Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Winter Solstice, Health, And Hope
The day after the solstice feels different for a reason: the light begins to return, and with it a chance to reset our bodies and our outlook. We dive into what short days really do to mood, immunity, and motivation, then map out simple ways to bring light back into daily life—through sunlight, sleep, food, and community.
We start with the science behind seasonal affective dips and why morning light is a powerful anchor for your circadian rhythm. From vitamin D’s role in immune strength to the mental lift of bright light therapy, you’ll hear practical tactics that work in any latitude: get outside early, stack short daylight breaks, and consider D3 with K2 if your levels run low. We talk about aligning sleep with longer nights to improve recovery, using evenings for slower tasks, and guarding your wake time with morning sun so your rhythm stabilizes without heroic discipline.
Then we head to the kitchen and the table. Winter favors nourishing choices: soups, stews, legumes, roots, and greens that keep blood sugar steady and the microbiome happy. Small upgrades—garlic, ginger, turmeric, leafy add-ins—turn comfort food into a health habit. Just as important, we look at the social medicine built into solstice traditions. Blue Zone patterns show how connection and chosen family buffer stress and lengthen life. If your biological ties feel heavy, curate your circle; host a simple meal, share stories, and practice gratitude or journaling to anchor your inner weather while the outer world stays dim.
We close by treating the solstice as a marker, not a myth. Each day grows a little longer; meet it with small, repeatable steps that compound: sunlight in your eyes, earlier wind-down, a pot of soup, a text to someone who matters. If you’ve got a story about navigating health challenges or seasonal shifts, we’d love to hear it—reach out and join the conversation. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a winter lift, and leave a review to help this community grow.
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Well, hello and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today I want to share some uh information from nature and the gardens and uh its relationship to the time of year. So we just passed the winter solstice and um it's I want to talk about the significance of this time of year and how it relates to health and how it relates to everybody. And here, you know, at Nick Ardens uh we deal with uh the elements we deal with the moon cycles and the sun cycles and those sorts of things affect us more maybe than people that live in the city. And a lot of reasons for that. But first of all, the solstice is the shortest day and the longest night, and it's the time when the earth poles have its maximum tilt away from the sun, and so it's the time when the least amount of sunlight hits the northern hemisphere. Of course, we live in the northern hemisphere, so that's important here. Uh in the southern hemisphere, everything's backwards, so winter is summer, and summer is winter, and all of that, but we're talking about the northern hemisphere here. And you know, it's it's kind of interesting because you get to this time and it's right around Christmas time, right around New Year's, and uh it's it's kind of interesting if you know the history of these holidays. Generally, most of our holidays that are you know Christian-centered today um came from holidays that were nature-centered or you know, even pagan or origins, and the winter solstice was uh you know, technically a pagan, which means non-Christian um origins, because long before there were Christians, the people recognized the cycle of the sun and the importance of the sun, and you know, the sun was revered and even worshipped by some people. But the truth is, you know, all here on earth, all life does come from the sun. And so when we're in a time when there's less of it, it affects us, it affects the plants, it affects the weather, it affects our mood, it affects our ability to receive vitamin D naturally, um, and so many other things. And then, you know, the farther north you are, the more extreme that is. So when you get up, you know, around Alaska, northern Canada, Iceland, you know, around the Arctic Circle, um, the days are really short and the nights are really long. And this goes on for a while. And it's not like um, you know, all of a sudden, boom, it's it's solstice, and you get this one short day, and then all of a sudden, you know, whatever, everything goes back to normal. The days have been getting shorter here, you know, since autumn, or actually since uh summer solstice, and that's when the longest day is. So, right after the longest day, days start getting shorter, and you don't notice it for a good long while. And they get shorter and shorter and shorter, and then you get into fall, and you get into the uh the equinox where the days are even, 12 hours sunlight, 12 hours darkness, and then they keep getting shorter until finally you get to the winter solstice. And um throughout history, there's been traditions that honored this time, you know, that included lighting candles and feasting and and expressing