41 - Spring Nourishment

Spring is a season of renewal, growth, and gentle reawakening and your body feels it too.

In this episode, we’re diving into how to support your body, mind, and nervous system as you transition out of winter’s slower, inward energy and into the lighter, more expansive energy of spring. 

From seasonal foods to movement, lifestyle shifts, and nervous system support, this episode will help you feel aligned, energized, and grounded.

In This Episode, We Cover:

•  How spring energy impacts your body and mood 
•  Spring produce to add into your routine (fruits, veggies, and herbs) 
•  Simple ways to support natural detox pathways (without extreme cleanses) 
•  Movement tips to reawaken your body without burnout 
•  The heart chakra connection to spring (love, openness, expansion) 

Spring doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing reset.

You don’t need to go from zero to 100 overnight. This is a gradual transition one where you can honor both your desire for growth and your need for grounding.

Let it be slow. Let it be supportive. Let it work for you.

Connect with Courtney: 

- Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

- Freebies & Resources 

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Nourished Living Podcast, where we go beyond diets and quick fixes, and reconnect with what it really means to feel good in your body. I am Courtney Podany, nutritional therapist, personal trainer, energy worker, type one diabetic, and mom here to guide you toward health that feels simple, sustainable, and aligned. Each episode will explore how to nourish your body. Balance your energy and strengthen your intuition so you can thrive and actually understand what your body is telling you. So grab your favorite drink. Take a deep breath, and let's jump into your new nourished life. welcome back to the Nourished Living Podcast. I am your host, Courtney Podany. Today we are going to talk about spring nourishment, so how you can best support your body as we are now in the season of spring through spring produce, through movement, through nervous system regulation. All of the things to best support your body, your mind, your soul during this time of year. We are going to jump right into it. So what is happening in nature or in us, right? Because we are directly tied to nature and very similar. We have cycles, we have seasons. All of that. So right now in the world, nature is waking up. We are blooming, we are expanding, we have more light exposure. As our days are getting longer, we have some energy shifts happening. So with winter, everything is kind of. Inward because we are hibernating, we're rooting down, taking cover, and resting. And now our energy is shifting outward as spring is here. Just like all the plants and everything are waking up and blooming, energy's going outward. Now, this is also a great time for fresh starts or growth or new adventures. So you might be feeling more motivated, more energized, more social. You might want to get out more you might not want to stay in as much anymore. You might have a strong urge to declutter and clean or reset your routines, right? There's always spring cleaning, which is nice to kind of tidy up your space, organize, get rid of what you don't need. It's kind of an opportunity to release heaviness from winter. You might also want to start moving your body more again, we're getting more energy. Our energy is moving outward and our digestive system starts to wake up again as well. We are coming off of a rest and slower period of winter, so we are breaking. Out of this hibernation and into life again. So what does this mean for your nutrition? How can you support your body through food? You will probably be more inclined to eat lighter meals rather than the heavy, you know, soups, stews, warm meals, you might want to add in some fresh greens, some herbs, some citrus. Of course, always keep meals balanced, so include protein, fats, and carbs to support your blood sugar. Hydration naturally increases with the warmer weather, so that is great. Again, always make sure that you are drinking water and you can add minerals or electrolytes or unrefined sea salt into your water to help you utilize that hydration. Supporting your liver naturally, this can be done with bitter foods to help, your liver detox. So bitter foods could include arugula, lemon, or herbs, As we were talking about how you might be drawn to lighter meals, spring produce is light and fresh and cleansing. The vegetables that are in season right now are asparagus. Artichokes radishes, carrots, peas and snap peas, green onions, leeks, spinach, arugula, butter, lettuce, and mixed greens, broccoli and cauliflower. For herbs, is parsley, cilantro, mint, dill, and basil. These are light, these are water rich. They are slightly bitter. So again, that is just going to help with our digestion and liver support. For spring fruits, we have apricots, avocados, bananas, grapefruit, lemon, lime, mangoes, pineapple, strawberries, and cherries. will be coming soon. As far as movement goes, think about like reawakening the body. So if you had been taking movement a little bit lighter during the winter, it was a little slower, a little bit more gentle. Now you'll want to go into more dynamic movement, rather than, um, just walking, you might wanna incorporate some strength training where you could go from walking to hiking, Pilates and yoga is always great for spring and you just kind of wanna