Every year, the last quarter brings a noticeably heavier schedule for most people: year-end reports, targets to sprint toward before the deadline, back-to-back year-end events. This is also the stretch where self-care habits, already hard to sustain through the rest of the year, are often the first thing pushed aside once the calendar gets tight. The irony is that this is exactly the period when the body needs more recovery, not less.
Why this stretch puts extra strain on the body?
When stress runs continuously without breaks in between, the body stays in a "fight or flight" response longer than it needs to. According to Harvard Health, this can show up as common health issues like headaches, stomachaches, and persistent fatigue, even without any specific condition being identified.
Unlike a short-term deadline crunch with a clear end point, year-end pressure tends to run continuously for weeks without a natural break in between, which is why a lot of people feel noticeably more depleted during this stretch than at other times of the year.
Why a recovery routine is most likely to slip exactly when it's needed most?
There's a common paradox here: the busier a stretch gets, the more people tend to cut self-care habits to "save time," even though this is precisely when the body needs those habits the most. A complex, multi-step routine is the first thing to get skipped once the schedule tightens, simply because it demands too many decisions and too much time to execute.
Keeping the routine simple enough to stick
This is when a simple, low-step habit is worth more than a complicated process. As covered in our piece on the evening ritual, 15 to 20 minutes under red light each evening doesn't demand many decisions or preparation, which is exactly why it's far easier to sustain than most other habits during a busy stretch.
For physical recovery during prolonged stress, red and near-infrared light support circulation and reduce local inflammation, as covered in our piece on near-infrared light for aches and pain, particularly useful for the neck and shoulder tension that builds up from long hours sitting at a desk.
It's not just physical care
Beyond the biological effect, a lot of people describe a fixed window each evening, even just 15 minutes, as a clear marker that the working day has ended, especially valuable during a stretch where work and personal life tend to blur together under deadline pressure. This psychological value runs alongside the physical effect, and matters just as much.
A few principles for sustaining the routine through a busy season
- Don't add new steps to the routine during this stretch: this isn't the time to experiment with a more complex process; stick with what's simple and already familiar.
- Anchor it to a fixed point in your day: right before bed, for example, so you don't have to decide "when" each day.
- Accept missing a few days without giving up entirely: maintaining most of your consistency matters more than never missing a single day; the pressure to be perfect often causes people to abandon a habit entirely after one slip.
So, should you start or just hold on to this routine?
If you already have this habit, year-end is exactly when it's worth protecting, not cutting. If you haven't started yet, this is still a reasonable time to, since a simple, low-time-cost habit is actually easier to start during a busy stretch than a complex multi-step routine. The red light therapy vietnam trend, as a low-friction recovery tool, fits particularly well with the demanding pace of this time of year.
