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Hibernating Is Good for Your Health
Your only New Year’s resolution should be to hibernate
It’s taken me a pile of years to finally appreciate — and enact — the unobvious at holiday time: do less. Like, really: less. And then: less again. Hole up, be still, quiet down. These are the yuletide lessons I’ve finally swallowed after years of doing the frenzied opposite. In fairness, I’m still mid-swallow on some of the nuance.
For instance, I habitually register a post-Christmas urge to reach for any number of all-new-you resolutions to propel me into January. I particularly notice it this year, compelled by a wish to compensate for, or recover from, the bleak horror of 2020. Yet, I now let the urge appear, signal its suggestions, and then dissolve.
Don’t get me wrong. Permission to dissolve isn’t granted because I’m airtight as is (errr, no). I’ve no doubt there will always be more to learn and create in a given lifetime. I just don’t feel compelled to bring about my next-level self in lieu of a midwinter’s nap.
As Nora Zelevansky reports for Elemental, the ancient science of Ayurveda advocates for this approach, as does traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). After all, longer nights and shorter days are nothing new in the scope of human existence — the cold season has always invited us to huddle up and rest…
