After what seems like an endless winter, spring is finally around the corner. The days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, and everything feels a little bit more hopeful and bright. When it’s cold, dark, and damp, our motivation to get outside, be active, and eat healthily can understandably be lower. These factors, teamed with being pregnant, can make it even more difficult to do the things that matter to you and make the healthy changes you might otherwise want to prioritise.
The transition into spring can therefore have a really positive impact on the way we feel in ourselves and on our motivation and energy levels. For this reason, it’s often a really good time to start thinking about making those healthy changes that might otherwise have felt more challenging during the winter months. In this article, I discuss the three main reasons why spring is a great time to start making healthy changes and some of the ways you can embrace the changing of the seasons to help improve your health and wellbeing.
More daylight, more opportunity
Whilst the clocks going forward might have meant we lost an hour of precious sleep, it now means we’ve got more daylight to play with. It can be easy to go into hibernation mode during winter, especially if you’ve been working all day - venturing out post-5pm can feel less than appealing when it’s dark and cold. I for one have spent more evenings than I’d like to admit snuggled up on the sofa binge watching Netflix these last few months! However, the longer days provides us all with more opportunity to get out and be more active. So, if you’re trying to incorporate more movement into your daily routine and to maintain your fitness during pregnancy, seize the opportunity to get outside later in the day, even if it’s just for a short walk.
Warmer days are coming
I’m keeping the faith that warmer days are on the way. In addition to having more daylight hours, the promised warmer weather also provides most of us with more motivation to be outside. Whilst this obviously allows for more opportunity to be physically active, being in nature is good for our health and wellbeing regardless of what activity we’re doing. So, if your pregnancy symptoms mean you’re not able to be physically active at the moment, or you aren’t a big fan of outdoor exercise, I’d still recommend trying to spend more time outside whilst you can.
Being in nature can help to reduce stress, improve your sleep, and enhance your physical and mental wellbeing. All of this is super important during pregnancy, so it’s well-worth prioritising some time outdoors once the sun starts making more of an appearance. Doing things to support your overall wellbeing is likely to have a knock-on positive affect in other areas of your life and you may notice yourself feeling more motivated to make other healthy changes as a result.
Embracing salad season
As the seasons change, so too do our food preferences. You might notice yourself being more drawn towards more hearty, comforting food choices during winter, and to lighter, fresher options during the spring and summer months, which is totally normal. Eating healthy meals during pregnancy is obviously really beneficial, so if you’re wanting to focus on improving your diet, the changing of the seasons provides a valuable opportunity to do so. Lean into your changing preferences and embrace the changing seasonal produce available to buy in the supermarket as well, which are all good foods for pregnancy. This is a great time to have a bit of a re-think about the meals you’ve currently got on rotation and to consider some new, fresh alternatives for the spring and summer months.