanity has developed many ways to help you stay as active in winter as you were in summer. Things like electricity, central heating, cars, trains, buses, fires, and much more allow you to stay up late, work late, travel far, etc.
I tend to find that when I go against the natural law, the natural flow, my energy gets out of balance. I seem to be fighting against myself at some level. I have really felt an internal dis-ease this winter. I really wanted to be more active, more out there, more productive in my work. I literally felt like I was fighting this invisible energy.
I was – and the invisible energy was the natural winter flow. So, I decided in my wisdom to go with the natural flow and slow down. When this happened, I began to feel much better.
You Naturally Have Lower Levels of Vitamin D In Winter
In winter because there is less sunlight and the sun doesn’t get high enough in the sky for long enough, you lack the ability to produce some essential vitamins with vitamin D being the main one. Did you know that every cell in your body has a vitamin d receptor on it. That means that every cell needs this vital vitamin.
Should you go into hibernation you would need a lot less vitamin d. Natural sources of vitamin D are found in organs of animals and in animal products. Our ancestors would have eaten all of the animal including the internal organs and so got that extra vitamin d naturally. We don’t tend to do this so much anymore.
Christmas Was A High Sugar Time
Christmas is a time when you eat a lot of sugary food and drink a lot of sugary drinks! Most sugar is unnatural and puts your body under more stress. You can become insulin resistant due to consuming too much processed sugary snacks and meals. Much of your magnesium and other vital natural nutrition can get used up trying to help you process the sugar and calm your energy system.
Emotions Run High At Christmas
With this happening you will lack the ability to deal with other stresses that come your way. For some reason we tend to get very nostalgic at Christmas. We miss absent family members a lot at this time.
Because are that bit more stressed due to all of the above and a lot more besides, you can get easily irritated, overwhelmed, and in some cases aggressive. All part of the fight, flight and freeze stress response – yes, you are more stressed at Christmas.
3 Things You Can Do To Help You Stay Positive In January
I have no doubt that you would prefer to be more positive in January. Here are just three of many things that I do to keep me positive in January
1)Be The Compassionate Voice You Need To Hear
The person you can be hardest on, is yourself. Mostly you won’t even realise that you are being so hard on yourself. It has become so automatic and subconscious. But it doesn’t help you stay positive. In fact when you are hard on yourself you are putting yourself down and perhaps triggering off a stress response too.
I deliberately begin each day with some compassionate talk to my self! I say things like: ‘You’re doing okay’. ‘You truly got this day’. ‘You have exactly enough energy in your tank to get you through this moment, this hour, this day and that is all you need’.
Then throughout the day, I will take a moment or two to add in another self-empowering script or two.
When I first started doing this, I would write out the scripts so I didn’t have to think about it. Being honest, I was so hard on myself, that I couldn’t come up with such scripts or I would forget to think them.. Writing the scripts out on a post-it and placing them in key places around the house was key for me. It helped me to remember to think positive and got me into the habit of doing this.
You could create a positive script jar and pull out a different thought every time you are passing the jar. Then place it back in the jar again because you can never think that thought often enough.
2)The Seasons Will Change – Hang In
I also keep reminding myself that the seasons are always changing, spring is coming, I just need to hang in and let this season pass on by. Or, sure why not enjoy this time of rest and relaxation, instead of going out and over-doing it, I could treat myself to a healing massage, or an energy session or perhaps a kinesiology balance.
Another thing I do is commit to tapping through the winter. Each day, I will tap at least one round of the Two Meridian Tapping System and I do feel the difference, so much so that I will keep tapping for another 2 or more rounds.
Initially when you get into Tapping this Two Meridian Way, a round can take a while, but when you get used to the system, a round can take just a few minutes. This Tapping way, really helps to balance all the energy meridian lines in your body which brings greater balance to all your neurotransmitter energies like noradrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, histamine, and many more.
When you are over stressed all these neurotransmitter energies go way out of balance. But Two Meridian Tapping helps to bring them back into balance and also helps you change your negative thinking too.
3)Daily Rebounding Exercise Keeps My Mind Clear
Trough all my winters over the last 17 years, since I first began my training in Kinesiology, I have been rebounding. Rebounding has to be the best exercise for keeping my mind, body and soul positive and it can all be done in such a gentle way. Back in 2005 I first got into it, I was rebounding a lot more aggressively. In my defence I was much younger then!
Now I rebound more gently, from 10 to 20 minutes daily. There has been many a winters day that I have had to force myself up onto that rebounder. I’d be fighting with myself because my mood is low. But after a minute on the rebounder I can begin to feel my energy lift and my mood begins to improve and so do my thoughts.
What Helps You To Be Positive In January
You may not be into Tapping or Rebounding. You might prefer, yoga, tai chi, jogging, walking, cycling, swimming. Or perhaps you do not exercise at all. Exercise stimulates your energy. It helps you push toxins like sugar and unwanted hormones out of your body.
Your thoughts set your energy in motion and your blood and body follow along… negative thoughts stimulate stress and worry, positive ones don’t.
Nothing stands still, everything is constantly changing and so are you. That can only be good news! Change brings hope and new life just as all the passing seasons do.
Be Compassionate With Yourself
I hope you found this article helpful and it inspires you to refocus your compassionate energy on yourself this January.
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Yes, I agree , as the years past I become much more aware of the natural laws . I used to feel I was fighting with myself in January to try and get going, get more active, more productive. Now, I just go with the flow and understand that my mind and body are still in “caveman ” mode slowly getting ready for the spring.
Thanks Nuala for the reminder.
Elsie.
Thanks Elsie, flowing with the natural law isn’t always easy, but when in the flow, life seems to go much better… N