5 Simple Ways to Light Up the Season
One of my favorite Irish Proverbs goes: “A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”
Still, the end of Daylight Savings Time is pretty jolting, and it always takes a while to adjust to turning our clocks back an hour. I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent the last week fighting the urge to crawl into bed even before I eat my early-bird dinner. And before we know it, we’ll be jingle bell rockin’ right into another holiday season. For some of us, it’s the best time of the year, filled with joy and cheer and family gatherings. For others, it’s loaded with uncertainty and anxiety and stress and sadness, and studies have found that more than half of us are affected by some level of holiday depression. Wherever you fall on the holiday continuum, it seems like a good time to share some of my favorite tips:
🔥 5 Simple Ways to Light Up the Season
- Get outside! Especially in the morning if you can. The sunshine that boosts your serotonin in the A.M. will be converted to melatonin in time to give you a cozy snooze that night.
- Open the curtains. Turn on the lights. Put up those Christmas decorations early. (Or not at all, if you don’t feel like it!) Look into getting a light box if you’re sunshine-deprived and think that might help. I just dug up some old soy candles and Himalayan salt candleholders and I’ve been lighting those while I write.
- Step it up! When I’m feeling seasonally sluggish, doing more exercise, not less, always snaps me out of it. Try walking twice a day and tell yourself you only have to walk for ten minutes each time. I know for me, once I lace up my sneakers and get out the door, I’ll want to keep walking.
- Start (or restart) a daily creative practice. I talk about this in detail in Life Glows On, and it is truly one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself. If you haven’t started reading the book yet, it might help brighten your season.
- Get on a regular sleep schedule. (If you have a hard time waking up in the morning, you could think about adopting a dog or a cat, truly the world’s most persistent alarm clocks.) You can always tell yourself you can take a nap later if you need it. Once you get going, you’ll be too busy lighting up your day to bother!
Hope that helps!
CLAIRE COOK wrote her first book in her minivan at 45. At 50, she walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of Must Love Dogs, starring Diane Lane and John Cusack, which is now a 7-book series. Claire is the New York Times, USA Today and #1 Amazon bestselling author of 21 fun and inspiring books for 40-to-forever women, including Life Glows On: Reconnecting with Your Creativity to Make the Rest Of Your Life the Best of Your Life.
