Month: February 2019

February 07, 2019 at 08:05AM by CWC At one point or another, everyone finds themselves stranded on Procrastination Island. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone, without exception. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve spent a little too much time there lately thanks in part to super-cold, low-energy winter days that make even the smallest tasks feel like colossal undertakings. Luckily, there’s an easy way off of the island, if you can get past a handful of obstacles. Mapped in an illustration by cartoonist Gemma Correll, Procrastination Island is a totally relatable representation of I’ll-just-do-it-later struggles. Beyond the the Mountains of Distraction lies the Sudden Urge to Do Laundry Valley—which often appears without warning. The Social Media Forest is thick and treacherous. (These videos of animals practicing self-care aren’t going to watch themselves, people.) I’m quite familiar with River of Excuses, which spills into the Sea of the Unknown. Off the coast, you’ll find the Isle of Good Intentions—I’ve got a vacation house there. View this post on Instagram Currently visiting this island #comics #procrastination @evernote A post shared by Gemma Correll (@gemmacorrell) on Feb 5, 2019 at 11:32am PST //www.instagram.com/embed.js It would be easy enough to ignore your responsibilities and spend an eternity on Daydream Beach, but overcoming procrastination once and for all is easier than you might think. Identifying the reason for your chronic procrastination is the first step. Putting a system in place is next, which includes setting deadlines for yourself (especially for the things you hate to do!) and making sure

Read More

February 07, 2019 at 07:49AM by CWC There is an undeniable sense of accomplishment when your FitBit or iPhone step tracker hits 10,000. Because: You did it! You’ve reached your activity goal, and can file the day away as a successfully active one. Except there’s one problem: That whole “10,000 steps” answer to the question of how many steps to take in a day is actually kind of a scam. Yup—you read that right. The number was developed in the 1960s by a Japanese walking club while they were producing a step-counting device with a name that roughly translated to “10,000 steps meter.” They marketed the tool using the slogan: “Let’s walk 10,000 steps a day,” and clearly—if our collective FitBit obsession is any indiction—that number stuck. “It became popularized amongst pedometer companies and now is popularized obviously among media but there’s no actual scientific basis for 10,000 steps,” says Elroy Aguiar, PhD, senior postdoctoral research associate at the Physical Activity and Health Laboratory Department of Kinesiology at the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst. “This 10,000 steps number came from out of nowhere. I guess they roughly knew how much on average people usually do really—which is around 6,000 steps a day—and they just set an arbitrary target of 10,000, something they knew that would improve activity because it was higher than what people were currently doing.”  Is your mind blown? Yeah, same. According to a 2004 study, this checks out. “It’s a nice round number

Read More

February 07, 2019 at 07:15AM by CWC As someone who’s been keeping up with the Kardashians for a perhaps embarrassing number of years (sue me, okay?), you could say I have a significant amount of respect for the sisters (and queen mom Kris Jenner, of course). But I have to admit that—despite being fond of all of them—I’ve favored Kourtney Kardashian the most. Kourtney is the one who’s always showcasing her daily workouts, dropping healthy superfood-packed food recipes, and even lobbies for clean beauty (just like me!). But slowly, my healthy admiration has shifted—because Kendall Jenner has become the low-key wellness guru of the fam. Allow me to impart all of the reasons why you should look to Jenner for top-notch health tips. 1. She’s a meditation pro: For years now, Jenner has been a devotee of Transcendental Meditation. In an interview with Allure, she reiterates that she “really dove into it” and has seen a major difference in her mental health. That means she’s all about sitting for 20 minutes twice a day with a mantra to clear her head and practice mindfulness. 2. Her nighttime routine is very chill: Turns out this particular Jenner sister can get pretty woo-woo in her wellness habits. At night, she’s all about aromatherapy and crystals. “I got a new Everlasting Comforts humidifier that has an essential-oil tray,” she tells Allure. “I liked it because it looked cool, honestly, and it had a good review on Amazon. I’ll throw lavender or eucalyptus in it, then I’ll sit

