As the demands of December reach a high, there’s still time to hit your peak, says sports scientist Professor Greg Whyte
As we head into the busiest stretch of Christmas and then New Year, the stress of getting everything ticked off at work, at home, and socially can distract us from the main job of making sure we actually enjoy this time of year.
Just like an athlete preparing for an event, there’s still time to make an individual plan to make sure we are on the best form when it counts.
The challenge of the festive period is when you look at it in its entirety, it becomes overwhelming. The trick is to break it down in to its determinants.
It’s a time when we have a lot more to do than is typical and yet the first thing we sacrifice at this time of year is sleep.
Prioritising sleep and recovery is absolutely crucial, so set an attainable goal. If you have a lot in the calendar, allocate one night a week when you’re not going to drink and can go to bed early so your body has some dedicated recovery time in the bank.
Secondly, nutrition and hydration play a much bigger role than we think, but there’s the tendency to adopt an, ‘oh, sod it’ mentality. ‘January's coming. I know I'm going to be good then.’
So even on the days when you're not necessarily going out, you might be a bit tired from the night before. You might be dehydrated because plenty of the places we’re going are very hot and crowded.
Again, these are the moments, as any athlete knows, when you have personal responsibility. Are you robust enough to not make the popular decision, and make the right decision?
"As people, we don’t tend to have a built-in self-coaching philosophy, but it needn’t take long to make a plan."
Exercise is often the first thing to do go at this time of year because we tell ourselves we don’t have the time.
In fact, it’s now that it can have the biggest benefits. As all of us know, physical activity has a dramatic impact on mood, particularly if we take that outside. And at a time when we can feel sluggish and spend a lot of time indoors, it will have knock-on effects for our sleep, focus and energy levels.
A good athlete is also honest with themselves, and understands how and why they operate at their best as well as their worst. Nobody knows you better than you do.
Some of us can stay up every night, all night and still get the job done tomorrow. Some of us definitely can’t.
If you always leave the presents till the last minute because you enjoy the mad rush of it, fine. If you actually hate it and are only doing it because you haven’t planned in the time any earlier, that’s different.
As people, we don’t tend to have a built-in self-coaching philosophy, but it needn’t take long to make a plan.
Again, break it down in to smaller steps and you can focus on enjoying this time of year instead of getting through it.
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