The spring equilux, when day and night are equal, is often the subconcious trigger for us waking out of a winter slump, says Izzi Anwell of Dorset Mind.
An equinox and a solstice occur twice each year; once in the spring/summer and once in the autumn/winter.
The equinoxes sit between the two solstices (the longest and shortest days) and mark the point where the sun crosses the earth’s celestial equator and becomes equally positioned between the northern and southern hemispheres.
The spring equinox, which began on 20th March, signifies the point where days become longer than the nights.
We all know that long dark nights paired with low temperatures and unsurprising downpours can take a toll on our mood and make us feel sluggish. With daylight hours increasing and the sun sitting higher in the sky
we now have the opportunity and the time to not only give our homes a much-needed spring clean but also consider whether our minds and bodies need a spring refresh as well.
5 Ways to Wellbeing
The 5 Ways to Wellbeing is a proven group of steps that we can use to check and identify the ‘dust’ we collect as a result of Winter’s stressors. They provide ideas about what we can do to help manage our
wellbeing:
1. Take Notice
The first step encourages us to pay attention to what is going in our environment. In the context of spring this may be done by taking a walk and noticing the new life rising – new plant growth or a rise in temperature.
2. Get Active
Taking notice leads nicely into the next stage – and ‘getting active’ isn’t as scary as it sounds. Think low impact, high reward. Walking for example, is a free, easy way to get active – never dismiss the power of a simple walk. Walking helps to build stamina and improve heart health and with warmer climes on their way,
a walk in the sunshine is a sure-fire way to blow away cobwebs.
3. Learning
With spring comes change, and learning something new is the third stage of the ‘5 Ways’, can help us to stay spry and build new neural pathways. So why not pick up a new hobby or learn something new?
4. Give Back
Speaking of which, the fourth stage of the checklist is ‘give back’ – why not make your new hobby/activity a fundraising activity for a charity or volunteering? I know that when we feel overwhelmed with life it may feel
like we have nothing more to offer people. However, when we ‘give back’ we ‘get back’ in return not only in the form of validation that we are doing something good but also that it is making a difference.
5. Connect
The final stage motivates us to work on our connections with our loved ones and our social groups, but also to connect with our own body and our mind too. This stage might be considered the most important; without connection to our body and mind the other four stages become difficult to implement.
Without connection to our minds we cannot ‘take notice’ of what is weighing on us or ‘learn’ something new, and without connection to our body we cannot know how best to nourish it.
Further Help and Support Find out more about the 5 ways to look after your mind and body here:
https://bit.ly/5WaystoWellbeing
