Hi, and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. You know, I was just down at my daughter's school a couple of days ago, a group of parents standing in a circle, and we were talking about why is it we always get sick in the holidays, this holiday, particularly the holiday season or Christmas. Why is it that this happens? And one parent after another was saying, yeah, my daughter's sick now, or my son's sick.
And he, and I know that I'm going to go down and then, then my other kid will go down, then my partner will go down. And just year after year, we limp through Christmas, either feeling really low energy or just plain sick. Why is that? And I came away thinking a lot about that as I was driving up the mountain, back up to, back up to our farm.
And I was thinking, you know, it really is true. And the very, I guess, simple, you know, thought came to me was, during the holiday season, during Christmas or whatever the holiday is, we tend to get really busy. I mean, forgive the obviousness of this point, but it kind of needs emphasis, I think, for all of us, myself very much included, is just to slow it down and take our time.
Now, we know that, all of us know to slow it down during the holiday season, right? Of course, but I haven't thought too much of it in the past, through or looked at it through the window of just simply staying physically well. When we get busy, our forces, our chi, or our etheric, our vitality, whatever word we use, starts to become drained down. You know, you just, one just starts to feel out of that.
On one hand, it's frenetic, and then after the frenetic energy and getting everything done and getting gifts done and food cooked and all this stuff, and we're rushing around in those days before Christmas, even a week or two before any holiday season, everything starts ramping up. Kids' plays, the school's trying to get all these plays in. They're cute and they're great, but everyone's trying to pack them in, sports events, end of season stuff, beginning of season.
But usually, there's a rush, we've got to get all these games in. So, kids are out late into the evening, and the schools are the same. We've got to round up, wrap up all this work that we're doing.
We've got to wrap up some of these classes. Lots of homework start in, and it just starts pounding, and the water levels start rising, and we feel honestly like we're kind of drinking through, like breathing rather, through a straw, you know, to holding that straw above the water just so we can get some air because we've gone under. So, what is it that we can do in these holiday seasons just to dial it back, keep the house really simple and clear of clutter, dramatically increase the rhythm, hang on to the rhythms, right? Don't let them go.
It doesn't matter that Christmas is right at hand or perhaps later in the Passover or whatever it is, Hanukkah. It doesn't matter. We still get to bed at a reasonable hour.
We're still going to eat our food. It's not that it's a feast for some festival and we're going to have it there for at three o'clock. Meanwhile, the kids normally have lunch at 1230 and you've got a major low blood sugar scene on your hands.
Keeping the schedule simple, just keeping it all dialed back and keeping the whole, keeping kids just away from adult conversations because all these adults are crowding into the kitchen or sitting in the loungeroom and they're people you have an over and a lot of unguarded conversation going on. Not good for kids. But mostly in this little brief podcast today, what I really wanted to emphasize is that keeping it balanced, the outcome is that we stay healthy because we don't become depleted.
Just feeling on top of your game and feeling okay and going into Hanukkah or whatever the festival, Diwali, whatever festivals it is that we celebrate. Going into them with a feeling of, you know what, I've got the shape of this. I am just not going to go crazy.
Well, we tell ourself that year after year, but this conversation with these mums and dads standing in a circle about why is it we always get sick, well, bottom line is our bodies give way, our immunity gives way. Even the most sort of hard-lined person who doesn't buy into all this simplicity stuff, it's just the way the world is and even those folk, I think very few people dispute there is a direct relationship to stress levels and our physical health, our immune system, what our endocrine system is capable of withstanding and giving to us. Stress and physical well-being, it's pretty much that the jury's in, right? We know that there's a direct relationship between stress levels and getting sick and just being able to fight off the bugs.
It's kind of, in some ways, it's just this sort of weird thing that goes on year after year because let's just take the winter holidays, Christmas, the holiday season, as it's called here in the United States, out of respect, of course, to the other holidays and festivals. In the holiday season here in the Northern Hemisphere, it's winter. There are bugs flying everywhere, right? There is all kinds of viruses and flus and bacterias and yet that is the very time that we stress ourselves with these festivals.
What about saying we know there's a high likelihood, a higher likelihood of getting sick in the winter, right? We know it, obvious. Therefore, we need to dial it back and quieten it down. The nights are closing in earlier anyway, so just get a little more sleep.
That's what our family does. It's so great. We go to bed really at least an hour to an hour and a half earlier in the winter than we do in the summer.
It gets us through the winter with few illnesses. Of course, cold comes and goes, but it comes and it goes. It doesn't get into this cyclical thing where the body can't recover.
More sleep, quiet it all down, more stories, less running around, just keeping it together. And that way, we won't get so sick in the holidays. I hope that perspective is helpful.
It's kind of obvious, but I, you know, here in this conversation with these parents, it really stood out to me and I thought, you know, I think that would be worth sharing with you all. Okay, bye-bye for now.
