13 Ways to Reset your Energy Levels this Spring

candles and spring flowers

It’s time to wake up from your long winter nap! If you’ve been getting your dopamine from a screen and your vitamin D from a tablet, don’t panic.

Spring can be a gentle season of reawakening.

The natural cycle of winter into spring brings a shift in our minds and our bodies, but we aren’t always aware of it when we’ve been so busy distracting ourselves with holidays, New Year’s resolutions, and a job that never fluctuates with the seasons.

But if you’ve noticed the slump – feeling lethargic, less motivated, and disrupted sleep patterns – it’s time to reset your energy levels before your stress hormones get the better of you. Here are 13 spring awakening tips to help you do just that.

1. HAVE A GREAT BIG YAWN AND KISS THE DARK GOODBYE.

The sun is creeping back and you should be there to meet it! Deep breathing stimulates your energy levels, whether you’re outside enjoying a brisk day or inside your car or office. Oxygen is something we take for granted, but shallow breathing is a normal pattern when you’re static in front of a screen all day or sleeping – aka winter habits. Deliberately taking in some fresh air along with fifteen minutes of sun exposure will signal your body that it’s time to wake up.

2. STRRRRETCH!

Moving every day doesn’t have to mean training for a marathon, especially if high-energy sports do not suit your Enneagram type. Don’t default to fight or flight, overthinking your exercise goals. Try a gentle, welcoming balance that fits with spring, like adding a personality-appropriate exercise that can be practiced online in the comfort of your living room. Yoga, for example, is like a giant stretch after a long nap and can be thought of as self-massage.

3.  PUT THE CAFFEINE AND SUGAR DOWN AND PICK UP A GLASS OF WATER INSTEAD.

You used coffee to replace the adrenaline that’s in short supply during slumber season. While it’s crucial to hydrate during the dry months of winter, you may not have achieved it because caffeine is a diuretic. Dehydration stunts energy. Take a hint from spring’s flow of water through rainfall, ice flow, and snowmelt. If the earth is ready for a big drink of water, so are you. Let it all soak in.

4. CANS AND CARBS ARE FOR WINTER—EASILY STOCKPILED AND REQUIRED FOR SURVIVAL.

Those winter pounds we gain are as perennial as a snowstorm. If we are mindfully shifting, we can slowly swap out our pasta with the obvious springtime replacements: greens. Fresh produce is on the way, but now is a great time to start your garden. Indoor potting lets you keep fresh herbs year-round and sprout seeds to be set out after the last frost. It’s time to pull out the seed catalog and plan a fresh summer garden full of energy-inducing greens.

5. TRY A NEW RECIPE.

In addition to mental exercise, everything about cooking teases the senses awake. A new spicy scent, a fresh flavor combination on your fork, or the sound of the chopping board as you rhythmically dice an onion stimulates curiosity as well as dopamine. Did you know that your personality type can predict which flavors you like? Concocting a new smoothie, herbal tea, or vegetable juice that’s just right for you can be fun and will keep the vitamins in and leave the sugar crash out.

6. LIGHT A GENTLER FIRE.

The fireplace roared through winter, both aggressive and defensive energy unnecessary in spring. Candlelight signals a distinct new energy level, and you can reset it through a fragrance in your environment. First, figure out your stress responses by personality type. Then if you need calmer energy, try lavender, chamomile, bergamot, sandalwood, ylang-ylang, vanilla, rose, or jasmine. To raise your energy levels, reach for eucalyptus, peppermint, orange, lemon, rosemary, clary sage or cinnamon.

7. BRING HOME A BOUQUET.

Nothing says spring like fresh flowers, and the more, the merrier. Fill your space with your favorite colors, shapes, and textures, and don’t forget to add a couple of green houseplants to supplement. Take it up another level and hang bird feeders outside your window for more pops of color, then take a hint from their springtime revelry and enhance your visual boost with audio. Turn on some music to complete the mood, whether it’s classical or dance music.

8. IS IT TIME FOR A PET?

If you’ve been putting it off because kittens and puppies are so much work initially, this might be a good use of these last weeks of winter. By the time the lanes are dry, you’ll be ready with a new walking buddy or someone to tell your tales of adventure to when you return. If you can’t bring home a new pet, consider volunteering at a local shelter to get your fill of energy-boosting cuddles and kisses.