focus on your mobility, and getting out of stagnation. The movement should feel energizing, not depleting. Some lifestyle habits that are great for spring. Well, since we are getting more sunlight, you can go outside. First thing in the morning after you wake up within the first, like, ideally 30 minutes or an hour to get some natural sunlight on your eyes. This helps regulate our circadian rhythms. So at. Tells our body when to start producing the melatonin at night to make us tired and when to wake up. And of course sunlight, which is great for vitamin D, our mental health, all of that. Since it, should it be warming up a little bit, you can open the windows in your house to get fresh air inside, which is nice as well. Decluttering your physical spaces. So that's spring cleaning that was mentioned. And now would even be a good time to try something new. So a new hobby. Try cooking a new recipe, a new routine, just something new. For our nervous system, this is definitely a transition season for us. Going from winter to warm again, and it can feel very exciting, but it can also feel dysregulating. You might feel a little restless. Or overstimulated. And even with like the outward energy and wanting to be more social or anything like that, you might feel pressure to do more. So to help out with this, just take it slow. It can be a gentle transition. I always say that it's not all or nothing. You can do things slowly at your own pace, figure out what works for you. Some days are better than others. There's no rule book. You have to make your life work for you. So. Again, you can take things slow, which is perfectly fine, and if keeping some of your grounding practices from winter is what helps you do that, absolutely do that. So if you were, you know, taking baths in the evening or lighting a candle and reading something cozy and grounding, you can definitely stick with that as well. Spring can be about, detoxing. We talked about liver support, but to also, help with that as well. You can sweat. Movement, exercise, working up a sweat will help with that. We're able to, release toxins through our sweat. Or you could even use ace. Sauna, if you have access to one, lots of fiber helps. So vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds but it's important to note that your body already detoxes. Our body does know how to do this. You are just supporting it more. For our chakras, spring is related to the heart chakra. Heart chakra is represented by green and it is associated with love, openness, expansion, and connection, which honestly ties perfectly into, coming out of the isolation of a winter to reconnect with others I love the expansion piece of it because as we talked about spring, having outward energy for new adventures and growth crystals that will support you during spring energy are rose quartz for your love, softness and heart opening. Green avening for your growth, new beginnings and abundance, clear quarts for clarity and fresh energy and citrine for motivation, lightness and joy. So to recap, how to best support yourself during spring? I would say to eat something fresh daily. You could add, herbs or some of the light produce that we mentioned, moving your body outside is so nice because not only are you getting movement and exercising and strengthening your muscles and releasing endorphins, but to be able to do outside is really nice. When the weather is starting to warm up, the sun is out and you get fresh air and. Try to get sunlight in the mornings. That will really help regulate your nervous system. Set up your circadian rhythms for sleep cycles, making sure you're getting. Actually good rest and waking up easier. It's also great if you could add a grounding practice with this. So if you're gonna be outside anyway, you might as well just step your feet into some grass or dirt or something while you do it. You get even more bang for your buck and you get to connect with the earth and the ions that help us. Boost our self-esteem, our nervous system, all of the things. So those are a few things that you can do to support your body during this time. Again, we are stepping out of winter, which was slower. It was a little bit more inward. We tend to stay inside more because of the weather and keep to ourselves as well. We're not as social, so now we're in this gentle reawakening and that can be,, a completely different energy. But you don't need to go from zero to 100 overnight. Continue supporting your body in ways that work for you, which could be more grounding rituals that you carried with you through winter. It can look however it needs to look for you, but. Hopefully you can try to get some fresh local produce from your farmer's markets. Maybe you can spend some more time outside, exercise, outside, declutter some spaces in your homes. Open up your windows to get some fresh air and give yourself grace. Okay. Well, I hope this helped you transition from our hibernation into our spring season. Thank you so much for being here today, and I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for hanging out with me today and tuning into the Nourished Living Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and found something you can start implementing right away to kickstart your nourished transformation. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who could benefit from these insights. You can also connect with me over on Instagram for more resources and support. Until next time, stay nourished.