Its Time To Do Some Spring Cleaning!

Happy first day of Spring! ​

Maybe you are like me and already have spring fever or are just itching for warmer weather to match the sunshine. I am going to use the next few blog posts to discuss spring cleaning the body, emotions and your environment. Today we will start with  spring cleaning ​your living space. 

Now is a great time to sweep away winter! What can you do?​

Open the windows! Get that stagnant winter air out of your house. If its cold out try opening just one or two windows at a time for 5 minutes or so. ​

Deep clean your house! I love using Thieves House Hold cleaner for cleaning the house. Its great on just about every surface and it smells lovely without any toxic chemicals.  Dust the base boards, ceiling fans, behind the refrigerator and other furniture and all those other places you often ignore.

I also like to use my diffuser to purify the air especially with all the sickness that has gone around this winter. ​For my spring cleaning I used Purification. Purification is an essential oil blend that contains citronella, lemongrass, rosemary, melaleuca, lavendin (hybrid lavender), and myrtle. It’s a great blend to use to purify the air and can also be used to relieve bug bites or as a natural bug repellant. If you don't have a diffuser you can put a couple of drops of Purification in a spray bottle of water and mist into the air.   

Clean out your closets! Start to put winter clothes away or to the back of your closet making room for spring clothes. Throw away anything you haven't worn in awhile or that no longer fits.​

Take inventory of your clutter! Donate or recycle things you aren't using or are broken. ​

Nurture your house plants and start your garden! Clear away any dried leaves, replenish the soil, compost any plants that may have died.  ​

You know what they say, "A clean house, a clean mind!" Happy Spring Cleaning! Stay tuned for our next blog about liver and gall bladder detoxification. 

When Getting a Flat Tire Isn't Such a Bad Thing or How Healing is Alot Like Spring

Friday I got behind the wheel of my car to head into work and noticed I was a few minutes early and was excited to get into work to check a few things before my first patient. That was until I backed out of my garage and noticed something wasn't quite right about my car. I got out and sure enough my tire was flat. I didn't have much time to come up with a solution so I quickly closed my garage door and started walking. I had already mapped out my bike route and knew the office was 3.6 miles away and it was a nice day. I got a little over half way to work and realized I would be a little late so my first patient was kind enough to pick me up. I went about my day and when all of my patients were finished I decided to walk home and it was really quite lovely. I'll take an hour commute by foot any day over one sitting in a car. I enjoyed all of the colorful flowers and bright green buds on my path home and started to think about spring and our bodies.

I know many of us have been just a little tired of cloudy skies and rain and cold and everything else that isn't associated with sunshine and 70+ degree weather. Spring really is a whole lot of back and forth. It takes time for the earth to wake back up after being frozen and sleeping all winter long. Each rainy day in between breaks of sun is kind of like mother earth hitting the snooze, saying "10 more minutes please and then I'll get up." The great thing is that even when it doesn't feel like it, eventually the earth does wake up and the air stays warmer and continues to get warmer and flowers bloom and there are more days with sun then clouds.

It got me thinking about how our bodies heal. Healing is a lot like spring time. When our bodies feel "off" we want them back to normal right away and don't like to wait but just like with spring weather we don't always get a choice. Acupuncture is like those rainy days, the snooze button giving the body some rest and nourishment, some stillness to recoup. The flowers don't usually shoot up and bloom after one sprinkling of water or one nice day although many times it feels like one day the earth is brown and the next its blossoming. Healing is the same way. Its hard to remember what a day without pain feels like when you have pain kind of like when we haven't seen the sun in a few days. Once pain is gone its hard to recall what it felt like or how debilitating it was much like how we feel when the sun peeks through. The earth knows when to wake up from the winter slumber and the body knows how to heal- it just needs the right conditions in order to do it. Sometimes one of the most important conditions is space and time.

Sarah Zender LAc

Neighborhood Acupuncture Place
230 Florence St
Crystal Lake IL 60014
815.893.9825
www.clnap.com