Staying Steady Through the Holidays: Blood Sugar, Stress & Fertility-Friendly Choices

December often asks us to slow down — but culturally, we’re encouraged to do the opposite.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie MacKay shares a gentler, more supportive way to move through the holiday season, especially if you’re trying to conceive or support your hormones. Drawing from both Chinese Medicine and modern hormone physiology, we explore why winter is meant to be inward, how overextension and stress impact fertility, and simple ways to stay steady with blood sugar, energy, and emotional health.

This conversation is an invitation to honor your body, protect your energy, and release the pressure to overdo — without guilt, restriction, or perfection.

Inside this episode:

• Why December is a season for restoration, not pushing
• How stress and overextension affect hormones and fertility
• Gentle blood sugar support during the holidays
• The connection between winter, Kidney energy, and reproductive health
• Permission to say no, slow down, and choose steadiness
• Why December matters more than you think for January fertility

If you’ve been feeling tired, sensitive, or overwhelmed this season, this episode is for you.

You are not behind. You are preparing.

Thanks for tuning in to the Restore Fertility Podcast with Stephanie MacKay. Don’t forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode.
Want more fertility and hormone support? VisitRestoreFertilityAndWellness.com Connect with me on Instagram @RestoreFertilityAndWellness

Transcript

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Welcome to Restore Fertility, the podcast where women's health meets holistic healing. Hosted by Stephanie McKay, fertility and hormone expert. With 20 plus years in alternative medicine, we dive into the root causes behind period problems, hormonal imbalances, and fertility struggles. Combining Eastern wisdom with modern functional medicine, whether you're trying to conceive. Navigating PCOS or simply Craving Hormone Harmony. This podcast is your space for support, education, and empowerment. Join us weekly for expert tips, fertility success, stories, and guidance from someone who truly gets it. As we move into the winter holidays, I wanna invite you into a different relationship with this season, especially if you're on a fertility journey or if you're trying to support your hormones and nervous system in a deeper way. This time of year can feel heavy. There's celebration layered with exhaustion, hope layered with pressure. Joy mixed with grief, longing, or disappointment, especially if another year is closing and you're not where you thought you'd be. If that's you, I want you to know this episode is not about fixing yourself. It's about staying steady, protecting your energy, and aligning with what your body actually needs right now. Because fertility doesn't respond to force, it responds to safety, nourishment, and rhythm. Today we're going to talk about how to move through the holidays in a way that supports your blood sugar, your stress hormones, and your reproductive health. But we're also going to talk about something deeper. We're going to talk about how December from a Chinese medicine perspective is meant to be inward, and how much pressure we put on ourselves when we ignore that. And Chinese medicine. December lives fully in the winter element. The season of winter, winter is not passive. It's not lazy. It's conserving. Nature is doing less on the outside, so it can restore itself on the inside, trees drop their leaves, animals hibernate The earth pulls energy inward. And yet as humans, especially women, we often do the opposite. We extend ourselves, we give more. We stay up later, we say yes more often, and we override our instincts. From a Chinese medicine perspective, this drains our kidney system, which governs fertility, hormones, adrenal function, and long-term vitality. Your reproductive system doesn't just need nourishment, it needs stored energy. If your body feels like it's constantly giving, it doesn't feel safe enough to create. Winter is the season where your body is quietly asking. Can I rest now? Can I be held? Can I stop performing? And when we ignore those questions, we often see irregular cycles, low progesterone, poor sleep, anxiety, or that deep tiredness that doesn't go away with one good night's rest. I wanna give you three very simple ways to honor this inward season, nothing overwhelming. Here are three general ways to support your body. In December. Choose one area of life to slow down instead of trying to do less everywhere, choose one place to soften. Perhaps it's earlier bedtimes. Fewer evening plans or quieter mornings. Warm the body whenever possible. Warm foods, warm drinks, warm showers. This supports your nervous system and your reproductive system. Build an intentional, quiet, even five minutes of stillness tells your body it's safe to restore. Let's talk about overextension, not just physically, but emotionally. Overextension is staying at events when you're already exhausted. It's saying yes when your body is saying no. It's pushing through instead