HAPPY SPRING! I looked back at my last year’s spring blog and decided to revise and re-share. Enjoy!

Historically, spring was the natural seasonal time that welcomed opening up the home and cleaning all the dingy corners and washing down walls and windows to make things feel fresh again after having the house closed in and warm from the dark winter months. Today, we get that natural notion to clean, clean, clean our homes and our bodies. There are many ways of natural spring cleansing, including using local and organic plant food medicine(vegetables and herbs)!

Keep your body in shape! Get a nice long walk in everyday or some other form of exercise! Exercise promotes a healthy lymphatic system, which promotes a health immune system. And, on those nicer days, doesn’t it just feel great to get that needed Vitamin D after the winter months of darker skies? Get plenty of sleep! When our bodies get the deeper stages of sleep, cortisol levels are at their lowest, meaning our bodies are under no stress so the focus can be on healing.

Dry brush your skin before showering. Skin is the largest organ in our body and can hold onto toxins, especially environmental exposure. Be careful if you have sensitive skin; maybe limit this idea to once a week or less. The hard bristly brush can cause irritation to your skin.

Eat lots of healthy plant food medicine! Use fresh organic local produce. Make cleansing juices, using carrots, beets, a little celery, parsley and any other yummy veggies that sound good! These are filled with bioflavanoids, phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals that our bodies need while also cleansing your body. This allows you to get the nutrients without the fiber and other food debris, so your digestive system can take a short rest.

If drinking fresh juices is not a good option for you, make yourself some cleansing vegetable broths or puree your cleansing veggie soups. These will also be gentle on your digestive system while allowing those nutrients to cleanse your system.

Here are a few noteworthy cleansing, nourishing herbs:

Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica): If you’re brave enough and use gloves, pick the young shoots and lightly steam them in your food for cleansing, or substitute them for spinach. Infuse nettle in tea, or take it as a tincture. Nettle is highly nutritious (Vitamins A and C, potassium, magnesium, iron, iodine, silicon, and calcium), and is a natural cleanser, anti-histamine(good prevention for allergies) and antioxidant.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale): Cut dandelion greens and add them to your salads, eat the flowers and dig up the roots, make a strong herbal tea or tincture them. Dandelion cleanses the liver, gallbladder, kidneys, promotes production and excretion of bile and stimulates digestion. What an awesome plant! Dandelion in combination with Burdock, Whispers of Nature ‘Internal Toner’, is an excellent cleansing and toning combo.

Burdock (Arctium lappa) is valuable for purifying the blood and has many minerals, especially iron, and is useful for many skin disorders, promotes kidney function, digestion, and elimination of harmful substances. Its diaphoretic property helps further removal of wastes through the sweat glands.   If you grow this in your garden, dig the root and be prepared to sweat as you dig this out – it can take awhile!

Use roots of dandelion, burdock, and nettle greens, carrots, beets, celery, onions, garlic, ginger and anything else you fancy, in your nourishing soups and broths during this time of year!

Abundant plant food medicine also available in spring are arugula, kale, and chickweed. Add these to your salad greens, along with dandelion greens. When wild harvesting, please ensure that you’re identifying the plants you’re seeking 100%.

Another good option is to make an appointment for a spring cleansing neurological integration system (NIS) treatment. This work recognizes areas in the body that are not completely communicating and can give you an electrical(nervous system) cleanse, opening up the nervous system circuitry between your brain and body.

Be well and Happy Spring!