9.  PLAN YOUR VACATION.

Just browsing those photos of the island paradise and watching the surf crash up against pristine beaches will give you a glow. Take your favorite summer outfit out of the closet and hang it on the door as a promise. If you’re planning a road trip, our free road trip personality test can help you visualize the road trip of your dreams!

10.  LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND SMILE.

Remind yourself why you love that face! It’s time to treat yourself to a mani/pedi or a shave and a haircut at an upscale salon. Maybe you want to stay in for a bubble bath. It could be that you just need to hire a babysitter for a day and treat yourself to the bliss of silence. Whatever floats your boat and puts some pep in your step, it’s time to put it on the calendar this week.

11.  CALL A FRIEND.

Need I say more? It’s the fastest way to a smile. You know who your people are and which ones can boost your energy with only a few words. Call someone who makes you laugh, don’t text them! The voice is irreplicable and so are relationships. Don’t forget to set a coffee date for later where a hug or a handshake will instantly boost your dopamine. If you join a club, learn a hobby, or participate in anything fun that includes interaction with people, it will give a big boost to your energy levels.

12.  CLEAR THE SPACE PHYSICALLY TO CLEAR THE SPACE MENTALLY.

Yes! Your great granny’s spring-cleaning frenzy was not because she was bored – she knew a fresh nest makes room for fresh attitudes. “Out with the old” will make space for whatever new things are headed your way this year. Her year-round routines were a steady, visual reminder that not every season has the same tasks, the same shifts in atmosphere, or the same energy levels. She worked with the seasons, not against them and everything was right in its own time. If the mere thought of cleaning brings you out in hives, we have some creative spring-cleaning tips for your Enneagram type to motivate you!

13.  SLEEP.

It’s the #1 way to reset your energy levels in both mind and body. If your body’s internal clock is resetting in a subtle way and if your sleep routine is suddenly not working out, ask yourself what your body needs. Maybe your winter weekend habits, drinking habits, or eating habits are throwing it off. Be mindful and unwind before bed deliberately with any of the tactics on this list so you can wake up feeling springtime fresh.

Don’t let the list intimidate you. If you need some gentle persuasion to wake up and take that first baby step into spring, here’s a little something for you by The Beatles.

Source: truity.com ~ By: Jolie Tunnell ~ Image: Canva Pro

Why do flowers bloom in spring?

flowers bloom in spring

Spring has sprung! It might not feel too warm but outdoors it’s starting to look a lot more spring-like. Flowers have bloomed and buds are appearing on the trees. But what is it about spring that makes the plant world come to life?

Leaves breathe in air, take in sunlight and use water from the roots to make food for the plant. But this process also requires energy. In this instance, it is light energy provided by the sun. Therefore, the more sunlight there is, the more food the plant is able to produce. The more food it has, the more the plant grows. Because the days get longer in spring, the plant is exposed to more sunlight in these months. This means the plant grows more quickly than in winter when it is darker.

The springtime increase in temperature also causes an increase in growth. Like all biological activity, plant growth speeds up with heat, provided it does not become too hot. The rise in temperature at this time of year means that plants grow more quickly and seeds germinate. Now bring on some warmer weather!

Let there be light! Why sunny spring days make us happier and healthier

sunny spring days

Warmer days and nature awakening are not the only reasons to be cheerful. Scientists explain exactly why this season makes us feel better.

Like prisoners waiting to be released from winter, we on these small islands in the northern hemisphere have been willing spring on for weeks now, watching for signs. The hours of light are growing apace, as the shadows shrink. Chilly daffodils nod at us from municipal flower beds. Are the skies even getting bluer? Our senses are alert in ways we don’t fully understand, like a pleasing, hazy inheritance from the wild creatures we once were.

Spring has two official start dates, depending on your priorities. For meteorologists, spring already sprung on 1 March, according to their neat, evenly spaced seasons, formalised in the 1900s. But if you plot the seasons in line with our planetary activity, as humans have done for thousands of years, the “astronomical” seasons show spring starting at the vernal equinox, which this year falls this year on 20 March. Just a few days to go …

The equinoxes (spring and autumn) lie halfway between the shortest and longest days of the year. At these points, fleetingly, day and night are of roughly even lengths all over the planet – closer to conditions in Africa, where our species began life, and where seasonal swings in daylight hours are less dramatic, especially closer to the equator.

