Celebrating Quitter's Day
Letting go of high-stress habits.
Welcome to the second Friday in January, a.k.a. “Quitter’s Day.” Today is the day I’ve been told via the American Commercialism Machine (ACM) when 80% of people give up their New Year’s resolutions. Now, I haven’t done anything beyond a short Google search to verify this, so am just going to put my faith in the pop cultural bubble around Quitter’s Day and Quitter’s Friday that’s popped up out of thin air.
Do you remember a Quitter’s Day last year? Or any other year? Yeah. Me neither.
My Pessimistic Hot Take Brain is screaming at me that Quitter’s Day 2025 is some kind of soft-launch of a new commercialized made-up holiday that lands us all in the clutches of Big Greeting Card and Big Online Flash Sale Day in a year or two. However, I’ll embrace it this year by turning it on its head. While influencers are busy “powering through” and hashtagging “not a quitter,” we’re going the other way. We’re celebrating Quitter’s Day. But you know what? We’re not quitting our resolutions — we’re quitting our bad habits.
I nominate these Bad Habits to be banished in celebration of Quitter’s Day 2025:
Giving your all. This is a one-way ticket to burnout. There is no one and no J.O.B. on this planet (or any others) worth giving your all to. Giving your all implies that you hold nothing back for yourself. Nothing for your mental or physical health. Nothing for your peace of mind. Nothing for your joy. No. We are quitting that mindset right now. Put it down and back away slowly.
REFRAME: Giving your best. What employer doesn’t want to see you giving your best? What partner? What parent? What child? What friend? What rando you feel you owe something to in your life who barely knows your name? That’s right. A subtle mind shift from “I must give my all to have value and justify my existence” to “I will give my best as it exists at this moment” lets you honor your needs and remain committed to excellence. It’s a win-win for you and everyone else.
Always on. This is ridiculous. You are a human, not a robot. Even a robot is not always on. Declaring yourself “always on” is proactively putting yourself in a hypervigilant state. You know what happens when you do that? Your body becomes swamped with stress hormones, and nothing good thrives in a swamp. Gross. But maybe you’re the kind of person who likes swamps? Do you like diabetes? Stroke? Heart attack? Dementia? Yeah, thought so. Stress hormones disrupt digestion and disable your body from breaking down glucose, spiking blood sugar. Chronic stress and burnout have been linked to coronary heart disease, cardiovascular diseases, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, anxiety, depressive disorders, inflammation, metabolic disorders, musculoskeletal pain, and an increase in mortality for people under age 45. “Always on” = an early exit.
RESET: Look at your schedule. Find 8-10 uninterrupted hours to turn off your notifications, shut down your computer, and silence your phone. Ideally these hours correspond with sleeping. (See #3). Go dark. It’s gonna feel weird. You might experience some withdrawal from that cortisol habit you’ve unwittingly created, but stick with it. It gets easier.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” CAPITAL EFF THIS. The only thing this hallowed Slogan of Fauxductivity Culture gets right is connecting the concept of death with sacrificing your sleep. Because that’s what will happen. You will die early if you sacrifice sleep. In a country where everyone wants a hack, a quick fix, a silver bullet, we should all be fanatical about sleep. It’s basically a wellness silver bullet. But sleep is soooo easy to sacrifice to the Gods of Do More, Be More. Here’s the harsh truth: you can’t replace lost sleep. Our bodies don’t work like that. Humans need, on average, 7-8 hours of sleep to complete a VERY IMPORTANT physiological process that cannot be undertaken at any other time. Not while awake and not during a cat nap. What is that process, you wonder? Trash pick up. Our bodies produce a hormone that acts as a garbage truck for cellular waste during REM sleep. To pick up a whole day of cell trash, we must complete 4-5 cycles of REM. There are 4-6 sleep cycles, each lasting 1.5-2 hours, and the wonder of algebra will tell you most human bodies then REQUIRE 7-8 hours of sleep to complete the full garbage route. Don’t call a garbage strike on your own body. Go to bed already.
REVISED SLOGAN: Be a quitter. Get your sleep.
Happy Quitter’s Day.
