The Christmas lights are up, the calendars are filling fast, and there is a palpable buzz in the air. It’s the “most wonderful time of the year,” but for many of us, if we are truly honest, it’s also the most dysregulating time of the year.

We are culturally conditioned to sprint toward December 31st. We overcommit, overspend, and override our body’s signals in the name of holiday cheer. By the time the New Year arrives, we aren’t refreshed; we are operating in what somatic experts call “functional freeze”—going through the motions, numb, exhausted, and disconnected from our core selves.

At Nalu Breathwork, we believe this season shouldn’t just be about surviving the chaos; it should be a sacred container for deep reflection and radical nervous system regulation.

Before you set a single intention for the coming year, you need to create the safety in your body to receive it.

The Holiday “Sympathetic Storm”

Think of your year like the ocean. There have been high tides of massive activity and low tides of rest. But December often feels like a relentless storm surge.

When you are rushing between parties, managing family dynamics, and trying to wrap up end-of-year work, your nervous system is stuck in perpetual sympathetic activation (fight or flight). Your body is pumping out cortisol, your breath becomes shallow, and your capacity to actually enjoy the season shrinks.

We cannot reflect meaningfully on our year when our bodies feel unsafe or hurried. Real reflection requires the parasympathetic state—the “rest and digest” mode where healing happens and clarity emerges.

The Gift of the Pause: Reflecting on the Waves of the Year

Instead of a frantic push to the finish line, what if you treated these last few weeks as a gentle deceleration? 

This Christmas, give yourself permission to stop doing and start feeling. Look back over the waves of the past 12 months. Don’t just list achievements or failures mentally; feel them somatically.

• Where in your body did you hold tension this year?

• When did you feel most in “flow” (nalu)?

• What grief needs to be exhaled before you can inhale the newness of January?

This type of reflection is deeper than journaling; it’s nervous system accounting.

Regulation Before Resolution: Preparing for the New Year

The biggest mistake people make with New Year’s resolutions is trying to build a new life on top of a dysregulated nervous system. It’s like trying to build a house during an earthquake.

If your baseline state is anxious, overwhelmed, or shut down, your body will resist any “new year, new me” plans because its primary goal is simply survival.

Regulation is the prerequisite for transformation.

Before January 1st, your only job is to widen your “window of tolerance.” You need to signal to your body that it is safe to slow down. This is where breathwork becomes not just a practice, but a lifeline.

By consciously altering our breathing patterns, we hack the vagus nerve, sending immediate signals of safety to the brain. We shift from reactive to receptive.

A Simple Holiday Nalu Practice: When the noise of the season gets too loud, step away for 3 minutes. Place a hand on your belly. Inhale slowly for a count of 4, feel the belly rise. Hold for a count of 4. Exhale slowly for a count of 6. Repeat. The longer exhale is the quickest way to down-regulate a stressed system.

Diving Deeper into the Flow

While short practices are vital during the holidays, sometimes we need a profound reset to truly clear the debris of a hard year and prepare our capacity for what’s next. We need to immerse ourselves fully in the healing wave.

If you feel called to step away from the noise and gift yourself a profound nervous system reset, join us at one of our upcoming Nalu Breathwork Retreats. These are curated spaces designed to help you metabolize the past year and emerge renewed.

👉 Explore Upcoming Nalu Retreats Here

Furthermore, perhaps as you reflect on your year, you realise your purpose is shifting. Perhaps you feel called not just to regulate your own system, but to hold space for others to do the same. If you are ready to deepen your practice and become a facilitator of this potent work in the New Year, our training lineage awaits you.

👉 Learn About Nalu Facilitator Training Here

The Final Exhale of the Year

This Christmas, release the pressure to be perfect. Release the need to have it all figured out by January 1st.

Instead, prioritise the pause. Honor the breath. Regulate your system with compassion. When you do this, you don’t just enter the New Year; you flow into it, grounded, open, and ready for whatever waves may come.

Happy Holidays from the Jen Barnett – Founder and Nalu Breathwork team xx