The Quiet Season

When the World Speeds Up

December has a way of compressing time. Shopping lists, gatherings, end-of-year deadlines, travel plans — the calendar fills itself before you have a chance to breathe. For many people, the holiday season is not restful at all. A 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association found that 38% of respondents reported increased stress during the holidays, citing financial pressure, family dynamics, and overscheduling as the primary causes.

The irony is thick: the season that celebrates peace on earth often leaves us feeling anything but peaceful. If this resonates with you, know that you are not failing at the holidays. The holidays are simply demanding more than any human can comfortably give.

Three Strategies for Staying Grounded

1. The Two-Minute Threshold. Before saying yes to any invitation or obligation, pause for two minutes. Sit with the request. Notice how your body responds. Tightness in the chest or a sinking feeling in the stomach is valuable data. You are allowed to decline. "No" is a complete sentence, and it is also a gift you give yourself.

2. Anchor Breaths. Choose three moments in your day — morning, midday, and evening — and take five slow breaths at each. These anchors create islands of stillness in the rushing current. They do not require a meditation cushion or a quiet room. You can do them in a parking lot, at a dinner table, or waiting in line.

3. Protect One Hour. Each day, block one hour that belongs entirely to you. No errands, no obligations, no screens. Read, walk, sit, nap — whatever restores you. Guard this hour as fiercely as you would guard a meeting with someone important. Because it is a meeting with someone important.

"Stillness is not the absence of activity. It is the presence of attention."

A Winter Meditation

Find a window. Look outside. Notice the quality of December light — how it arrives later, leaves earlier, and carries a softness that summer light does not. Let this be a meditation on impermanence. The shortest days remind us that darkness is not something to fear. It is simply part of the rhythm. And within it, there is an invitation to rest, to turn inward, and to trust that the light will return — as it always does.

However you spend this season, we hope you carve out space for quiet. You deserve it more than you think.

With warmth,
The Salus Team