From your gut to healthy habits, 3 ways to refresh your wellness routine

Spring is here, summer is around the corner and we are already four months into 2019, well past the days of setting New Year's resolutions.

Here, Brooke Brennan, a certified health coach, shares her top tips for giving your wellness routine a refresh.

There is always such emphasis on New Year’s resolutions and starting your year off in the healthiest way possible. New goals, new routines, new ways of eating, new gym memberships.

But there is so much power in knowing that you can start building a fresh foundation of health for yourself any day of the year.

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Spring is a season of new growth and change. It is also the perfect season to find ways to carve out routines or habits that cultivate feeling your happiest and healthiest.

I prefer to take a gentle approach to wellness and have outlined three fun ways below to play around with a spring refresh in your wellness journey.

1. Eat fruits and vegetables that are in season

As the weather begins to heat up for spring and summer, our body will naturally begin to crave cooling fruits and vegetables. Things that hydrate you like cucumbers and watermelon.

Also, the more you eat what is in season, the more you can save on your weekly grocery bill. When foods are picked in season there is an abundance of them, which brings prices down for us, making eating fresh produce more affordable.

Here is a great link that takes you to a seasonal eating guide. This website allows you to put your location and desired month in a search field. It will then show you all the seasonal products in your area.

2. Love your gut by adding in probiotic and prebiotic rich foods.

I read a great analogy once that really helped me to understand how probiotics and prebiotics work together in your gut: Think of your gut as a garden.

The probiotics serve as the seeds in the soil and the prebiotics serve as the fertilizer you add to the soil to help the seeds grow to their most healthy. Together, you get a beautiful garden and together both prebiotics and probiotics create a balanced and healthy gut flora. I love incorporating real foods each day to get my daily dose.

Here are some of my favorites:

Probiotic rich foods: Yogurt, kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut and kimchi.

Prebiotic rich foods: Oats, apples, onion, garlic and apple cider vinegar.

3. Know what is missing in your life and adjust accordingly

I often ask my clients this question: if you had an extra hour today to do anything at all, how would you spend it? The answers vary from take a nap, go for a long walk, date night out with my partner, quiet time to read a book, eating a meal away from my desk or not feeling stressed out 24/7.

These answers are gut responses to what is missing in their life and what needs to be added in.

What would your answer be to that question? My advice would be to incorporate that answer into your daily or weekly life.

This healthy routine might help you feel more joyful or balanced in your daily life. We are all balancing so many responsibilities each day and sometimes it can feel so restorative to take a time out and give yourself something you never knew you really needed.