gratitude, you know, for the light returning. So when you get past this day, like today's the day after Solstice here right now when I'm recording this, and so technically we got a little more light today than yesterday. So, I don't know, there's something to celebrate. And, you know, if you think about it, um the reduction of sunlight affects the mood, and there's even uh a syndrome, I guess you could call it, or disorder. You know, everything's a disorder these days, but um it's funny, it's actually the acronym is SAD, and it's for seasonal affective disorder, and it's a type of a depression that it affects people, uh some people during the winter months, and it can include you know, low energy, irritability, sleep issues, changes in appetite, um, and and these are things that happen, you know, the farther north you go, the longer the nights are. And there's all kinds of uh examples of that, even in places that are you know cloudy a lot, you know, Seattle, Oregon, um, there's all kinds of of depression um incidents, cases that that arise from the lack of sunlight. And in places where it's sunny a lot and they tend to be vacation places, places where you know the cultures are happy. Um there's a lot of uh there's something about the sun that brings uh more than just life in the sense of we get to live, but life in the sense of the things that make life worth living, the joy and the the goodness that comes out of living. So let's look at this a little bit. Um, you know, recognizing the importance of this time, not just the solstice, but you know, the winter time when the days are short. Um I think it's important. It can encourage individuals to focus on finding joy and connection during the darker days. Um you know, if you think about it and you focus yourself on being grateful, finding joy in things. And that's maybe one of the things at the holiday season, when regardless of what you celebrate, if it's Christmas or Hanukkah or or um the Saturnalia or or festivus or whatever, um finding community and family and joy and things that you're grateful for. You know, Thanksgiving time is a time where people think about the things they're grateful for. Christmas is a time where gifts are shared. Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, all these things. There's all there's gifts involved, and there's joy that comes from giving and receiving gifts. And so maybe there's some uh logic and and reason behind these holidays beyond just celebrating something that was recognized way back when. Um maybe there's maybe there was some good reason for it. Maybe, maybe the people of old recognized that this was a time when it was easy to be depressed, easy to be uh to go into your own, I don't know, darkness, into uh spiraling down into depression and all of that. And uh maybe they realized that just sharing some time together, sharing a meal, sharing a gift, presenting somebody with something brought a little joy and kind of counteracted all that. Um so let's get into it a little bit. So, you know, light exposure. This is something that it's funny. Recently I've seen an upsurge of awareness around the value of sunlight as opposed to um there's been a lot of negative marketing about the danger of sunlight and the need to put on sunscreen and protect yourself from the sun, and it's so harmful. But the truth is, if you're not getting burnt, which obviously you can avoid by your choices, um, sunlight is crucial. You know, you it's it's crucial for vitamin D synthesis. And if you don't get enough sunlight and you're you know not taking whatever supplements to offset that, you're gonna get deficient in vitamin D. And maybe more than that, but certainly vitamin D is really an important element, uh, an important piece of our health puzzle. And there's all kinds of symptoms that come from lowered um levels of vitamin D in the system, including weakened immune function and mood disorders, which makes perfect sense, right? And maybe that's one of the major contributing factors in the depression that's associated with this time of this time of the year, this the seasonal um syndrome. And so what can you do about it? You know, there's a lot of things you can do about it. There's light therapy, there's, you know, you can do um infrared, there's all kinds of, you know, we have technology now has um lights of all the spectrum, and you know, we have LED grow lights, we have mood lights, we have lights that can mimic the sun pretty well. And maybe it's not perfect, but certainly it's a way to offset um some of the negative stuff. So if I lived in a place further north than I do, you know, I live in Southern California, so we're not too affected. You know, days are short, they seem short. It gets dark about 4:30, 445, and doesn't get light till 6.30 or so. And that's that's short enough days for me, that's for sure. But the further north you get, the shorter those days get, and the longer those nights get. And uh, you know, so this is certainly focused on people that live north of where I do, but that's a lot of people. Um so you can you can you can do outdoor things during daylight hours as much as you can to help offset that, you know, get outside. This is, you know, ecotherapy, garden