These conditions may well best suit the human circadian rhythm – the daily cycle that tells the body when to sleep, wake, eat and carry out various other biological processes. Stuart Peirson, professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford University, says: “We do all our laboratory experiments in 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. It’s a very balanced, neutral middle ground. We know that long nights and longer days can influence the circadian system.”

The key thing with circadian rhythms, he says, is that even if you live in a cave, your body “will still operate on a 24-hour cycle because we have an inbuilt biological clock that can tell the time”. The clock runs slightly longer than 24 hours, varying slightly from person to person, so the light in our environment adjusts the clock to the correct environmental time, to stop it from drifting. “That’s what we call entrainment,” he says. If we’re well-entrained, we’re more likely to sleep well at night and feel good when the sun’s up.

Good light is why the onset of spring feels so pivotal – it certainly isn’t the temperature. “You’re more likely to get snow in March than you are in December,” says the Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern. “It’s just a lot brighter.” There is a sudden jump in the hours of sunshine we get, which is dictated by both daylight hours and weather conditions. “December is the dullest month, with an average of 41 hours of sunlight in the UK,” says McGivern. “In January, it’s 47 hours, February jumps to 70 hours and then there’s quite a leap into March where we get 102 hours of sunshine. April sees another big leap to 148 hours on average.” Who doesn’t have a cherished memory of sunbathing weather at Easter?

Surprisingly, perhaps, May is the sunniest month of the year, even though the days are the longest in June. Overall, says McGivern, “spring is the most settled time of the year. In June you get what is known as ‘a return of the westerlies’. Atlantic weather fronts make a return after being blocked through the spring.” In other words, areas of low pressure and rain-bearing fronts arrive from the Atlantic.

It is no illusion that the lengthening of the days speeds up as we approach spring. The wall opposite my kitchen window is in shadow over winter; in March, a stripe of sunlight appears at the top and within weeks the entire wall is golden. “Days get longer at a quicker rate at this time of year. And that rate of change peaks during the spring equinox,” says McGivern. “And then it slows down around the solstices, like an S-shaped curve. At the moment, daylight is increasing in length by just over four minutes a day, and that is quite noticeable. After seeing so much gloom for a few months, it suddenly becomes brighter much more quickly.”

It’s also no illusion that the sky glows bluer as we leave winter behind. To understand this, you need to be clear about why the sky looks blue in the first place, so here is McGivern’s handy recap: “The sunlight that comes into our atmosphere is made up of all the different colours of the spectrum, but the colours have different wavelengths.” Red light has longer wavelengths, while blue and violet light has the shortest wavelengths. “The oxygen, nitrogen and other molecules that the atmosphere is made up of scatter the light as it bounces off them, and the shorter the wavelength of light, the more efficiently it is scattered. And so you get more scattering of blue and violet light than you do of red light.” The colours with longer wavelengths don’t linger in the sky, but land on the Earth’s surface instead.

So the sky is glowing with beautiful blue light, but when the sun sets, says McGivern, “then it’s closer to the horizon. The light has to go through a much larger slice of sky and so all the blue light gets scattered out before it reaches us.” At this time of year, when the sun climbs higher in the sky during the daytime, it’s going through a shorter slice of atmosphere than it did on winter days. “So the sky does end up being bluer than in the winter,” he says. “It’s also why you get bluer skies when you’re on top of a mountain compared to down in a valley, because on top the sunlight is going through a smaller slice of atmosphere, and also there are fewer pollutants up there compared to closer to the ground.”

The lack of pollutants in 2020’s spring lockdown made for exceptionally blue spring skies. This year, he says, the effect, “probably won’t be to the same extent, but you’ve still got fewer planes in the sky and possibly less road traffic. So compared with a pre-lockdown spring, it may still be bluer.”

As well as the cheering colour of the sky, bright spring light can make us happier. In fact, light can be as effective in treating depression as Prozac. While Peirson says it’s hard to find good data on seasonal affective disorder – because many study participants aren’t clinically diagnosed, anecdotally speaking, it is not uncommon for people to find the dark of winter oppressive to some extent. Some data, he says, “shows that light exposure during the day is related to the quality of subsequent sleep.” Which in turn affects mood and systemic health. But there may be more to it. A 2016 trial by researchers from a number of institutions in Canada, including the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, treated people with major depressive disorder without a seasonal (winter) pattern, “to compare fluoxetine, which is Prozac, versus light therapy. They found that light therapy was just as effective as fluoxetine in treating depression.” The researchers had previously had similar results when the two treatments were administered to people with seasonal major depression.“That’s one of the nicest studies that shows mechanistic evidence under clinical trial settings of the role of light in regulating things like emotionality,” says Peirson.

