This Year's Gentle January Toolkit

This January has been a hard one, but they always are. I hope you’re hanging in and I wanted to round up the tools, reads, and mindsets that have been helping me through. I’m not focused on habits that will last all year but rather what works in these conditions (these conditions are 15 degrees at the time of writing). They apply to February too.

Let me know what’s working for you and remember to be gentle with yourself with news this week (this does not mean burying your head in the sand, it’s about conserving energy to do good and finding pockets of joy wherever we can).

Hydration:

1. Hydration requires a multi-pronged approach. You have to drink a lot of water but it does not have to be cold—the dispenser at my office has an ambient setting that I prefer during the winter. Tea is great and soup is mostly water.

2. The air needs hydration too—humidifiers are important. My Canopy is three years old and I never use it in the summer, but am so glad to have it during the winter. Your lips will tell you when it’s time to start using it. You have to replace the filter every 6 weeks or so but you can clean the parts in the dishwasher which is great. And I like the white noise of it. I have to refill it every day which is part of my bedtime hydration routine (and proof of how dry my apartment is). Fill your water, fill your humidifier.

3. Hydrate your skin.

   Charlotte Palermino
   has great info about this but a good starting place is to apply products on damp skin and then apply a layer of Aquaphor or Vaseline over your moisturizer to seal it in. This is called slugging and in the winter, it is so helpful (this is not medical advice, patch test it first). My winter skin faves are my Super Saturated Serum, Instant Angel, Aquaphor, Sidia Hand Serum, & Weleda Skin Food (thanks, Karen for reminding me how good this is). I also want to try Hanni’s in shower lotion.
   Katie Stone
   did big lip balm and hand cream round ups if you’re in the market!

   

   Choose your fighter! Just kidding, you need them all

Entertainment:

1. We are in a good TV moment and I am currently watching Traitors.