therapy, therapeutic horticulture is all about that, you know, even if the days are short, even if you've got eight or ten hours of sunlight, well, great. Spend a couple of them outside, you know, take your shirt off or put on a bathing suit, even if it's a little chilly. Um, get that sun on your skin, you know. Wear some shorts if you can. Um, at very least, you know, a short sleeve shirt and and uh you know, get as much exposure as you can this time of year. I don't think you're gonna have much of a problem of getting burnt. And, you know, we don't here in Southern California, especially, we have plenty of warm days, even in the winter time, and you know, you can certainly deal with that. And also, there are foods that have a lot of vitamin D, and you know, we can get into that. I'm gonna probably do a few sections on nutrition and uh start talking about where to get certain elements, and we're gonna talk about microgreens and you know, growing vegetables and all that kind of stuff, but we're not there right now. Um, but definitely do the research. There are plenty of foods that do have a lot of vitamin D in there, and then if you have to, um, you know, there are supplements. Do your research. Uh, there's a lot of there's a D3K2 combination that's supposed to be pretty good, and I I take that from time to time. Um, it's it it helps to benefit your immune system, it helps your body to be able to absorb nutrients and um to work better. So um occasionally, I don't I don't do a lot of supplements, but definitely from time to time. So think about this, right? Summertime, the days are long, we stay up late, we work longer hours, we play longer, we probably sleep a little less, you know, and you you get yourself tired out. Maybe you you you wear yourself out a little bit over the course of the summer and the fall. So definitely you can use um these long nights as a time to get yourself back on track, get your catch up on that sleep. You know, I find it's super easy. I go to bed in the wintertime, usually by nine o'clock, and it's already been dark for four hours. You know, it feels like like right now it's 6:30. It's already been dark for an hour and a half. I could probably go to sleep in a half an hour right now if I really wanted to. Um, and it doesn't mess up my circadian rhythm working with the sunlight because frankly, it's been dark for a while. And so, you know, this is a good time to, if you're able to, based on your schedule, maybe kids or whatever it is, um, you know, forge yourself a little more sleep. Uh, the more I believe that you can sleep with the darkness, you know, the sun being down and being awake with the sun coming up, I think personally it affects my health. And I generally am up all the time when the sun is up, and uh, I sleep as much as I can when the sun's down. So in the winter time, I definitely get more sleep. And, you know, aside from this cancer, which is not contagious, I generally don't get sick. I haven't been, haven't caught a flu or a virus or a bug that was going around for I think it's been since 2012 when I was locked up. I got sick the last time from something that was contagious. And you know, I deal with allergies and stuff that is environmental, but nothing nothing that I caught from anybody. So there's something I'm doing, and you know, that's helping that. And I believe prioritizing sleep is certainly a big part of my health regimen. And I've talked about sleep more than a couple of times, and I'll I'll probably get deeper into it from time to time. But, you know, let's take advantage of this and get more sleep. Go to bed a little earlier and and uh you know, sleep in a little bit more. You can't make up sleep. Like if you go days and days and you're not getting enough sleep, you can't just have one good sleep night and catch up. It just doesn't work that way. The toll it takes on your body is accumulative, and um, you know, you don't just accumulatively make it up. So definitely I would say um take this time to be more mindful of prioritizing health-related activities. Uh you know, we realize, well, we've only got so many hours of the daytime. Like I know that when I get up, I try to get my butt outside earlier and earlier because I know I've only got so many hours to be outside right now. And, you know, I can if I need to do uh, you know, some lab work or making products or whatever, um, I can do it after dark. I can go in the lab and just work. So I try to do as much of my outdoor stuff as I can during the waking hours and um, you know, take on other projects that can be done inside afterwards. So that's a thing. But being mindful, I think, at this time of the value of the daylight time and making sure you make time for health promoting activities and maybe say, well, I'm gonna definitely get some exercise today, and and or I'm gonna, you know, do this some gardening, or I'm gonna, whatever it is, you know, I'm gonna get outside and and see some nature, I'm gonna go fishing, I'm gonna go on a hike, I'm gonna do that thing that brings me some joy and gets me some sunlight. Um paying attention to that this time of year, I think, is important. Um then there's nutrition. So in the summertime, you know, there's a lot of delicious