This means it can only be good news that as well as the days getting longer, light intensity in spring is stronger and continues to improve as we hurtle towards summer. Outside, in winter, says Peirson, the brightness “will be several thousand lux rising to up to 68,000 lux in summer.” Indoors, however, it would be unusual to get more than 500 lux, “depending on windows in the room and how well-lit it is,” he says. It is 8.30 am and he takes a quick light reading in his living room and finds it is only 100 lux, then steps outside, where there is a light cloud covering, into 10,000 lux.

“It makes me sound like your grandma saying: ‘Go out and get some daylight.’ But, actually, daylight is far brighter, and our bodies have evolved to be expecting a bright light cue.” Part of the cumulative effect of spring is that, as the weather gets warmer, we are tempted to spend more time outside.

Over winter, says Peirson, “we may have less well-entrained circadian clocks”, but the benefits of a healthy, well-entrained body clock are myriad, impacting metabolism, weight gain, cardiovascular disease and even eyesight. “Low light levels during development can lead to myopia (shortsightedness). In countries where they have had high rates of myopia, encouraging children to be outdoors more has had effects on the incidence of myopia. So, as well as the effects of light on things like depression and mood, there are certain effects on other aspects of our physiology as well.” Alertness is one. If you’re sleeping well because you have had enough light exposure during the day, you will feel more awake and able to concentrate when you need to. Light itself “has an alerting effect”, too, says Peirson.

Emerging research has associated deficiency in vitamin D with the onset of depression, with research continuing into its effects on mood. A boon for keen gardeners – already busy outside doing their seasonal jobs – is that spring is when we can realistically expect to start making vitamin D from sun exposure. “Yes, right about now,” says Ann Webb, professor of atmospheric radiation at Manchester University, “though the exact time varies a bit with latitude – slightly earlier on the south coast than in northern Scotland.” As always in the UK, the effect is weather dependent – it’s better on a sunny day than a dark and rainy one. “As a very rough guide, if the UV index is less than two, then you will not make any appreciable amounts of vitamin D in a practical time period. You do have to expose unprotected skin,” she points out, “so there is limited synthesis when it is cold because people wrap up well and do not expose their skin.”

You do not have to be a gardener to know, however, that nature is a well-established mood-enhancer, and the slow drip of the world’s return to Technicolor feels as important as the light. Peirson says the evidence for human seasonal physiology – things such as hibernation or other physical seasonal changes – “isn’t very strong”. But, historically, humans who have lived and farmed in seasonal climates have been in thrall to spring’s great rebirth. “Any culture that depends on harvesting seasonal food from roots and bushes, or hunting animals such as deer, must be keenly aware of the time of year,” says the archaeologist and TV presenter Francis Pryor. “There’s lots of evidence for the importance of the sun in ceremonial and funerary sites of early farmers. Iron-age roundhouses are laid out so that the doorway faces towards the sun.”

This awareness is vanishing from the modern world, he says, “where people don’t even understand when certain fruit and vegetables are ‘in season’, because so many are flown in from far away”. And yet a deep appreciation of spring persists – how could it not? – drawing us out of our buildings, blinking into the light.

Source: theguardian.com ~ By: Amy Fleming ~ Image: Canva Pro

What is the spring equinox?

springtime equinox

Spring has sprung!

But what does that actually mean?

What is the spring equinox?

As the Earth travels around the sun, it does so at an angle.

For most of the year, the Earth’s axis is tilted either toward or away from the sun. That means the sun’s warmth and light fall unequally on the northern and southern halves of the planet.

During the equinox, the Earth’s axis and its orbit line up so that both hemispheres get an equal amount of sunlight.

The word equinox comes from two Latin words meaning equal and night. That’s because on the equinox, day and night last almost the same amount of time — though one may get a few extra minutes, depending on where you are on the planet.

The spring — or vernal — equinox can land on March 19, 20 or 21, depending on the year. This year it landed on Monday, March 20th at 5:24 p.m. Eastern time.

Why are there two kinds of spring?

There are two different ways to carve up the year: Meteorological and astronomical seasons.

Meteorological seasons are defined by the weather. They break down the year into three-month seasons based on annual temperature cycles.