of pausing. Your nervous system doesn't differentiate between physical stress and emotional stress. It just reads demand. And when demand stays high, cortisol stays elevated High. Cortisol tells your body that survival is the priority, not reproduction. This isn't your body failing you. It's your body protecting you. Your hormones are always responding to your environment. Internal and external fertility thrives when your body feels safe enough to soften. Now, let's talk about blood sugar. Not in a rigid or restrictive way, but in a supportive, grounding way. Blood sugar instability is one of the most overlooked sources of hormonal stress during the holidays. Skipping meals, eating late, relying on sugar or caffeine, or going too long without nourishment. Sends stress signals through the body. And again, your body responds by prioritizing survival. I wanna keep this simple because simple is what actually works. Here are three anchors to support your blood sugar during the holidays, number one. Eat before events arrive, nourished and that prevents stress hormones from spiking number two, protein first. When you can, it doesn't have to be perfect, just supportive. Number three, don't skip meals to compensate. Focus on staying nourished. Restriction stresses the system more than the food itself. This is about stability, not control. You don't need to avoid holiday foods. You just don't want to eat them on an empty depleted system. When blood sugars stay steady, your mood is steadier, feel supported. And from a Chinese medicine perspective, stable blood sugar supports the spleen, which helps build blood and nourishes the uterus. A nourished body feels more grounded and a grounded body ovulates more reliably. One of the biggest fertility stressors this time of year has nothing to do with food. It's obligation. We attend events out of guilt. We push through fatigue to meet expectations. We carry emotional weight that isn't ours, but here's something important. Our body experiences obligation as stress. Chinese medicine teaches us that emotional overextension drains the same reserves as physical exhaustion. Stress reduction doesn't mean escaping your life. It means creating buffers. Here are three simple buffers that you can use the season build recovery time into your schedule. If you say yes to something, plan rest afterwards. Lower expectations, not standards. You don't need to perform to be worthy. Name what you actually need. Sometimes just acknowledging your needs reduces stress. And remember, you're allowed to choose rest. You're allowed to change your plans. You're allowed to say no without explanation. You're allowed to protect your energy, so standing up for yourself isn't selfish. It's an act of self-respect. And self-respect is part of fertility. If your body is learning how to set boundaries now. That's not a weakness, that's preparation. Here are three kind ways to say no without the guilt. Many women want to say no, but don't know how. So here are some gentle options this year. I'm keeping things really simple. I'm honoring my energy right now. I won't be able to, but thank you for understanding. You don't owe a long explanation. Next, I wanna talk about creating inward space. Winter invites inward time. That doesn't mean isolation, it means intention. Some examples of this could be earlier nights, warming, grounding meals like soups and stews. Quiet mornings, less screen time, gentle movement, and moments of stillness. Even five minutes of intentional rest tells your nervous system, I'm safe, I'm supported. I don't have to push. Your body listens to how you treat yourself. Especially in quiet moments. Some women think that December is kind of a throwaway month. They tell themselves, I'll start in January, but your body doesn't reset on January 1st. Hormones respond to what you do consistently over time. So December is not a pause. It's preparation. What you do now influences how your body enters the new year. Stability now creates momentum later. If you've been feeling the urge to slow down, honor it. If you've been craving quiet, listen. If you've been tired of pushing, let that be information, not judgment. You're not behind, you're not broken. You're preparing. When we align with the season, we align with ourselves, and fertility often follows alignment. If you're experiencing any of these signals from your body. It may be asking for deeper support, persistent fatigue, despite rest cycle changes or increased PMS or feeling emotionally fragile or overwhelmed. That awareness alone is powerful and tells you that you need to take more time to dig deeper. If you're listening to this and feel like your body is asking for deeper support, more steadiness, more guidance, more personalized care, know that you don't have to figure it out all on your own. As we move into the new year, I'll be opening space for women who want to gently but intentionally support their hormones and fertility in a deeper way. If that resonates, I'd love to support you. You don't have to earn rest. You don't have to prove anything, and you're allowed to soften. Enjoy the holidays and remember to take time for yourself.