Spring Clean Your Health Before Your Closet

In London spring starts today, 20 March 2019. We associate Spring with fresh new beginnings, after the lull of winter blues. Many of us, in anticipation of warmer, brighter and more energetic times ahead, start off the season by deep cleaning our homes. But what good is a spanking clean and fragrant home if your personal health and fitness levels are in disarray?

This year, we recommended that you begin Spring by focusing your efforts on spring cleaning your health before your closet.

Regular Massage Therapy

It’s pretty standard for Londoners to buy at least one coffee a day. At an average cost of £2.65 for a flat white, that works out to just under £1,000 a year spent on coffees at cafes.

How does a 60-minute massage, delivered to you at your home, every two weeks from now until January next year sound instead? You read that correctly - a massage in the comfort of your own home every other week for the rest of this year ... and longer. You could choose a relaxing or rejuvenating style depending on your mood and even have the treatment focused on whichever body parts you feel need massage the most. All instead of that daily coffee from Starbucks etc.

Regular massage therapy offers many mental and physical health benefits over drinking coffee every day. From relaxing tight muscles and helping blood circulate better around your body to improving your mood and aiding recovery from minor injuries, massage therapy is regularly used for its medicinal benefits around the world.

True, a massage is more likely to help you drift off than keep you awake like coffee. But if your body is in need of rest, should you really be fighting against it by forcing yourself awake? Most probably not.

So, start this Spring by taking a positive step towards putting the spring back into your own step with a bi-weekly massage at home.

Fibre

The quintessential insult, “eat sh*t and die”, whilst vulgar and coarse, does contain some health based logic in it. Poop is not nutritious and if, for some unfathomable reason, you were actually to follow that insult and eat it, you may not die but you would feel very unwell. But what has all that got to do with getting healthier this Spring?

Dietary fibre, which can even help you poop better, is excellent for your health and wellness and you should be eating it daily. Certain soluble fibres help your body better absorb nutrients from the food you eat whilst other, insoluble, fibres can positively influence the consistency of stools helping reduce constipation.

To increase your fibre intake levels, try working just one extra portion of fruit or green vegetables into your daily diet. Have a banana instead of a biscuit. Grab a salad bowl instead of bag of crisps. Try substituting simple carbohydrates like white rice or pasta in your evening meal for legumes, such as lentils or whole grains, one or two times a week.

In Spring, the sun begins to shine and plants flourish. Give your own body a similar boost in energy by shifting the balance of your diet just a little towards fibre filled fresh greens for the season.

Laughing

It is easy to forget some of the simple pleasures of life when you get caught up in the stresses and anxieties of living in a big demanding city like London. One such simple pleasure is laughing.

Start this Spring by laughing. Be bold - go to a comedy gig and sit in the front row. Laugh until it hurts. A good comedian really is sometimes the best medicine to positively boost your mental health and vitality.

Or try tell your masseuse a joke to make her laugh. It often feels just as good to laugh as it does to make others laugh too.

We all like a clean and well functioning home. This Spring, make a fresh and healthy start by deep cleaning the most important home in your life first - your body.