This time of year it's easy to feel rundown, exhausted, and overwhelmed.

The nourishing infusions will build you up.

They will get you through the winter, with more nutrition, more energy, and an immune system ready to protect you.

They may not prevent us from getting cancer, catching the flu, having an injury, or developing a genetic disease, but they will give us the nutritional foundations needed to support our health.

They carry us through life's difficult health journeys, allowing us to navigate them with more ease, grace, and resiliency.

Are you going to keep drinking the infusions?

I hope that your answer is, "Of course!"

Not drinking infusions would be as crazy as not eating vegetables. In fact, it would be even crazier!

Drinking the infusions is just as important as eating your vegetables. They provide you with plant nutrition that is important for our health.

Vegetables give us fiber but they often aren't cooked long enough to provide us with all of the nutrition that they have to offer. They can be hard to digest, if not properly cooked, leading to indigestion, bloating, and cramping.

The infusions offer deep nourishment with out the need to digest or break down food matter to access it.

As you make your daily brew of infusions, know that you are doing one of the best things that you can for your health.

The process of making daily nourishing infusions is a daily act of self care and can be made into a simple health ritual.

Turn it into a meditation practice, if you are so inclined. Make it a movement meditation, where you are fully present with the actions and experience of preparing the infusion.

As little as 5 minutes-a-day of meditation is extremely beneficial for our nervous system and cardiovascular system, relieving anxiety, stress, and high blood pressure.

By combining the nourishing infusions with meditation, you are increasing the health benefits, even more!

Here is an example of movement meditation with nourishing herbal infusions:

When you fill the kettle with water, focus 100% on the water.

What does it sound like? What does it look like? Where does it come from? Where will it ultimately go? Notice how you are part of the water cycle.

Breathe in fully. Breathe out fully.

When you heat the water, focus 100 percent on the steps.

How does the warmth from the stove feel? How does the water sound as it slowly comes to a boil.

Imagine your long line of ancestors standing at a heat source to heat their water. Be one with them for a moment.

Breathe in fully. Breathe out fully.

As you weigh out your herb, focus on the herb 100 percent.

How does it look and smell as you pour it into the scale. What sound does it make as it transfers from one vessel to the next?

Imagine the life of the plant. What was it like when it was growing and alive? Where did it live? Imagine the way the sunlight felt to the plant and feel it on your own face.

Breathe in fully. Breathe out fully.

When you pour the water over the plant, focus on the action 100 percent. Watch as the water and plant material interplay and swirl together. Admire the steam. Watch it turn to air.

Listen to the sound of the lid, as you tighten and seal it.

Breathe in fully. Breathe out fully.

When you drink the infusion, feel gratitude well up inside you. Feel gratitude for all of the history that connects you through the plants. Feel gratitude for the people, soil, sun, and land that have partaken in your jar of infusion. Feel gratitude for the herbs and the gifts of nourishment and health they offer you.

One whole world, in one jar, nourishing your body. Feel how connected you are to all, in this one nourishing herbal infusion.

Breathe in fully. Breathe out fully.

Feel gratitude for how you're taking the time and initiative to care for yourself and your health.

You are doing important work, with each infusion that you make and drink. The honor that you devote to yourself is apparent with each sip. Appreciate all that you offer yourself in that one jar of infusion.

Carry this gratitude and care for yourself through the day.

Breathe in fully. Breathe out fully.

Watch how this simple daily ritual of self care can make your day joyful and full of gratitude and connection.