Read More

February 07, 2019 at 04:58AM by CWC Winter brings the unfortunate combination of enclosed spaces and contagious colds, which is why now is the time to make sure your body is playing strong defense. You don’t need to be a sports fan to know that the key to a strong defense is a good offense. And oregano oil is the player you might want to put in the game. Studies suggest that consuming oregano oil can help ward off bacterial infections. Adding a few drops of it to your morning smoothie or juice (vitamin C, FTW!) could help fight off any nasty bugs you may have come into contact with. “The active compound in oregano, carvacrol, is antimicrobial, meaning it kills bad bacteria,” says certified health coach and director of food and beverage at Equinox Katzie Guy-Hamilton in an interview with Furthermore. “It’s an effective anti-parasitic, antiviral, antiseptic and immune booster,” certified holistic health coach Annie Lawless tells Well+Good. Lawless says it’s one of five go-to superherbs that she keeps in her medicine cabinet. She takes oregano if she starts to feel a cold or flu coming on and claims that it can help protect against candida overgrowth. “Oregano oil is best known for its antioxidant and antimicrobial properties,” says registered dietitian Marissa Moore. But she adds that more research needs to be done to know how it works as part of an overall diet. “Like many functional foods and ingredients, when it comes to oil of oregano, there’s the matter of knowing what it can

Read More

February 07, 2019 at 04:42AM by CWC Am I the only one who feels like hitting “send” on an email that doesn’t contain at least one exclamation point is basically equivalent to firing off a virtual middle finger to the recipient? Frankly, I doubt it: Constantly feeling the need to be “nice” in the workplace is a compulsion with which women are intimately familiar—experts and science say so. In can manifest in many ways, like, say in emails with excessively enthusiastic punctuation or in some other form (like emojis, a syrupy sign-off, or by using qualifying words like “just”). Regardless, it’s time to scrutinize the psychological reasons we gas up all our outgoing messages. “Women are often conditioned to value relationships and protect them,” says psychologist Aimee Daramus, PsyD, pointing to oxytocin, a chemical women tend to have more of than men that’s connected with the warm feeling derived from nurturing and being nurtured. Many women grow up in an environment that socializes them to be caretakers, Dr. Daramus says, and whether or not we realize it, fluffing up emails is a way to offer care for whomever’s on the opposite end of the conversation. There’s another factor at play here, too. While staring into a screen, we don’t get the luxury of using tone or facial expression to convey what we’re trying to say. And thus, we often feel that our words need to do the legwork that a smile or a sarcastic undertone would accomplish IRL. “Maybe we ‘over-nice’ to

Read More

February 07, 2019 at 03:30AM by CWC Imagine, for a moment, that Chris Harrison is the patron saint of dating, and the gospel of The Bachelor is the single gal’s love bible. It stands to reason, then, that the first commandment of courting would surely be: “Tell thy date thy deepest, darkest secret as soon as thou cannest.” (Chilling, right?) While pouring your heart out on a first date is kind of a ratings necessity of reality TV, the same practice rarely yields a rose in real life. In fact, beyond the discomfort you’ll likely feel after revealing that you, say, have $200,000 in student loan debt or were a child star in Canada, it’s a promising way to scare away a potential love interest. Yet, the opposite end of the spectrum can also be problematic: You certainly don’t want to wait until you’ve been married for a decade to disclose that you have a long-lost twin sister living in Albuquerque. So when is the right time to bring up important info that isn’t quite first-date material? And how do you do it in a way that causes the least amount of stress to your relationship? Well it’s complicated since there’s no hard-and-fast deadline for spilling your soul to your S.O. Just because you’ve been dating six months, or a year, or even two years doesn’t automatically mean you’re ready to share (or that they’re ready to listen). Trust, says relationship expert Terri Orbuch, PhD, author of Finding Love Again: 6

Read More