fruits that are ripe, and the peaches and the apricots and the berries and the melons and all that stuff is local and ripe, and we eat, um, you know, we're going out to eat a lot, you know, the days are long, go out and grab a piece of pizza or go to the beach and have a picnic or whatever it is. And, you know, we eat maybe not as good during the summertime for that reason. Maybe we eat more sugary foods, maybe we eat uh, you know, we drink a lot of drinks. We drink more, I think, in the summertime, and we tend to like drinks that have a little sweetness to them. So um, you know, I think there's definitely a propensity to eat more and maybe eat a little not as good during the summertime. But in the wintertime, I think a lot of times we we shift ourselves to foods that are just naturally hearty and warm and delicious, like soups and chilies and stews and um those are kinds of foods that generally might have, you know, some good root vegetables in them. We Probably eat more more vegetables maybe in the wintertime. I don't know. You know, there's summertime and a lot of salads and things like that, but definitely the soups and the hot food is really good. Like we had a celebration uh ceremony over the weekend. And uh, you know, we do a potluck out here after the uh the teepee ceremony. And uh I don't know, I think four different people brought soup and four different kinds of soup. And uh yeah, it was tasty. Some chicken soup and some uh vegan chili and a couple of vegetable soups, and just you know, really warm, tasty, hearty food that's just full of nutrition. So I think this is a good time to focus on that. Um here's another thing maybe that's important about this time of year, you know, with all the darkness, it's a good time to reflect. You know, I talk about journaling a lot. Um and I think reflecting is a good this is a good time of year to do that, to look back on the year and and see what you've done, and maybe look at goals and start writing things down. And it's also a time where um community is important. Um and and the our connection, the human connection. I've talked many times about the value of community, and when it comes to longevity and it comes to health, um the the blue zone communities are generally very family-centric. Um there's an a focus on community in the areas of the world where people live the longest. And it would seem, to me anyways, I would say that it's kind of a I don't know, we could we could establish that it's a truth that human beings tend to be more healthy when they're engaged in a good community. And so this is a time that you know people get together. You get together for Thanksgiving, you get together for Christmas, for Kwanzaa, for Hanukkah, for any of the high holy days for for New Year's, um, you know, a lot of things that people celebrate this time of year. Maybe it's not a coincidence, you know, maybe we've stacked a bunch of holidays this time of year because in the summertime it's easy to get together and go on a vacation and get out and go to the beach and go do fun things. But in the winter time, um, I think we've sort of made it a priority. And I think that that's important, and I think there's a lot of value to it. And so, you know, and it doesn't have to be your biological family. I don't know. I talked a little bit in public about my biological family, and in my opinion, the dysfunction of it. And, you know, I have there are members of my biological family that I'm connected to and and have a relationship with, but there are a lot more members of my biological family that I don't, including those that are closest to me biologically. And that's okay. It doesn't have anything to do with my sense of community and my sense of connection, because I have found other people that are not biologically related to me and found that same connection that I would. And in fact, we call each other brother and sister and and aunt and uncle and and nephew and and you know, we we we use those terms the same as if we were biologically related, and we treat each other the way we would want to be treated in those roles. So I have people in my life that I call nephew um and niece that I have no blood relation to whatsoever, but um I treat them with respect and uh affection and caring the same as I would uh a biological nephew or niece. I have brothers and sisters um that I'm not biologically related to at all. And and yet I feel for them closer, much, much closer than I do to any of my biological uh brothers, brother or sisters. And you know, it's it's choices that we make. So find somebody, find those people, whether you're related to them or not. You know, don't find yourself stuck in a crappy family and feel like you just are dealt bad cards and you have to somehow go through the motions of you know dealing with the holidays and the drunk uh, you know, nephew or aunt or brother or whatever that you have to go and deal with, or the dysfunctional, the narcissism, the the drama, all the problems. You just don't need that. And remember that, you know, these are all choices that we make. And I stopped hanging out with my biological family on the holidays almost 20 years ago, and I don't miss it at all. And you know, there was a time when my dad