Spring Clean Your Health

The flowers are starting to bloom, the mornings aren’t so dark, and the evenings are longer and lighter…. Warmer weather has finally arrived and it’s time to get that SPRING back into your step.

We all know the saying “it’s time to do a spring clean” and this is usually associated with cleaning and de-cluttering our houses, but why don’t you think outside the box and include your heath and wellness in your spring clean??

Surely there are habits that we have developed over the colder, darker months that need to be kicked to the curb. Its time to stop feeling sluggish and lethargic and get those energy levels back.

Here are 3 simple tips on how you can start spring-cleaning your body.

1. Eat seasonal produce – fruits and vegetables taste there best when they are eaten during the times that they should be harvested. Our bodies crave different foods at different times of the year depending on their water content and their ability to heat or cool our bodies.
Vegetables in season – avocado, artichokes, cauliflower, celery, asparagus, spinach, radishes, purples sprouting broccoli, rocket, salad leaves, peas, leeks, spring onions, spring cabbage,
Fruit in season – banana, grapefruit, blood oranges, honeydew, rhubarb, mandarin, mango and apricots.

2. Get moving – during the winter months many of us turn to hibernation and lose the enthusiasm and motivation to exercise. There is no doubt that exercise helps us with cardiovascular fitness and losing weight, but it has so many additional benefits too. With the weather starting to warm up, there is no better time than now to get back into that rhythm and even take your exercise outdoors. Meet a friend for a walk, join an outdoor boot camp or even enjoy a game of tennis with your kids. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you are moving.

3. Clear out your mind – the strain we put on our bodies by being stressed is significantly understated. It affects the way we eat and sleep, our ability to concentrate and our mood. Adopting stress management strategies into your daily routine is a fantastic way to start removing all that ‘junk’ that is clogging up our minds. Now this doesn’t mean that you have to start meditating for 1 hour a day, it can be by introducing simple techniques such as doing 5 minutes of deep breathing on the way to or from work, carrying a little journal with you so that you can write down what you are feeling during a moment of stress or even something as simple as remembering to smile and planting seeds of positivity.