A lot of people see spring as a time to pull out the fridge, move the furniture, remove the blinds, and clean the grimy hidden corners of their homes. And then there are people who see spring as a time to incorporate practices that reset their bodies.
Some people will buy expensive detox programs and potions to do a few times a year. You can experiment with those if you want, but they’re not required for a general body reset. Here are a few wellness practices you can incorporate to reset your body and go into the spring season strong and ready.
Put your scale away
Unless your doctor has you regularly monitoring your body weight, put the scale away. Your weight is only one small indicator in your full picture of health. Even if weight loss is your primary reason for wanting to do a health reboot, obsessing over numbers may stress you out and hinder your progress.
Instead, focus on how you feel:
Incorporating new practices may result in better fitting clothes, but how you feel matters more. Besides, there’s a fair chance that introducing healthy habits may change your body composition, for the better.
Use how you feel as your before and after, not photos of your waistline. It may be helpful to journal how you feel week to week, so that you can reflect on how things are going.
Evaluate your personal care products
Your personal care products have a larger impact on your overall health than you might think. Certain common chemicals such as preservatives and heavy scents have been shown to alter your endocrine system, which may affect your hormone balance.
It would be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor to wipe out your whole collection of shampoos, cleansers, deodorants, cosmetics, hair products, dental care, and everything else. Instead, you can commit to replacing a product on a set interval.
You can decide to replace a product with a more natural version when it runs out, or you can commit to replacing one product every month – whatever works for your budget.
Eat the right sweets
Most health experts will tell you that cutting sugar is a tip-top priority when doing a detox. We’re aligned with that, as long as you keep in mind that cutting sugar isn’t the same as cutting sweets.
When your lifestyle feels too restrictive, you won’t stick with it for long. Instead of giving up treats entirely, find snacks, sweeteners, and drinks that satisfy your sweet tooth without the sugar hangover that comes after.
With sugar-free cookie mixes, muffin mixes, pancake syrups, peanut butter cups, chocolate bars, drink mixes, sweeteners, and more, we’ve got your cravings covered.
Set a hydration goal
The simple act of drinking water can make an incredible difference. Your body’s detox systems work hard to keep your body clean from the inside out, breaking down harmful chemicals and by-products that you encounter in regular day-to-day life.
The next step is to get it all out. Give your body a little extra help flushing out the bad stuff with extra hydration.
Some people use the guideline to drink half your weight in ounces per day. So, if you weigh 150 lbs, you would drink 75 oz of water a day. Other people use hourly reminders and drink to thirst.
It’s up to you, as long as you’re sufficiently hydrating.
Look for antioxidant foods
Antioxidants are nature’s detoxifiers. They help bind free radicals, which are oxygen atoms that in excess could cause damage to healthy cells.
Nature has equipped us with a way to identify high antioxidants in food. Fruits and vegetables that have bright colors are usually a good source of antioxidants. Think berries, tomatoes, purple cabbage, bitter greens, carrots, etc. There’s a reason that a colorful salad is so visually striking and appetizing.
Get hot
Did you know that your skin is a major detoxification organ? That’s why you may experience rashes and breakouts when you eat something that doesn’t agree with you, or during that time of the month when your hormones surge and your body is struggling to keep up with metabolizing the excess. Sometimes, your skin picks up the slack when your normal detox systems are working too hard.
Your body excretes a lot of waste through your sweat glands. That’s why it’s important to sweat through exercise, warm baths, or even sauna sessions.
Track your sleep
Do you know how well you’re sleeping?
A lot of health experts will tell you to go to bed earlier, without knowing what time you go to bed, how long you sleep, or how you feel when you wake up.
Sleep advice isn’t one-size-fits-all. To know what you need, you have to establish your individual patterns. Do figure that out, you can use expensive sleep trackers, or you can keep a simple notebook to log:
- What time you go to be
- What time you wake up
- How you feel when you wake up
- How you feel during the day
- Details about your day (whether you exercised or had work stress, for example)
There are apps and sleep trackers out there that will tell you all kinds of things about your sleep cycles, but this is all you need.
From there, you can notice patterns that will clue you in on what you might need. You can start to experiment with things like sleep times, wake times, morning routines, evening routines, and even mealtimes, and see if you notice any improvement.
Consider natural detoxifiers
People reach for natural detoxifiers as a way to help their bodies usher out compounds that don’t belong on the inside.
- Chlorella. Chlorella has been used to help remove heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, and lead from the body.
- Dandelion root. Dandelion is a natural diuretic that could help you release extra fluid.
- Turmeric. Turmeric contains antioxidants and has been used traditionally as a liver detoxifier. You can add a small amount of black pepper to foods containing turmeric to increase its potency.
- Burdock root. Burdock root has shown antioxidant activity and has been used for thousands of years as a liver cleanser.
- Soluble fiber. Soluble fiber sticks to bile and helps your body excrete it more efficiently, which could help lower cholesterol and may remove excess hormones from the body in some people whose hormones are out of balance.
Everyone’s biology is different, and it’s hard to say which ones will work for you. Talk to your doctor about experimenting with these, and see how you feel.