Encourage Your Brain: Post-Holiday Letdown? How Your Brain Will Come to Your Rescue!

Although we may not realize it, we are often in full-fledged fight-flight mode through much of December. We amp up the cortisol and the adrenaline to be able to get it all done, and then the letdown hits. And I am feeling the letdown just a bit myself. I helped to host the holidays for our family, and part of that letdown feeling is your brain signaling you to rebalance. All that extra cortisol and adrenaline that was needed to get through and get everything done, it really comes at a cost to our bodies. So when we're pushing hard to do more, our brain ends up shortchanging other systems in the body like our immune system or our digestive system or our reproductive system. So it's no surprise that we need a little more sleep and a little better nutrition if we pushed hard through the last couple of weeks. There's a neuroscientist that I enjoy reading, Lisa Feldman Barrett, in her book 7½ Lessons About the Brain. She shares that the brain's main function, the number one function, is for budgeting our body's resources. Yes, it also helps us think strategically and do some other things. See, I'm tired, my tongue's not working. It does help us think strategically, and yet the key thing that it's responsible for is making sure that your body has the resources that it needs to get through the day. So if you're tired, your brain is going to be operating behind the scenes to make sure that you rest more. And sometimes we even end up coming down with a cold when we're tired, just perhaps so we can rest some more. So my post-holiday hope is that we all find ways to catch our breath this week. I can guarantee that will make your brain happy, your body happy, so that we're not running on fumes as we head into the new year. And once we are rebalanced, our brains will be much happier, on board to go for big goals and learn new things as we enter the new year. Happiest of all New Years to you.