Staying up all night on New Year's? No Thank You.
Counting down to midnight, being awake as the digits change, has always felt like ruining the magic.
It feels far more exciting to fall asleep in one year and wake up in another.
In fact, i’ve never really understood the ritual of starting the year with an ‘all-nighter’. I love a good all night party but the first day of the year doesn't feel like the time to do it.
It feels like entering the year in contradiction. On one hand, there’s a collective desire to reshape ourselves or progress in some way, hence the hype around New Year’s resolutions. We set goals like getting regular sleep, establishing a solid morning routine, and putting good stuff into our body. And yet we start the first day of the year by staying up late, getting little sleep, and often filling our bodies with booze and junk food, leaving us feeling discombobulated from day 1.
This has never made any sense to me. Surely we should step into the new year as we mean to go on? For sure, if your goals are to drink more and stay up late, then a huge party on NYE makes perfect sense. But if your goals are more health-focused, which they almost always inevitably are, why not start this way?
Whilst I don’t believe in the whole ‘new year, new you’ approach to goal setting, I do find that setting intentions at the beginning of the year, along with a fleshed out road map of how to achieve/embody them, can be fruitful and fulfilling. Personally, I tend to focus on the year that has passed and consider the following 3 categories:
- What I want to let go of
- What I want to bring with me
- What I want to invite in
Spending more time resting always features on my list of intentions for the NY. This year the focus was specifically on mental and emotional rest. This looked like spending three days in Snowdonia, getting lost in maps, climbing hills and being blasted by the fresh air. This, paired with hearty stews, a cosy shepherd’s hut to read in and good company, for sure got me out of my head and back to my heart (mountains seem to have a way of doing that).
As the years have gone on I've learnt to listen to my own wants and needs, and realised they're definitely not asking me to enter the new year exhausted, depleted with a hangover and a bad stomach. I prefer to enter as I mean to go on, which for me almost always includes waking up early, nourishing my body with a tasty breakfast and getting outdoors.
What are your thoughts on NYE celebrations? Have you found a way to enter the New Year that makes sense for you?
Please share in the comments below, and maybe your stories will inspire someone else to re-shape their start to the year!
To find out more about the different types of rest that you need, why not visit our blog post on it or take our quiz?