Spring, spring, hooray! This is one of my favorite seasons because I love to spring clean. When I say spring clean, I don’t just mean my home. I mean my mind & body too!
Spring is a natural time to clear away toxins so the body can reboot after a long, sluggish winter. Cleansing is a tune-up for the body. Just like a filter in your car gets clogged with sludge, so do the filters in your body. The liver, kidneys, colon, and lymph system become congested with metabolic waste.
In Chinese medicine, spring is the season of the wood element, which is connected to the liver. Because our bodies are naturally in sync with the seasons, foods that support the liver are abundant at this time. These include spinach, lettuce, snap peas, asparagus, celery, and berries; cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower; and bitter greens such as kale, dandelion greens, and chard.
To enhance your body’s spring clean, supplement those with lemon water, spirulina, chlorella, garlic, and green tea. Just like spring cleaning your home, the goal is to let go of what you don’t need and limit foods that weigh you down.
Looking at what you really need and shedding what you don’t mentally and physically can be a simple but powerful practice.
Benefits of Body Spring Cleaning:
- Shed excess weight (especially abdominal weight)
- Boost your energy
- Feel lighter and cleaner
- Decrease your craving for unhealthy foods
- Experience deeper sleep and clearer skin
- Improve your digestion (less gas and bloating)
- Enhance your body’s ability to mobilize and excrete toxins
- Decrease congestion and allergy symptoms
- Discover food sensitivities
- Create healthy habits that enliven you
Just like walking into an organized closet spring cleaning your mind can provide a sense of relief and accomplishment. Here are some ways you can clear your mind of excess thoughts and negativity.
Carve out some alone time –
To reduce clutter in your mind, take some time out for meditation or prayer practice. If you’re not into either of those, just a few minutes of deep breathing a day can help calm your mind.
Journal –
Put pen to paper and write it out. This will help clear out your emotional space. Emotions are designed to move through you, not stay stuck inside you.
Filter the news –
spending too much time absorbing negative news can really bog down your mind and spirit. Try spending time on more positive new sites and also try to tailor what you see on your social media feeds.
Let go of anger and resentment –
We’ve all heard the saying, “holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die” while having a range of emotions is normal letting them take up permanent residency will only hurt you.
Practice gratitude –
this is my favorite way to start the morning. I write down three things I’m grateful for and set my intentions for the day. This practice sets the tone for a more positive and productive day. Give it a try. I promise it will change your life!
Tania Mack
After going through the healing process myself, I decided to create a system to teach people how to get off the dieting rollercoaster for good and create a healthy relationship with food and your body.
