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Key points
- As daylight lasts longer, it can be tempting to stay up later, but choosing to get extra sleep can pay major dividends.
- Outdoor gardening provides access to more sunlight and can be a great form of physical movement.
As spring begins and the days grow longer, many people feel a sense of potential. If you live in a place where the winters are particularly cold, warmer weather and the ability to spend more time outdoors can feel like a godsend. Flowers are blooming, birds singing, and in many cultural and religious traditions, Spring brings a sense of rebirth and renewal.
These changes often translate into a sense of increased energy and motivation to make more social plans, along with—in plenty of people—a sense of a chance to start fresh and "spring clean." In a time of climbing out of the COVID-19 pandemic, these urges may be even more pronounced. Perhaps you are driven to clean out a closet or a garage, or start exercising more. If it feels like time is ripe for change, it can also be an excellent time to harness that motivation to do extend the spring cleaning attitude to your mental health as well.
Here are five considerations to help you get a sense of momentum while springing forward.
1. Reprioritize your sleep.
As daylight lasts longer into the evening, it can be tempting to go to bed even later than usual. And as much as more time outdoors can be good for you, and as much as your increased energy might make you feel like you don't need as much sleep, the truth is most of us are still likely underslept and suffering from poor-quality slumber. So, to truly nourish yourself in a way that will allow you to grow and have new adventures this spring, try to recommit to a reasonable bedtime and put your phone away before you go into bed. Building new habits that yield you even a few extra minutes of sleep a night can pay major dividends.
2. Change up your physical space.
The urge to buy some new clothes, paint your bedroom, or clean up your backyard often strikes just as the weather gets nicer. Why not run with it in a way that helps your mental health? Changing up your visual life, even by just rearranging your furniture, or trying a different hairstyle, can provide a burst of novelty that gets you out of a bored rut, and can help improve your cognitive flexibility as you try things that you've never tried before and create new mental pathways.
3. Reconnect socially.
Social support is crucial for our physical and emotional health, and the past two years have been a long haul of increased isolation for many of us. Now is the time to nudge yourself to come out of your cocoon, if you feel up to it. The stress relief, laughter, and mental stimulation that trusted friends and social outings can bring can increase our well-being profoundly. Do be aware, however, that it might be anxiety-producing to expect to immediately resume the social life you had before the disruptions of the pandemic. Be gentle with yourself and take it slowly.
4. Consider growing a plant.
For people who consider themselves gardeners, nothing beats spring's opportunity for getting seeds in the ground and getting your hands dirty. But even if you wouldn't know a pumpkin seed from a tulip, there is plenty to be gained by nurturing a small plant of your own. Outdoor gardening gets you access to more sunlight, and can be a great form of physical movement. Even houseplants are associated with decreased anxiety, there is likely something evolutionarily comforting about being connected to nature. And it can be downright thrilling to watch a flower, veggie, or fruit grow out of seemingly nothing. So, why not make this the year where you try to grow something, anything at all—no perfectionism allowed?
5. Make a new creative goal.
Growth shouldn't always be based on conquering something, and sometimes goal-setting for busy people starts to look too much like an achievement test. To decrease stress, improve your cognitive flexibility and increase your sense of well-being, sometimes a goal should not be at all about the end process but instead, the experience itself. If it's creative, all the better.
Why not try your hand at doing something that you don't necessarily think you'll be good at, but that might be interesting or fun? From painting a sunset to building a model car, from designing a flowerbed to learning to knit, the point is not that you will create something perfect, but rather that the time you spend letting your mind be creative will be valuable in its own right. Perhaps you did this in the pandemic because you felt you had nothing else to do, but you gradually stopped. Why not start again?
