With daylight savings time right around the corner and hope on the horizon, I’m looking forward to longer days, more light, and the feelings of renewal and possibility I get each spring.
In a typical year, we would have just wrapped up Mardi Gras—a season of celebration and indulgence—and I’d be using spring to reset. Though things feel different right now, I’m still getting purpose and comfort from incorporating these rituals this year, and I wanted to share them with you. Here are some of my favorite wellness tips as we move from winter to spring!
1. Incorporate more greens, fresh foods, and herbs.
Think of the spring shoots that are popping up these days; we want to rotate fresh, bright, young, tender greens into our diet. In the winter, we tend more toward roots to ground our energy but in the spring, we want to capitalize on upward momentum. I’ve been getting a biweekly farm share, and the seasonality of that is a wonderful way to bring in more local, fresh greens.
I’ve been enjoying salads and juicing my veggies. Bitter greens are great for encouraging your liver health! We also want to try to top bulk the colon, so that it can effectively assist with processing and moving things out through fiber and hydration. Lastly, herbs are wonderful for lymphatic cleansing, minerals, and hydration.
Foods to try: Dandelion greens, microgreens, green smoothies (experiment with different combos of fruits and veggies!), spinach, kale, beets, carrot tops
Herbs to try: violet, cleavers, chickweed, red clover, nettle, peppermint, calendula, rosemary
2. Try different types of movement.
Movement doesn’t have to be strenuous or stressful, and I always want to remove the societal expectations around exercise just for the sake of looking a certain way. What movement makes you feel amazing and present in your body? Is there a way you can bring a few moments of that into each day?
Personally, I love a walk outside, pilates, bike rides, gentle stretches, or playfully bouncing on a trampoline (also called a rebounder) to get things moving. Dancing is also always a fun and pleasurable way to move your body!
3. Encourage lymph health by dry brushing your skin.
Again, we tend to ground down and sometimes stagnate in the cold, slow, dark winters. Spring is the opposite—this is typically a time for upward and outward movement, and that includes our inner systems. Dry brushing helps encourage the blood and lymph in our bodies to move. For a perfect visual, think of ice melting as the sun comes out to play.
4. Make Vitamin D exposure a priority.
Many people are deficient in Vitamin D and don’t even know it, and this can affect your mental health and well being.
Vitamin D absorption can only happen on your bare skin, but you still want to be safe about it. While I recommend wearing SPF when the sun is strongest (typically between the hours of 10 AM - 3 PM). It’s not all in your head: those sunny early spring days are good for the body and soul!
5. Try to find the fun in making small changes.
I hope this list can be an inspiration to find some lightness and joy after such a heavy winter. The last thing we want is to feel like we have something else on our to-do lists right now. I keep it fun by playing around with these ideas while ultimately listening to my body, and not being rigid or fixed in my rituals.
I’m enjoying approaching this as a game with myself by trying to incorporate one thing a day. Whether it’s a multi-step morning routine, or as simple as starting my day with some cat-cow stretches, or doing a cold-water blast at the end of my shower, my focus is on choosing micro acts of self care each day as I try to gain some forward momentum after this winter. (PS: If you’re intrigued by the cold water tip, read our post on incorporating an energizing Hydrotherapy practice.)
If you’re feeling energetic and looking for even more spring inspiration, check out our advice on spring cleaning your beauty routine.
Happy spring! Hope is in the air, friends:)