Your Body Is Speaking.... Are You Listening?

Holding Patterns Bracing and Dysautonomia in the Year End Rush

As we move deeper into the final stretch of the year, many people are feeling the strain that has been building quietly for months. The last quarter always seems to speed up. Work demands intensify. Schools and families add events to your calendar.

Social expectations rise. Emotional load increases. Life gets noisier and your body carries the weight of it all.

This is the time of year when I see the body speaking louder and more obviously. Of course not through words, but through discomfort, tension, fatigue, racing thoughts, mental fog and those familiar symptoms that arrive just when you wish life would slow down. I know it happens for me when I am also having a silent wish that I could just step off the bus for a bit.

Today, in early December, I want to help you understand three common patterns that tend to flare at this time of year:

Holding patterns

Bracing and

Dysautonomia.

These are not signs of weakness. They are signs of a nervous system doing its best to keep you going.

Understanding these patterns can bring relief and clarity and can help you make wiser choices as you move toward the close of the year.

Holding Patterns

When the body stays on guard

Holding patterns are those layers of muscular tension that develop when the body predicts too much pressure, too little space or that it's capacity is being exceeded. These patterns are not random. They appear in very specific places:

the jaw, the diaphragm, the pelvic floor, the shoulders and the chest

As the year draws to a close these areas often tighten because the load has been cumulative. Your body has been absorbing tension for many months and the year-end rush can be the final push that tips you into overwhelm.

Holding patterns begin as protection but they can become uncomfortable when they stay switched on for too long. After a time, they are hard to switch off and soon they are habits. The brain has neural pathways to keep the tension going, but no pathways to release it.

Bracing

The full body readiness that never switches off

Bracing is the body-wide tightening that happens when your system anticipates stress even if nothing is wrong in the moment. Shoulders rise. The jaw grips. The breath shortens. The stomach tightens. It becomes a constant readiness for the next demand or the next pressure point.

This response is common in November and December because the pace accelerates. You become more reactive and less grounded. Many people find themselves feeling tired, wired and unable to settle.

Bracing is not a character flaw. It is a physiological pattern that develops when the nervous system is overloaded and dysregulated.

Dysautonomia

When the system loses its rhythm

Dysautonomia happens when the autonomic nervous system (fight and flight (sympathetic nervous system) and rest and digest (parasympathetic nervous system)), struggles to maintain balance. It is surprisingly common in people who have carried emotional, physical or cognitive load for too long.

You may notice that you feel: dizziness, heart flutters, gut issues, like bloating or sensitivity temperature swings fatigue that feels tidal sleep disruption brain fog sense of being overwhelmed by small things irritability (swearing and getting riled for small things) At year end, these symptoms often intensify, because you have less margin and fewer recovery windows. Your body is not failing. It is signalling that it has reached capacity.

Why the year end amplifies these patterns

The final weeks of the year, push many people beyond their adaptive range. Boundaries thin. Deadlines stack up. Energy drains faster than it is restored. And self-care becomes the first thing to fall away.

Your body tries harder to help you cope. It holds. It braces. It compensates. And eventually it struggles to regulate itself.

These patterns are understandable and predictable but they are also changeable.

I wanted to share: Three antidotes to support your body and your nervous system

Antidote One

No before Yes

Before you agree to anything a social plan, a work request an extra task or a family expectation pause and check your body. If your jaw tightens your chest lifts your stomach drops your throat closes your body is telling you that the cost of “yes” is too high. Give yourself permission to say “no” or “not today”. This one practice protects energy mood and physiological balance.

Antidote Two

The two minute reset

Twice a day for the next few weeks take two minutes to reset your body.

Scan your jaw and soften it Drop your shoulders Relax your eyes and draw them back in their sockets, so they rest at the back of the orbit Unclench your hands Let your pelvic floor soften and drop then lengthen your out-breath. This interrupts holding patterns and bracing and invites your system back into safety. Two minutes can change the trajectory of your whole day.

Antidote Three

One daily boundary

Pick one simple boundary each day until the holiday break. Just one.

Examples I will finish work at my finish time I will take a proper lunch break I will not respond to late messages I will not squeeze in another task today I will give myself a full rest this evening. Strong boundaries reduce the load at the source. They protect your capacity and prevent dysautonomia from deepening.

As we approach the close of the year

We are not at the finish line yet, but it is in sight. You deserve to reach it with steadiness not strain. Your body is not an inconvenience. It is your ally, your guide and your teammate. When it speaks through tension, fatigue or irregular symptoms it is asking for partnership not pressure. Thank you for being here, for trusting my work and for walking this path of awareness with me. Your body is speaking. May you meet it with kindness.