21 top tips for springtime self-care to boost your health and happiness

Hello, you fabulous Wellbeing Explorer!

Spring is a time for new beginnings, fresh starts and opening our heart and soul to the wild. We can explore the wildness within, and the beauty, freshness and new blooms of the natural world around us. Spring is a beautiful time to be alive.

I know things are still difficult for many of you, and lockdown’s are still severe in many places, so hopefully most of these ideas can be done with lockdown in mind.

We can still think and feel EXPANSIVE during this beautiful, liberating season, even with the current limitations to our physical movement, and psychological freedom.

Self-reflection questions:

How can I use this season to invite NEW PERSPECTIVES into my life?
How can I EMBRACE THE FREEDOM of the new beginnings of spring, and express myself wholeheartedly, with passion and clarity?
What can I do to PRIORITISE MY SELF-CARE this season?
How can I INVITE MORE ENERGY AND MOTIVATION for this season of growth and expansion?
How can I deeply CONNECT to myself, others and the environment?

Below are 21 of my top tips, ideas and practices for self-care to boost your health and happiness this season.

The official start date for spring this year is 20th March.

Remember the Wellbeing Explorers self-care definition

Boost your health and happiness with springtime self-care:

Stand outside barefoot on the ground, open your arms, close your eyes and embrace the sun.
Go into your garden or any wild space and sit. Watch and listen for the small, beautiful moments of rebirth in nature.
Schedule time for daydreaming.
Declutter and clean. You’ve spent a lot of time inside over the winter, take the opportunity to freshen up your surroundings and let go of internal and external things you are hanging onto. Make it almost a ritual of letting go. Release!
In your journal set goals, plans and intentions for the period of energy and growth in the next few months.
Do some powerful yoga to energise and stretch (e.g. Ashtanga, Vinyasa flow)
Practice and spread kindness. Do something special for someone else. This will supercharge your mood and fill your heart with gratitude.
Wake up to the sunrise to meditate, savour your cup of tea or coffee, do some gentle stretching, read a book or go for a stroll to greet the morning with intention and clarity.
Practice the Wellbeing Explorers check ins.
Practice mindfulness in your activities e.g. when brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, eating.
Eat local and fresh! Spring is a beautiful time to eat fresh produce. Make a conscious effort to increase your fresh veggies and benefit from the nutritional mood boost
Buy yourself flowers and house plants to brighten up and invite life and growth into your home and self.
Write a gratitude journal.
Practice your 2 minute wake up ritual;
- Smile (20 seconds)
- Set intentions for the emotional states of being you want to cultivate today (30 seconds)
- Sit up and take three deep, long intentional breaths (40 seconds)
- Stand up and do "Tits and Teeth" (30 seconds) (follow this link for tits and teeth)
Practice the loving kindness meditation to expand your feelings of compassion (click here).
Breathe deeply to prepare your body and mind to immerse yourself into cold water or take a cold shower to energise, engage, liberate feel TOTALLY ALIVE and for a mental and physical health boost.
Challenge yourself and start a new outdoor activity. Try an intro class to rock climbing, kayaking, gardening, biking, outdoor swimming or continue to build your skill set with setting goals.
Go bird watching and look out for all the new-born animals in your local wild spaces. Soak in all young energy of new life in nature.
Do some self-massage (or even better, if you live with someone do team massages!). Give your feet, hands, legs, arms, face and head some much needed deep release.
Build an indoor garden and grow from your veggie stalks and scraps. For example, celery, carrots, lettuce, garlic and LOTS more grow from scraps and make such a fun spring activity to connect you to the food you eat.
Smell the fresh spring air.