The Health Lessons of Easter

Hopefully you had a wonderful Easter weekend. Normally holidays concern me a little. They are a time that many people:

• Suspend their diets

• Sit around on couches, recliners and dining tables

• Consume a lot of alcohol

• Stay up way too late

I’m not trying to be Scrooge and berate you for your poor holiday health habits. I’m all for spending time with family and friends. I’m just trying to give you a little heads up so you might not indulge quite so much.

Easter, on the other hand, seems like a healthier time than the rest of the year. The time leading up to Easter is a time of denial. For the period of Lent, the Catholic Church says you need to sacrifice.

• No meat on Fridays - from Ash Wednesday (February 18th for 2026), until Good Friday (April 3rd)

• Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days you should fast completely

• Fasting from certain items (certain types of food, technology etc) for all of Lent

• Praying daily

• Almsgiving (charitable works)

Instead of the indulgence we often see at holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, Easter is a time for cutting back. Of fasting. Of doing what is not easy. Like so many general lifestyle activities that promote good health.

Personally this Lent, I prayed the Rosary every day, gave up a certain protein cookie for which I had a bit of an addiction, and also gave up heat in the shower. Cold showers were the norm. And it felt great.

I need to work on the charity aspect a bit more.

I’m not trying to convert everyone to Catholicism here. Of course I would welcome you if you did! Instead I’m saying these ancient lessons of Lent can be good for your health as well.

Tying an addiction to your sense of morality I’ve found is a good way to beat it.

If you sit down to eat at a restaurant and the previous diners left a big cash tip on the table, would you grab it and put it in your wallet? Hopefully not.

Your conscience should say ‘leave it for the waitress’. Likewise look at the dessert menu after dining out as that sum of money. You can be tempted by it but you resist it. You tell yourself it is the wrong thing to do. Use morality to guide your cravings.

There are even studies that show that your preference for a substance can be determined by the moral value you assign to it:

Even the Easter bunny can be a sign of good health. The Easter bunny actually came from a pagan festival in Germany called Ostara, which spread across Northern Europe and England. It was a celebration of the turning of the Equinox and paid homage to the German goddess Eostre. She was the goddess of dawn, light and rebirth.

Eostre entertained children by turning a bird into a rabbit. This was a special rabbit because it retained its ‘bird’ ability to still lay eggs.

The rabbit was a symbol of fertility, since they could mate and produce offspring at a prolific pace. Fertility and good health go hand in hand. Even today there are many stories on the internet about people who were told they could not conceive. Then they changed their diets and lifestyles radically and became parents.

Eventually Eostre became Easter, and was bound together with Christian traditions. Could you take the themes of Easter and apply it to your health journey all year long?