Time to Relax

Everybody needs time and space to relax and unwind and you don’t need to spend a fortune to create the ultimate natural pamper zone in your own home. The best part is, it doesn’t matter whether you have 10 minutes or the whole day, you can mix and match these relaxing methods to suit your needs.

Prepare your room

Choose a room in your house and make sure you have somewhere comfy to sit down like a chair or bed. Fill your room with candles and turn the lights off for a gentle glow. You can always choose scented candles or burn essential oils, like lavender or Ylang Ylang, which not only smell great, they encourage relaxation.

This is an especially good idea if you only have a short time to gain maximum benefits.  Silence is golden but you can always opt for some calming background music.  It’s always best to let others know what you’re up to so you’re not disturbed. If you have set aside time for further pampering, make sure you have all your treatments prepared before you ready your room, so you don’t break the calming flow.

Make a brew

A warm tea is always great to help you unwind and there’s a range of great herbal remedies that promote calm and relaxation like ginger, peppermint and chamomile.

Ginger not only helps you relax, it’s great for a whole range of things including calming your stomach and strengthening your immune system. Here’s a great natural ginger tea recipe:

Ingredients

1 tsp honey
1 tsp ginger syrup or ground ginger root
1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup hot water

Method

Place all ingredients, except hot water, in a tea cup. Stir, then add hot water. You can sip your tea in your bedroom, while your feet are soaking, or while you are lying in a warm bath.

Put your feet up

Your feet do a lot of work and a foot soak is a great way to repay them. Tea tree oil, peppermint oil and natural sea salt can all be added to water for a soothing foot bath.

Lemon is great for promoting the toxin elimination process. It helps to relieve pain and tenderness associated with aching feet.  Add that to moisturising milk and olive oil and your feet will come out beautifully soft and smooth.

Rough feet may need a little extra and a foot scrub can help with that.  There’s a range of natural ingredients that are perfect to exfoliate the extra dead skin off your foot. The easiest natural foot scrub can use either sea salt or brown sugar…whichever is sitting in your cupboard  If you have any left over you can make a body scrub as well.

Soak it up

There are few things more relaxing than a long warm bath and it’s a great way to finish up a day of indulgence. Enhance the calming effect of the bath by adding a few natural ingredients like honey, milk and lavender to delight the senses and moisturise the body.