was alive that I'd go and visit, you know, I'd drop by sometime during the holidays, but certainly it wasn't gonna be on the day. And um I think when I realized that a long time ago, it it it it it changed my perspective, and I I found people that I could share those feelings with that and that care and compassion and empathy and all the good stuff that you know you want to have your family uh to share with you. So I thought that was kind of important that I figured that out. And I think you know, being mindful of these things, just like everything, make a big difference. Um so on that note, engaging in mindfulness and gratitude practices this time can have uh vastly improving elements for your emotional health and and help you to enhance feelings of connections to others in the natural world. And just remember, you know, being mindful and grateful are two of your most powerful tools any time of the year for any purpose. But for this time of year, I think it's I don't know, maybe it's easier because you have more time that there's not anything really going on. You know, there's not necessarily anything you have to do, you don't have to scroll through the social media, you don't have to watch TV, you don't have to listen to a podcast. Of course, you should listen to this one, but um you don't have to find yourself um, you know, stuck with busy stuff. You know, in the summertime it's a lot easier. So many places to go, so many things to do, and people are always you know busy during the summertime. So it's a good time to take some time and and and go deep and get mindful and remember the importance of gratitude. I've talked about gratitude. I'll always talk about gratitude, makes all the difference in the world. So I would say that the winter solstice, um, it's a significant event, certainly. It's a thing that happens once a year. And, you know, if you look at it, recognize it, and and celebrate the fact that, you know, we made it. You know, the people of old would would recognize they got to that day and they survived. And now the days are gonna get longer. So their odds of making it all the way through the winter increase as the days are getting longer. Every day the day is longer, you got more time in the sunlight, more more, more um potential to accomplish. And so, you know, maybe giving that a little credit and and understanding that these seasonal changes affect us and being mindful of what we can do to offset those effects or to enhance those effects, depending on what we're trying to do, I think is important. So I don't know. I think that that's some good stuff to think about. And um we're gonna continue a number of series or a number of episodes that get into kind of the lessons of the season as pertain to gardening, and we're gonna talk about pruning and opening up sunlight and how that correlates to um you know your personal life, not just your rose bushes. And you know, this is kind of funny this time of year. Um, you know, we have a surplus of guests in the summertime, and um, you know, I stack up sometimes all the way for weeks, uh, from the time I record to the time that I publish an episode. But this time of year, you know, the guests get thinner. And so I'm opening up the floor for um any of you that have a story to share. You know, I've I've been booking some guests, people that I know that have a life experience, and um people that are going through something and maybe haven't solved it. But and you know, just like I shared my cancer experience and how ultimately I did solve it, or I believe I've solved it anyways. We'll find out soon. But um going from a diagnosis and all the steps I took along the way and how I found answers. Um I think it's important to share those things. So I've got a number of people that uh we're starting to schedule and book that maybe aren't experts in their field, but they're certainly experts in the thing they're going through. And maybe they haven't solved their problem, but maybe uh they're sharing their process. And I think that's important because we we have listeners of all stages, people that are in every aspect, every walk of life, every um every little facet you can think of humanity. We have somebody that fits that. So um I would encourage you if you're interested in coming on, being a guest, and sharing your story, get in touch with me. I'm easy to reach. In fact, I'll give you my phone number here. It's 951-436-6312. Email Grumbinejoe at gmail.com, G-R-U-M-B-I-N-E, J-O-E at gmail.com. And I will answer you if you reach out and we can schedule. And uh, you know, I look forward. We've had over 200 guests on this show since we started this podcast, and uh I love that. I believe it gives us a richness, and uh the community that we're building through this podcast is uh developing in a beautiful way. So, on that note, I want to thank you all that have made this show possible and thank you for listening and talking about it and sharing it. And if you really like the podcast, consider supporting it by uh being a subscriber. And absolutely please share, tell people about this. The more listeners that download, the more exposure we get and the better the show is. All right. Well, thank you, and we will see you next time.
