Easy Positive Steps To Improve Wellness - Part 2

Last week we looked at how de-cluttering your space can improve your mental happiness and wellbeing. This week, we want to look at simple additions to your home or activities you can do that will help improve your wellbeing and happiness.

Update your space

Plants
Bringing the outside in with a new plant. Not only do indoor plants enhance the overall appearance of a space, but they've been shown to boost moods, increase creativity, reduce stress, and eliminate air pollutants — making for a healthier, happier you.

Indoor plants don’t just look good – they can make us feel good, too. Studies have shown indoor plants...

• Boost your mood, productivity, concentration and creativity
• Reduce your stress, fatigue, sore throats and colds
• Help clean indoor air by absorbing toxins, increasing humidity & producing oxygen
• Add life to a sterile space, give privacy and reduce noise levels
• Are therapeutic to care for (it’s true when we say Plants Make People Happy)

Storage

2021 is the year of trendy storage.  Pop into any essential shop whether its B&M, Aldi, The Range, Home Bargains, Azda or even online at Amazon. There is a whole world of storage you never knew you needed…

From £1 plastic baskets to wicker baskets and gorgeous velvet boxes you can create a beautifully you organized space!

A hostess trolley could be the perfect corner bar in any room or even a gorgeous bathroom accessory to store products and salts.

Mason jars are great for keeping knick-nacks tidy and are the perfect make up brush holders for any dressing table. However, if you're storing something less than pretty, use wrapping paper, fabric or vintage style luggage tags to customize. Simply cut to size and place inside. There's no need to use glue or sticky tape as the contents will hold it in place. Gorgeous.

Get creative
Upcycling furniture you already can give you the ultimate sense of achievement and save you money. You would be amazed by what you can do with some chalk paint, fabric, door knobs and decoupage.

Whether is wall paneling, dyeing your sofa or carpet, a DIY feature wall there are some great tips and real life transformations online as well a tutorials on you tube.

Check out the following pages on facebook for the ultimate inspiration both inside your home and outside

DIY on a budget official
Gardening on a budget official

The healing Power of Art and painting by numbers
A system where a photo is isolated into shapes, each set apart with a number that relates to a specific color. Such system is known as painting by numbers. Each shape is painted and eventually the photo rises as a completed painting.

Painting by Numbers Kits includes a brush, little pots of paint and a printed outline to be painted. Most widely recognized paints are acrylic and oil paints however you do get units with watercolor or pencil colors. While for a beginner acrylic paints are preferable for a beginner because the paint dries quickly.

Art is a process of improving person’s physical, mental and emotional health by using the process of creating art. It is considered as a therapy that encourages creative thinking and lets you come up with your own unique solutions, allowing you to think out of the box. Art stimulates your brain to grow new neurons and increase a neurotransmitter dopamine that helps you feels good. It boosts drive, focus, and concentration. When it's finished you can put it pride of place in your home with the satisfaction that it was done by you!

Bath Time
While exercise is very important for your wellbeing, so is relaxing. Naturally, most of us feel more relaxed when we’re home. This makes it an ideal and essential place for us to destress as effectively as possible during our winding down hours. The benefits of relaxing include the release of feel-good hormones into our system, those being serotonin, oxytocin and prolactin while stress hormone levels are reduced. In order to make your bathroom a more relaxing space, there are a number of steps to wellbeing you could take.

Adding a bubble bath or bath bomb, forms of aromatherapy can help to make the experience more relaxing. Pouring essential oils into your bath or adding Epsom salt can also prove beneficial. Epsom salt, essential oils and aromatherapeutic substances should not be mixed together. Decluttering, dimming the lights and adding candles are all examples of good mental health tips as is playing relaxing music. Meditation, Zen or Gregorian music are some good examples.

A hot bath can improve blood flow and breathing, which can bring positive mental health benefits. This is on top of the wellbeing gains you’ll earn from making the environment as tranquil as possible which as mentioned earlier, will help to release positive hormones. Having a bath at night can help you wind down and feel more peaceful before going to bed.

Make Playlists
It has been generally accepted that both listening to and creating music can have various positive effects on mood and mental health. Incorporating music into your everyday life can help to:

• Elevate your mood and motivation!
• Aid relaxation
• Increase the efficiency of your brain processing.

Make an afternoon of it and set aside some of your time to make yourself some playlists whether its for a workout, relaxion or lifting your mood.

Songs that make you smile, laugh and cry or that remind you of special people and events in your life can be so uplifting. Whether it’s a band you saw live or at a festival, a Britney classic or 90’s dance classics it’s all personal to you and there whenever you need it moving forward. Those hour-long walks are so much more uplifting when you have S club 7 pounding in your earphones…Don’t forget to sing along!

Cook something completely new
Cooking at home is good for your mental health because cooking is an act of patience, mindfulness, an outlet for creative expression, a means of communication, and helps to raise one’s self esteem as the cook (you) can feel good about doing something positive for their family, themselves or loved ones.

When you cook for yourself or other people, you’re setting an achievable goal for yourself. This fits within a type of therapy known as “behavioral activation.” Used to treat depression and anxiety.

Make a conscious effort to choose something different to make and look forward to cooking and more importantly tasting your creation. Whether it’s a lamb tagine, Brazilian coconut curry or a fake-away Chinese take some time to look for new recipes and go out of your comfort zone.

Top Tip: If you are getting the kids involved have themed night from different countries and have them make the placements with pens and paper in the countries native flag!!

Re-watch the classics

Whether its Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, Twilight Saga, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hangover, Fast and Furious or Jurassic Park. Go back to beginning and have a movie marathon and fall back in love with the most famous film franchises all over again. Get yourself some snacks, a warm blanket and don’t forget the popcorn!!!