Stress Reducing Cool Berry Smoothie

It’s that time of year again, school is getting busier and students are starting to get a case of something most humans are familiar with… stress.

There are multiple ways to relieve stress and believe it or not, eating healthy can be one of them. Numerous foods have a relaxing effect on your body, and the smoothie I made this week include some of those stress-fighting foods.

The Stress Reducing Cool Berry Smoothie includes lettuce (I used kale and spinach), cucumber, blueberries, and coconut water. 

Each ingredient has a factor that aids in relaxing the body. To start off, blueberries are high in vitamin C, which is known for its effect of fighting stress. Cucumbers are excellent for cleansing your skin, and help avoid those surprise breakouts that come when stressed. Coconut water contains several minerals and a variety of B-vitamins. There is research that proves several B-vitamins play a crucial role in lowering anxiety, depression and stress.

Now the one thing I would suggest is if you don’t like the taste of blueberries, I wouldn’t try this. Personally, I love blueberries, so I thoroughly enjoyed this smoothie. However, you can always switch the blueberries with other berries high in Vitamin C.

Once again I added some chia seeds and matcha powder for additional nutrients.

Get the full recipe here, relax and enjoy!

The Californian Smoothie (Avocado-Berry Smoothie)

The first smoothie I want to share is not only healthy and easy to make, but extremely delicious (or what some people would say, berry-licious).

The Californian Smoothie (Avocado-Berry Smoothie), is not really your typical winter drink.  However, as I am not a winter person and have been experiencing a lot of cold weather lately, I’ll take anything that reminds me of summer.

This smoothie is sweet, a little sour, and full of nutrients. It includes; avocado, frozen strawberries and raspberries, pitted dates, almond milk and a tiny amount of honey.

To go further into the nutritional benefits, Vitamin C is especially important in the winter. The strawberries and raspberries are full of this nutrient, which help fight the unwanted illnesses that come along with the cold weather. Avocado is high in multiple nutrients, proven for lowering cholesterol and very good for your heart.  Lastly, almond milk is an excellent milk substitute that is low in calories and contains more vitamins and minerals.

To make it even healthier, I also added some crushed flax seeds and chia seeds. Flax seed has a good source of magnesium and dietary fiber, chia seeds are full of protein and help you stock up on your omega-3.

The good thing about smoothies, well the ones I make at least, once you have the ingredients all you have to do is stick it in a blender.

I got this recipe from a great website called Yummly, get the full recipe here, and ENJOY.