Why Winter Isn’t the Time to Push - What Your Nervous System Really Needs Instead

Every January, we see the same pattern. People arrive into the new year with good intention and a bunch of NY resolutions but in reality they’re feeling tired, foggy, unmotivated and immediately assume that they’ve failed before they’ve even begun, some may even feel that something is wrong with them.

Interestingly, the word ‘depressed’ originated from the words ‘deep’ + ‘rest’.

But from a nervous system perspective, winter was never meant to be a season of pushing forward. It’s a season of slowing down, recalibrating and restoring. And the sooner we understand that, the easier the start of the year becomes.

Winter Isn’t a Motivation Problem - It’s a Nervous System Season

Winter brings shorter days, lower light levels and colder temperatures. Biologically, these are signals to conserve energy, not expend it.

Yet culturally, January asks us to do the opposite.

We’re encouraged, often by a bit of peer pressure or the media, to wake earlier, set bigger goals and override the body’s natural rhythms with discipline and willpower.

When clients tell us they feel exhausted, overwhelmed or unmotivated in January, we don’t see a lack of drive. We see a nervous system that hasn’t been given the chance to settle.

This isn’t laziness. It’s physiology.

Why Pushing in January Often Backfires

The nervous system is designed to handle stress - but only when it’s temporary.

In fact, short-term stress is good, it activates the system, and then the body returns to balance. The problem arises when stress becomes constant and chronic.

When this happens, the nervous system adapts. Elevated alertness becomes the new baseline.

From this state, people often experience:

• feeling tired but wired

• poor or restless sleep

• emotional reactivity

• low motivation

• difficulty focusing

No amount of mindset work or productivity tools can override a nervous system that doesn’t feel safe.

This is why pushing harder in January so often leads to burnout by February.

What Your Nervous System Actually Needs in Winter

Winter is not the season for reinvention.

It’s the season for:

• regulation before action

• rest before momentum

• grounding before growth

Before the body can access clarity, energy, motivation or creativity, it needs to return to a regulated baseline: a state where it feels safe enough to function optimally.

This is where your breath comes in.

In our work as a Breathwork Instructors - and Karyn as a specialist in Reflexology, Wellbeing Coaching, Fitness Coaching, and Golf Biomechanics - we see this time and time again: people don’t need more information or intensity - they need simple, repeatable practices that gently guide the nervous system back towards calm.

This is why our Breathwork classes in winter focus less on pushing limits and more on regulation, rhythm and consistency. They’re designed to meet the nervous system where it is, not where we think it should be.

Turning inward, listening to your body, noticing sensations and breathing for balance.

Small practices, done regularly, create profound change.

James Clear talks about this beautifully in Atomic Habits - that lasting transformation doesn’t come from radical overhauls, but from tiny habits that are easy to return to and hard to avoid.

From a nervous system perspective, this couldn’t be more relevant.

Adding just five minutes of coherent breathing into your morning routine for example - before checking your phone, before planning your day - can begin to settle the system, lower baseline stress and create a sense of steadiness beneath everything else.

This isn’t about doing more.

It’s about doing something small enough to be sustainable, and gentle enough that the nervous system actually responds.

Over time, these moments of regulation accumulate.

The body relearns safety.

And calm becomes the place you start from - not something you have to earn.

Why Coherence Breath Is a Winter Essential

In our work, we often return to one simple principle: calm creates capacity.

Coherence Breath is a slow, steady and rhythmic breathing practice that supports nervous system regulation without force or intensity. (Watch my reel, here)

Simply, breathing in to the count of 5 and exhaling to the count of 5 - all through the nose. Soft, smooth, steady, comforting breaths.

Physiologically, this type of breathing:

• reduces stress hormone output

• improves heart rate variability (HRV)

• stimulates the vagus nerve

• supports parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) activation

Over time, these effects help retrain the nervous system baseline - the state your body returns to when nothing urgent is happening.

This baseline matters far more than motivation.

To summarise

Regulation comes first; when the nervous system feels safe, everything else follows. Sleep deepens, focus steadies and motivation returns naturally, without force or pressure. This is why January doesn’t ask us to push harder or reinventourselves, but to approach change differently by supporting the body before demanding more from it.

When we choose regulation over urgency and calm over discipline, we create the conditions for sustainable energy and clarity to emerge. Every strong year is built this way - not through willpower alone, but through a regulated nervous system that provides a steady foundation for whatever comes next.