Essential Healthy Living Tips for Making The Most of Spring

With winter gone and the summer ahead, spring offers the perfect opportunity to reflect. If you set January intentions, are they still serving you well? Use these essential healthy living tips to embrace the refreshing and reviving qualities of spring and move closer to your ideal picture of health.

By Nina Sabat

• Protect your body and the environment with natural skincare products
• Enjoy outside activities for a boost to your mood
• Adjust your supplements to suit your daily activities
• Excite your taste buds and eat in tune with the season
• Support your immune system and raise your defences

Spring is the season which seems most full of potential. There’s time to reflect, plan and create a fresh approach that focuses on your well-being. If you’re in a mind to do a bit of spring cleaning, then these essential tips could be just what you need. From thinking green for a mood boost to switching to eco-friendly beauty and body care, we think there’s an idea here which will appeal to everyone who loves looking after their health.

Protect Your Body and the Environment with Natural Skincare Products

People often renew their daily skincare routine, switching from richer creams and bodywashes which offer protection during winter, to lighter products for the warmer months.

If you’re considering refreshing your skincare products, spring offers the perfect opportunity to create a sustainable routine. This spring why not switch to skincare products which contain natural ingredients and are 100% paraben and phthalate free? You can avoid applying dubious chemicals to your skin or flushing them into the environment when they get washed down the drain.

Try these natural products to nourish your body and protect the environment

Revital offer Jason, Sukin, and Antipodes as part of a wider selection of brands dedicated to creating environmentally friendly natural skin care and natural body care.

Enjoy Outside Activities for a Boost to your Mood

If you haven’t heard of ‘ecotherapy’ then I think it’s high time for an introduction. It’s a term which reflects the benefits to mental health and well-being which arise from being outside in a green environment. It’s certainly worthy of attention. A few years back Mind, the UK charity which champions positive mental health, issued a report. As they compared the impact of retail therapy and ecotherapy on a person’s state of mind, here’s what they found. [1]

7 out of 10 people reported less tension after walking in a green place and 7 out of 10 felt less depressed. In contrast, when walking through an indoor shopping centre, 5 out of 10 people reported increased tension. Additionally, while around 4 out of 10 people felt less depressed, 2 in 10 said their depression increased.

Self-esteem also got a boost or took a hit. After their green walk, 9 out of 10 felt more positive. Retail therapy made more than 4 in 10 people feel their self-esteem had decreased.

The results might be as you expected. However, if these numbers are surprising then it adds some weight and urgency to this suggestion:

• Get outside, get green and get moving and enjoy a more positive state of mind

Adjust Your Supplements to Suit Your Daily Activities

While there’s no need to stop taking the supplements which support your well-being, it’s worth considering adjusting their potency to reflect the seasonal change.

During winter, a high strength omega 3, high strength vitamin D3, zinc, vitamin C and probiotics may have featured in your daily supplement intake. These would have been useful considering the occurrence of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and increased incidence of cold and flu which happen during these months.

Now the weather is getting warmer, will you stick with your regular supplements or switch to ones of a lower strength?

Alternatively, there may be some products that you want to include.

Do you exercise and keep more active when the days are warm and bright? Now could be the time to focus on maintaining joint flexibility, promoting muscle growth and supporting recovery and repair.

Will you be heading off to sunnier climates or looking to regain your outer glow? A skin-nourishing antioxidant or beauty-focused food oil might better suit your needs.

Consider these supplements for superb spring health

• Try a lower strength vitamin D: Nutri Advanced Vitamin D3 Drops, Together Health Vegan Vitamin D3

• Switch to a medium-strength omega: Wiley’s Finest Catch Free (Vegan) Omega 3 Liquid, Minami MorEPA Original

• Care for your muscles and joints with Revive Active Joint Complex, Fushi Really Good Muscle & Joints Oil or Revital Active Plant Based Protein

• Give your skin an outer glow with: Terranova Antioxidant Nutrient, Qsilica Pro Collagen Tablets or Erbology Organic Black Seed Oil

Excite Your Taste buds and Eat in Tune with the Season

If you’ve been stuck in a rut and eating the same few foods day after day, spring heralds the start of a culinary fiesta. After the leaner months of March and April, May has many seasonal veg and fruit to tempt your tastebuds.

Tuck into artichoke, asparagus, aubergine, beetroot, marrow, new potatoes, peas, peppers and radishes.

Prepare fresh leafy salads using chicory, lettuce, rocket, samphire, sorrel, spinach, spring greens, spring onions, sweetheart cabbage and watercress.

Get fruity with rhubarb and strawberries.

Add a kick with hot fresh chillies or a hint of intrigue with a fragrant elderflower.

Support Your Immune System and Raise Your Defences

It can be frustrating when your body greets a change in season by coming down with a heavy cold. It’s understandable when this happens in winter, but what makes you more susceptible in spring?

It might be because you’re lured out by the warmer weather, but the temperatures are still cool enough to encourage virus and bacteria to multiply. Another theory is that with the onset of seasonal allergies, your immune surveillance is distracted so your natural defences take a dive.

Either way spring is the season to pay attention to your immune system. Taking a multi-targeted approach can help you achieve extra immune care.

Start by increasing your intake of foods and nutrients that naturally boost immunity.

If needed minimise ongoing immune distractions by managing hayfever and seasonal allergies.

Check out these immune system boosters to raise your defences

• Try elderberry or immune complex
• Try Viridian Cleavers tincture for circulatory support
• Understand seasonal allergies and the impact of probiotics on hayfever symptoms by reading Do Probiotics Reduce Hayfever Symptoms?

Summary

What’s your health focus for spring? It could be the time to tap into some essential activities and take care of your immune system, adjust the supplements on your list or give your beauty regime an environmentally friendly overhaul. Or maybe you’re ready for some excitement and want to whip up some new recipes using seasonal produce from your local store. If you fancy giving your wellness activities a revamp, there really are plenty of possibilities. But whatever you choose to focus on first, here at Revital we’re wishing you the best of health!

References

[3] Mind (2007) Ecotherapy: the green agenda for mental health

About Nina

Nina Sabat is a Registered Nutritional Therapist and a nutrition and wellness advisor for Revital. She is focused on improving everyday wellbeing and loves exploring Revital’s extensive supplement range with clients and customers, helping them find the ideal solution for their current needs.