Anna - scientist, entrepreneur and the leading advisor of MADARA - believes that the future is found in nature, and she feels her best in spring when everything awakens. Learn her wellbeing tips and tricks for bringing fresh ideas into your daily life.

For most people the season they were born in is their favourite one. I can completely agree on this one - I am a spring person and this season makes me feel my best self.

Every March for me is a “moment before”. There is nothing better than seeing trees flaunt flowers and green leaves in spring, it is a moment of celebration and joyful laughter every weekend, as most of my family members are also children of spring. Of course, this is also the end of the academic year - I have to supervise and correct students’ papers, provide evaluations and complete the lecture courses before the “season” of various professional conferences that also typically starts in spring.

I like to introduce to my daily life, usually in the beginning of March, some harbingers of the awakening of nature and beginning of the invigorating spring commotion - these are maple juices and hyacinths. My spring fragrance is the fragrance of hyacinths and lately every spring they create explosion of colours and aromas on my windowsills.

Yet another spring tradition is the revision of wardrobe and household items, getting rid of everything that does not serve me anymore. Every year I am more drastic in my spring cleaning - I have donated stuff to new owners and given a second life to plenty of things that just take up space in my house. It is definitely an uplifting feeling if we manage to free our time and space up for things that are essential in our life, instead of filling the space with new things we buy. My busy lifestyle does not allow me to introduce upcycling and zero waste ideas into my life, though I am truly fond of this. Spring cleaning, both regarding things and everyday habits, helps to commit yourself to these principles and introduce them into your life.

Regarding resolutions, I have a new resolution in mind - reading; more precisely, scheduling a particular reading time. After a longer period where I mostly read only professional literature, I understood that I hadn’t read many Latvian and foreign books that people recommended to me and I found appealing - currently I am slowly catching up on my reading, planning time amidst my responsibilities and work for reading. Along with other new books I also got the diary “Mum’s one line a day” from the series “one line a day” and every evening in spring I write a few sentences about my daily failures and achievements in child care. One or two lines for the next 5 years - this will already be an exciting read after a year to see what happened in March 2019.

Apart from things and events I traditionally connect with spring, I have some newcomers this year. My small ally after winter fatigue and drained energy resources is green tea with guarana and ginger; it was an impulsive purchase I am very fond of now – it warms you up while the temperature around you is still zero and invigorates you better than a cup of coffee.

Yet another discovery that is here to stay in the kitchen is the long-forgotten flavour of kama - Estonian traditional finely milled grain and legume flour mixture. As I spent a large part of my childhood near the Estonian border, I knew of this product but it had disappeared from my cuisine. Now it is frequent breakfast food that tastes great with yoghurt or kefir. I usually use kama from the organic farms of our northern neighbour or kama produced in our local farms of the Vidzeme region.

This spring I turn to ampoules when I need to regain the glow of my skin quickly - it is a way to treat yourself and also achieve a noticeable result rapidly. Ampoules are also interesting from a professional viewpoint - the ability to examine the formulas and explore what active ingredients are used in what combos.

This spring I have yet another “moment before”. Recently, with colleagues, we concluded a study on the use of chanterelle origin active ingredients in hair care products. It is a truly magical moment for a researcher when the study results come in. We have discovered interesting and valuable things, we know that the studied object has even exceeded our expectations, and we are also waiting for when the result of our study, MADARA GROW product range will be seen on the shelves of the stores and in our bathroom organisers. I can’t wait to try them because I know that the result is spectacular!

It is interesting that this study allowed me to partially return to the topic I already started to study during university and still find promising and exciting - biological activity of the active ingredients derived from mushrooms. These biological ingredients have also become very trendy globally, inspiring us to new discoveries and works, and urging us to put the finishing touches on the current studies.

Have a blossoming and inspiring spring!