5 Wellness Trends to Try This Summer

Whether it feels like it or not, the summer season is well and truly upon us now, and there is no better time to try and start a new habit that will positively impact your health and wellbeing. Social media is flooded with people influencing wellness trends, and many can seem overwhelming, but these are just a handful of things that are easy to start implementing, take very little time and can easily be formed into positive habits to keep you glowing all summer long. Read on to find out more. 

Meditation 

Meditating is a proven way to help stop your thoughts in their tracks, bring you back to the present and ground yourself. Though it may seem like an easy thing to do, it definitely is not and takes a lot of practice to master fully, but when you do you will feel yourself enjoying true relaxation. 

Benefits of meditation include: 

• Increases emotional awareness

• Put you in a state of relaxation 

• Makes you more in tune with your emotions 

• Decreases stress and anxiety levels 

• Increases concentration and attention span 

And many more. 

The great thing about starting meditation is that you only have to commit a few minutes a day to feel the benefits. So whether you have half an hour to practice it or just five minutes, you can give it a go. I recommend the Honest Guys meditation practices on Spotify for beginners- they are guided, walking you through deep breathing and teaching you how to become more self-aware. 

Daily Walks 

You have probably heard how getting your steps in is important, but many disagree on what number of steps this has to be exactly. Like meditation, committing to daily steps is something you can do for a few minutes or for longer, depending on how long you have to do it each day. This makes it an easy habit to commit to and you can make it fun by going with family or friends, or alone and listening to music or a podcast/audio book whilst you do so. 

When the weather is nice and warm this summer, why not set yourself the challenge of committing to daily steps and reap the benefits, such as: 

• Reduced stress and anxiety levels 

• Increased sleep hygiene 

• Better circulation 

• Improved mental health and concentration 

Ice Baths 

Social media is flooded these days with people taking the plunge and dropping into an ice bath. Temperatures of the baths are usually anywhere around 10 to 15 degrees celsius- in other words, cold! There are lots of recorded benefits to doing this, even though it may not seem like the most pleasant of experiences at the time! Whether you use a proper ice bath or simply finish off your shower with a cold blast of water, benefits of doing this include: 

• Increasing awakeness and alertness 

• Reducing any muscular pain or inflammation 

• Boosted immunity 

• Stress reduction 

• Enhanced circulation 

Ice baths/cold exposure is another habit that only takes up a few minutes of the day, but can have a wealth of benefits to you when you keep up with it. 

Less Caffeine 

We all know that drinking too much caffeine is bad for our health, but how much do you really know about how much it is impacting you day to day? As an avid coffee drinker, I know how hard it is to reduce how much you intake every day, but the benefits I feel now (after weeks of being cranky and tired ha), are incredible. I have more energy throughout the day, have ditched the caffeine crashes for good, and find that my nervous system is much more relaxed and I don’t feel the racing heart and anxiety that I used to, especially mid-afternoon. You don’t have to swap the caffeine out for anything, or you could try a replacement lower caffeine drink instead. It is a hard habit to form, but once you do you will see the results. 

Some drink alternatives include: 

• Matcha 

• Mushroom coffee 

• Green juice 

• Herbal teas 

• Decaf coffee 
  

Tech Detox 

It can be hard to escape the screens that surround us these days- from working on computers and laptops, to using our phones all day to even using ipads and e-readers. You will have heard that we all spend too much time looking at screens, and for a lot of us our eyesight suffers for it, as well as our mental health.

The summer is the perfect time to try a digital detox, whether it's just for an hour before bed or for half an hour during the day. Enjoy the weather outside, get out and do things that involve switching off from the digital world and enjoy feeling so much better for it. 

As with all these trends, the key is to start small, with just 30 minutes to an hour each day, and slowly build it up to having more tech-free time eventually. 

Conclusion

The summer time is the perfect time to try out one or more of these new wellness trends. With the warmer weather and longer days providing the perfect backdrop for self-improvement, why not have a go and see the difference in your physical and mental wellbeing.