The holiday season is such a joy, with time focused on family, the hearth, and indulgences, all with underlying spiritual tones of promise and renewal. Unfortunately for many of us, the seasonal spike of celebration can also leave us feeling sluggish and heavy with excess. How can we come back into balance after overindulgence, and resolutely take a leap forward into a better 2019?

A fantastic way to counteract the post-holiday lull is to temporarily moderate caloric intake as well as to add more movement into your daily routine. Here are a few ideas that might help you feel a little clearer after the quintessential holiday binge.

Our ancestors naturally went through periods of feast and famine, one beautifully balancing the other. Feast might come during times of celebration or abundance. Famine came when food was scarce (with people perhaps fasting during ceremonial observances). However, too much of either feast or famine can be dangerous (moderation being the needed mantra of our times). The holiday season, with its blessed excesses can, in this sense, be a curse if not properly balanced.

Intermittent fasting is a hot topic right now in the field of both pop-Western and mainstream alternative medicine. With intermittent fasting, a person can engage in a “mini-fast” that allows for all the known health benefits of a bonafide fast, though in a shorter period of time, while also minimizing hunger pains, irritability, cravings, and cutting caloric intake so as to kindle digestive fire. It simply entails not eating for greater than 12 hours at regular intervals. An easy way to do this is to eat dinner around 6-7pm and then not eat again until at least 6-7am the next morning. This means absolutely no snacking after dinner. The next step up on the rung of commitment might be to not eat from dinner the night before (6-7pm) until lunch of the next day (say, noon). That would be approximately 16 hours of rest for your over-taxed digestive system.

Similarly, our ancestors moved their bodies much more than we do today. It’s telling that many of our modern diseases are fueled by inactivity. Perhaps a movement parallel to the above dietary tweak would be something like high intensity interval training (HIIT). With a HIIT protocol, a person briefly will engage in repeated, intense, brief bouts of exercise followed by intervals of less intense exercise in order to attain many of the benefits of longer workouts. This could be as simple as power walking for 2 minutes followed by walking at a normal pace for 5 minutes and repeating for a total of a half hour daily. Of course this is one of countless examples. Another way to restore more vibrancy to the body after the holidays could be to commit to a 5 minute morning wake-up stretching routine, and a 5 minute end-of-work-day stretching routine to help clear your mind and ease stress from your body upon arriving home.

Disclaimer: If you have have diabetes or a host of other metabolic disorders, you will want to consult your physician before attempting a dietary shift. Something like calorie restriction is only one of many ways to come back into balance after periods of excess.

New years resolutions, whether for weight loss, diet, or exercise, require a conscious act of will. In Chinese medicine, the willpower to follow through over the long-haul to achieve a desired end is ruled by the kidney organ network. How, then, can we then nourish this kidney network in order to strengthen our resolve? Deficiencies in this network are resolved through healthy movement, a light and clean diet, and stress reduction. With this last piece, commit to taking a few moments out of each day to appreciate your self and your hard work. Savor reading a few pages from a novel, sipping a special cup of coffee or tea, or taking some quiet time to simply sit and contemplate the present moment, ignoring the to-do list for just a few minutes. You owe it to yourself! Happy new year!