This was an article I had originally written for the December 2011 Yuletide season for One Witch’s Way.  It turned out to be quite a hit with a number of readers, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that many of these concepts and ideas really apply to daily life all year long.  Just substitute “holiday” with “busy day” or “stressful day” and you more or less fall into the same possible bad habits. 

When the holidays roll around one of the first things that many of us think of after the first sparks of joy and excitement about the impending gatherings, celebrations, and festivities, is the inevitable feelings of being tired. OK, let’s face it, feeling downright exhausted! It happens to the best of us during the holidays. Between decking the halls, trimming the tree, shopping, and going from party to party and family to family, the fun of the season often catches up with us. There are a few real simple ways help eliminate some of that exhaustion or even avoid it altogether. While things like meditation, Reiki sessions, and doing some aura cleansing can all help, some of the more mundane steps can be very helpful in making the way for magickal healing and self care to take root.

Eat Healthy
Well, let’s be honest. This is pretty close to the last thing that happens for the larger part of us during the holiday season. Even the most healthy of veggie dishes is covered in some manner of sauce, often involving cheese and milk, and none of the desserts that we tend to have after these fatty, starchy meals are healthy either (you’re not kidding anyone with fruit tarts). Obviously you should enjoy the holiday meals and treats that only come this time each year, but it’s also important to remember that this isn’t meant to be a free for all for the entire month of December. When you’re not attending a specific event, eat healthy, even more so than you might normally do. This helps to add a little more balance to what you’re doing to do your body by eating a little more poorly during the holidays.

• Have a cup of green tea twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Green tea is a natural antioxidant and can help with keeping things a little more balanced during this heavy eating season.

• Before heading out to a dinner or party for the holidays have a salad at home. A big salad! Since the chances are you wont be eating a great deal of vegetables this helps with the healthier eating but it also means you wont be going on an empty stomach which gives you a much higher risk of overeating.

• If you are a meat eater, try and keep your meat intake at home down during December. Especially if you know that you’ll be attending dinners and parties where meat will be the main dish. Eating a good deal of meat can make you tired and sluggish because it weighs down your digestive system and your personal energy.

• If you typically keep desserts and sweets in the house, try and cut out buying them on your own during the holidays. Most of us tend ti either over do it on the cakes and cookies during the holidays at parties and gatherings but many of us also end up taking home a doggie bag or plate of leftover treats. The more you have on hand the more you’re going to eat!

• And when it comes to taking home leftovers after a holiday dinner, be mindful of what you’re bringing home. Will you eat it? When bringing home a plate from holiday gathering be sure that it is food you will eat and will enjoy, otherwise let someone else take it! Also, don’t bring home more than one meal’s worth of leftovers. This is both practical and helpful to your body. Leftovers usually aren’t worth much after two days and, again, if you have more than you would eat in a sitting that means overeating.

Drink Water
This time of year tends to be filled with soda, coffee, and alcohol in our cups. This is all fine in moderation but we still need good old clear and healthful water. Our bodies need the water, not just any old liquid. When we’re not getting our water we can become dehydrated which causes fatigue. Soda, coffee, and other caffeinated beverages are not truly hydrating and the added caffeine only tires us out more, especially when it’s in excess. Alcohol is a sedative and when put on top of coffee it tires us out even more.

• Be sure to drink the usual 6 to 8 glasses of water a day. If you’re going to be out of the house, traveling to a gathering or visiting friends and family, take along a travel bottle filled with water. Find whatever way you can to get that hydration in.

• Be mindful of how much coffee and other caffeinated drinks you have in a day. Also be sure to cut yourself off from having them too late in the day. Unless you plan on driving late in the evening or know that you need to be awake, try and cut your caffeine off by around noon or 1pm each day. Excessive caffeine only makes you more tired and has the opposite effect that most people are after.

• Alcohol should always be consumed in moderation but remember that it is a sedative and will make you tried, even if you don’t drink in excess. Alcohol can also make you dehydrated so be sure that if you’re drinking alcohol to take breaks in between to drink water so as to help with some of those feelings of fatigue that come with drinking.

Get Some Exercise
This time of year more than any, for more reasons than one, exercise is extremely important. Not only does it help with keeping us from gaining the extra weight that comes with all this eating and drinking but it helps to relieve stress that can only add to our feelings of exhaustion. All you need is to find a half hour during the day to do something physical to help aid in getting a good night’s sleep during this time of year (and really any time of year).

• If you have a gaming console with motion capabilities, purchase yourself an exercise game or one of the many dance or sports games that are on the market. Playing one of these for a half hour will not only go by super fast but it will be fun and wont feel like exercise.

• Remember to do something you enjoy so that you’ll want to keep up with doing something each day.

• This doesn’t have to be a hardcore work out! Grab your iPod and head to the local high school track after hours or early in the morning if weather permits and take a 30 minute stroll. If this isn’t possible, head for the mall but leave your credit cards inside! Better yet, go early in the morning before the stores are open. Those groups of senior citizens that go mall walking before shopping hours really are on to something!

Get Rest
Sometimes during the holidays it feels like there just isn’t enough time in the day to get the rest we know we need. And for us Pagans who are honoring muli-faith and multi-family events, it can be even more tiring because we have both our own rituals and events to attend and then those of our friends and family. At night we may find that we’re just too wound up to sleep and that naturally builds over days into being in a zombie-like state of existence. A night of 8 hours of sleep starts to dwindle down to 4 hours and soon we can’t remember if we went to sleep or passed out the night before. Take steps to make sure you’re still getting the sleep you need, which for the average adult is between 6 and 8 hours a night.

• Try setting your alarm for 15 minutes before you would normally get up. When your alarm goes off you don’t need to jolt right out of bed. Give yourself those 15 minutes to gently come into awareness for the day. Make sure that you are fully awake before your feet hit the floor. When you’re not, you only start your day off tired and it’s hard to truly overcome that feeling.

• Consider changing your alarm to something less, well, alarming. Purchase a Zen Timer alarm clock or look for a clock that had different nature sounds that can act as alarms. Many of us now use our iPhones or other smartphones as alarms and many offer different tones for using the alarm that are removed from the loud electronic buzzing that we grew up with. Being gently woken from your sleep state helps to keep you from feeling suddenly tired all over again once you’re awake.

• For the last hour before you plan to go to bed shut down the computer, turn off your phone, and turn off the television. Spend that hour reading, meditating, or doing something else that has you still, quite, and less stimulated. Electronic stimulation before bed makes it hard to fall asleep for many people and only has our minds reeling with all the things we’ve dealt with during the day. By taking the time to either meditate or read a book purely for enjoyment we have the chance to step outside of our routine and all that we’ve had going on for the day so we can truly relax and unwind.

While all of these tips are naturally good healthy living ideas, they are especially important for this time of year. With the stress we are often under with the holidays we quickly become run down and our immune systems weaken making January flu and colds common occurrences. But it’s also important for us magickal folks to keep in mind because a state of fatigue means that we’re going to be dealing with low energy, something that may be a concern if you do energy work for yourself or others regularly (especially professionally) or if you plan to work magick and ritual for the Sabbat.

Be sure to have a happy, healthy Yuletide season so that your new year starts out with a bang!