Welcome to the First Month of the Year: Let’s Get Clear
We’re a week into the new year… and the glitter has officially left the building.
Now it’s just… winter.
And if you get winter where you live, you get the feeling: the calendar goes quiet, the nights are still long, and the world turns down its volume.
I still have one more week of celebrations on my end, because I come from a culture that refuses to let the party die politely. Aside from January birthdays, we’ve got Orthodox Christmas and the Old Calendar New Year’s dinner to host. Old ways we hang on to on purpose, so winter doesn’t feel like one long gray hallway with no doors.
We manufacture little pockets of: oh, look forward to this!
Candlelight. Music. A table full of people. A reason.
On the 5th we celebrated my son’s 9th birthday. And because we’re in the post-holiday purge of stuff (everyone’s closets are groaning), we’ve decided to start gifting experiences instead of physical things.
For his birthday dinner at his favorite restaurant, he ordered his favorite meal: filet mignon with mushrooms, plus garlic asparagus on the side. Then we took him to something so specific and so wildly cool it felt like a movie: an hour in a Boeing 737 flight simulator, the kind real pilots train on. It’s only one in the nation open for civilian use. He sat there with tiny hands on grown-up controls, and his face said: I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
The night before that: a SpongeBob-themed Wizards game.
The night before that: a Polar Express experience meticulously staged… and carved entirely out of ice.
And honestly, living near Washington DC in December is like being inside a snow globe that never stops shaking: light shows, Santa workshops, lunches, tea parties, dinner dates, tree lighting ceremonies… and first ever projection installation event on the Washington Monument for America’s 250-year commemoration.
Beautiful memories.
Also… late nights.
And now I’m sitting here writing to you, one week into the new year, feeling that familiar post-holiday crash: depleted, foggy, a little wrung out. Not because any of it was “bad,” but because my body has been short on the one thing it uses to do deep maintenance:
Sleep.
Less sleep means less time in repair mode. Less time to “take out the trash,” politely said.
And let me tell you about trash: we missed a pickup right before Christmas because our driveway was freshly repaved. I watched from the window with horror as the trash guy looked at the extra few steps he had to take… shook his head… and drove off.
So there it was: a growing mountain of white bags with orange drawstrings, spilling out of the bins, forming its own winter monument for two weeks. I’m just thankful it wasn’t July.
But it wasn’t just the trash. There were recyclables too, piling up by the garage door, inside and outside. And then a strong cold front swept across the region, with wind gusts that scattered everything like confetti.
It felt like a full ecosystem collapse.
Which is how my children ended up doing a very glamorous winter activity: a property-wide scavenger hunt to re-bag wrapping paper and whatever else had taken flight — ours and the neighbors’. Holiday fun, but make it municipal.
I told my husband, “We can’t miss another pickup. We are drowning in rubbish.”
And then I paused and thought: hm… imagine what mitochondria feel like when the cellular cleanup crew doesn’t clock in on time. Cellular waste floating around where energy is supposed to be made. Not dramatic. Just… inefficient. Heavy. Sludgy. That wet-cement feeling where everything takes twice the effort.
Add late-night light on top of late-night living, and the system gets even more confused.
And then the AHA moment hit, and everything snapped into focus:
The most profound thing I learned last year is this: health starts through the eyes.
Not motivation. Not supplements. Not willpower.
Light.
Through the eyes.
To the brain.
Setting the clock that runs everything.
Here’s what I mean, in plain human language:
Your eyes aren’t just for seeing. They’re also for timing.
Inside your retina are special light-sensing cells that aren’t about vision, they’re about rhythm. When bright light hits your eyes, those cells send a message straight to the master clock in your brain.
That clock essentially announces:
“It’s morning.”
“Start the daytime program.”
“Set the timer for tonight.”
And from that one message, your whole system starts organizing itself.
Morning light turns on the “day chemistry” (alertness, steadier energy, better mood). But just as importantly, it starts a countdown so that later your body knows when it’s safe to shift into the night program:
melatonin rises at the right time
body temperature drops when it should
sleep gets deeper and more restorative
tissues repair, immunity coordinates, memories consolidate
cellular cleanup happens best when the lights are truly out
So when we wake up in dim indoor lighting, then stay bright and lit late into the night, the clock gets fuzzy. The “day” signal isn’t strong enough, and the “night” signal arrives late and confused.
And then we wonder why winter feels like:
low energy
weird cravings
fragile mood
lighter sleep
slower recovery
more inflammation-y vibes
It’s not that winter is “bad.”
It’s that winter requires clearer timing signals.
My realization, one week into the year:
Winter isn’t asking us to push harder. Winter is asking us to get clearer.
Clearer mornings.
Clearer evenings.
Clearer boundaries.
And here’s the simplest lever with the biggest payoff:
Winter is meant for restoration.
So if you’re feeling that “it’s just winter now” heaviness:
Go outside soon after waking, or stick your head out of the window like I do. Face open sky. No sunglasses. A few minutes counts, even on a gray day. Breathe in that cold air and notice how quickly your system wakes up.
Not to “be productive.”
Not to “optimize.”
But to tell your biology the truth:
I am alive. It’s morning. Begin.
And later, when you dim your lights and the world goes quiet, your body can finally reply:
Good. Now I’ll repair. 🌙✨
If you want, let’s make this our January rhythm inside the Skool community:
Morning light + earlier dark = repair season.