Routine on Tour - Holiday health

Simple reframes to look after yourself while you squeeze lots into life.

Dessert by Cadurcis Plantagenet Ream, 1870

The holidays. Fun, chaotic, festive, beautiful, demanding. All of these experiences tend to collide at the end of the year. There are holiday meals, holiday parties and holiday travel, plus hosting and being hosted - all of which can be overwhelmingly positive for some, or triggering and difficult for others.

I go with the notion that there’s no right or wrong way to approach this time health wise, as it’s just a brief period, a smidge. I believe in the cumulative powers of daily healthy habits, ones that we keep up over months, years and decades. What matters more during the holiday season is how swiftly we get back into the practices that help us feel vibrant when we veer off course, and how aware and gentle we are with ourselves during a time where we might not have the usual resources which help us to feel our best.

There’s a few tools I use to navigate the holidays so I can show up for whatever is going on. FYI it hasn’t always been this way. I’ve had my fair share of times being a sluggish, low energy mess of stress during the holiday season. But, here’s what works for me now:

Depart with grace. Pinpoint what the main holiday meals/parties/trips in the calendar are, the ones which you want to show up at feeling joyful and unencumbered. Keep on with your health practices right up until the event itself, then ENJOY the meal/party/holiday. Joy really does nourish us. After, we want to aim for a gentle but quick return to usual programming. This could look like waking up after a late night spent cackling with friends over margaritas and ignoring the headache while you make a green juice and sit in the sun for 10 minutes. Or it could look completely different! How you return to baseline is yours to figure out.

And, how we get back on track matters more than veering off track in the first place. It’s so necessary to depart from routine. We all should do it as part of a vibrant life and so that we get to know the power of a graceful return as opposed to spiralling into other actions for longer periods of time which might not make us feel good.

Routine on tour. What small practices can you do to seize the moment and improve things in the here and now? A few examples are drinking two large glasses of water when you first wake, taking magnesium each night to encourage restful sleep, moving your body daily but being flexible about what that looks like, and swimming rain or shine. Mood really does follow action and regardless of where you end up these holidays, there will be small time stamps or opportunities for you to keep up 1-2 small consistent practices that help you to feel grounded and great.

With all of this, we are aiming for joy, ease and curiosity. These are my own personal baselines for health on a daily basis. Keep on establishing, practising and noticing and I’ll see you back here next week.

Sophie’s marketplace:

A few bits and pieces I’m loving right now, maybe you will too.

1. The Ocean’s Magnesium. I’ve taken Australian brand Foraged for You ‘The Mother’s Blend’ on and off since my daughter was born. I love the integrity and bioavailability of the product plus I felt great when I consistently took it postpartum. They’ve just released a new magnesium product, a powdered blend of sea minerals, sea lettuce and calcareous marine algae, which provides a good whole source of both magnesium and calcium. It’s in capsule form, ideal for travel! I’ve purchased on preorder, and if their original product is anything to go by, this one will be on par.

2. Forvm vinegars. Such a secret weapon, these vinegars make salad taste really, really good. We use both the Forvm chardonnay vinegar and the Forvm cabernet sauvignon vinegar. They’e also a thoughtful host gift if you are staying with friends or family this summer. Available at New World, and in store at Sabato in Auckland.

I hope these weekly letters are finding the people who need them, and I also hope that so far they’ve been an accessible, non judgy way of learning insights and practices for daily vitality. If anyone feels like emailing a reflection of how these are landing so far, I would appreciate the gesture so much. Simply reply to this email!