By that calendar, spring already started on March 1 and will run until May 31.

But astronomical seasons depend on how the Earth moves around the sun.

Equinoxes, when the sun lands equally on both hemispheres, mark the start of spring and autumn. Solstices, when the Earth sees its strongest tilt toward or away from the sun, kick off summer and winter.

What should we expect now that spring is here?

For those north of the equator, daylight will keep stretching longer— with earlier sunrises and later sunsets — until the summer solstice in June. The new season signals warmer weather, budding plants, and migrating animals.

The Southern Hemisphere will see the opposite: Days will keep getting shorter as this half of the planet heads out of summer and into autumn.

According to the U.S. government’s national outlook for the season, this spring is expected to bring wet weather that will continue to ease drought conditions in the western parts of the country. Melting snowpack may also bring flood risks in the Midwest.

Much of the southern and eastern U.S. may see warmer than usual temperatures this spring, while parts of the Great Basin and northern Plains will likely be chillier than average.

Source: wbaltv.com ~ By MADDIE BURAKOFF, AP Science Writer ~ Image: Canva Pro

Why You Need To Sell A Lifestyle—No A Product

Selling a lifestyle will help you close more sales than actually selling a product. These days, thanks to social media, everyone wants to be rich. We follow people like Tom Brady, Dan Bilzerian, and a slew of others who have worked their asses off to become successful in life. We want the results of their hard work.

But a lot of folks just aren’t interested in the hard work part.

I’ve followed guys like Grant Cardone, Tai Lopez, and Gary V for years now, and I have noticed all three have a trait in common that’s made them successful.

They’re not necessarily selling a product.

They’re not selling a digital product. They’re not selling sales training, affiliate marketing, or books. But what they are selling is the opportunity to enjoy a lifestyle similar to theirs.

When these guys roll around in their fancy cars and hang out in their huge mansions, even though what they might be saying on camera is relevant, intelligent, and helpful, the average person is studying the lifestyle they live. Viewers are saying, “I’d like to have that lifestyle. I want to model this person, so I can ultimately have the same end result for my life.” You never hear these guys really pitch products. Even on their webinars, they position themselves to the people watching as if what they have is attainable. “This could be yours.”

You’ll note excellent takeaways if you follow them closely. Watch their entire process, and you will learn their strategy and why it works. These guys are some of the most popular business gurus in all of the social media, and when you pay attention, they will reveal to you what the populace wants. If they’re the most popular and it’s working for them, don’t fight it.

I’ve been saying this for years: people want the hole, not the drill. You see, a lot of times, salespeople try to sell the drill. But what people really want is the hole. I use this analogy with my mortgage clients all the time. People don’t want a mortgage, they want a house. They don’t want a realtor or investor, they want the profits that come from flipping a house. I tell people working in insurance that their clients are not looking for an insurance policy. They simply don’t want to go to jail or be broke in the event a catastrophe happens.

But often, people get focused on selling the insurance, on selling the mortgages, on selling the real estate, instead of selling the result and the lifestyle that comes along with it. To use the example of real estate, people only move for a finite number of reasons: relocation, families expanding, families contracting, empty nesters, kids going off to college, retiring, upsizing, downsizing, and so on and so forth.

An event has altered their lifestyle that’s causing them to move. Once you understand what it is, that’s in their life right at that moment, and you position yourself as the key to them having that lifestyle, true sales will be made.

Let’s be real. Nobody, including me, wants to work hard. Working hard is a result of what you see in my life—the supercars and living in a nice neighborhood, trips all over the country and the world, etc. But no one wants hard work.

Hard work separates the average person from getting the result, and from having the lifestyle they crave.

If you sell cars for a reason, the cars are not important. It’s the lifestyle that goes along with owning that type of car that matters to the consumer.

So, if you want to make more sales, especially if you’re a social media personality, coach or mentor, if you’re on video on a regular basis, or you sell through webinars, instead of focusing on selling your product, focus on the result of your sales and the lifestyle that comes along with it. When you do that, you will find yourself with a massive following just like the people I mentioned above.

But, remember, the average person isn’t looking to work hard. The average person doesn’t want a digital product. The average person doesn’t want a mortgage. What they want is the lifestyle that comes as a result of those products and services. Start selling the lifestyle, and you’ll be light years ahead of your competition.

Source: influencive.com ~ By RYAN STEWMAN ~ Image: Canva Pro

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