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Month: April 2019

2019 Health Relaxation

Certain spirit animals are showing up a lot right now—here’s what they mean

7 min read

April 18, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC I’m about as woo-woo-friendly as an evidence-based person can be (crystals and reiki and lunar cycles, oh my!), but I never really understood the whole “spirit animal” thing. I havn’t had dreams where, say, a bear was trying to tell me something. And the eye of the tiger is something I really only feel during karaoke, to be honest. But when I moved out to the country—about two hours north of New York City, in the Catskills—I did start to get the feeling that (bear with me here) the animals were trying to connect with me. And more than anything, it scared the hell out of me. First came the turkeys. One day last fall, I walked out of my house to find six turkeys hanging out around my car, and as I tried to shoo them away, they just looked at me like a bunch of surly teenagers and refused to budge for several minutes. Then later in the day, miles and miles away, two other turkeys crossed my path on a winding country road. An hour later, I saw another one in a yard on a residential street. Even though they were (kind of scary) material-world beings, not the spirit-world variety, the turkeys (and the deer, and the bunnies, and the hawks that came later) were definitely showing up with messages attuned to what was going on in my life, says spiritual medium Erika Gabriel. “I think what’s happening is you’re

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2019 Health Keto Vegetarians

7 high-fiber foods you should add to your shopping list, stat

6 min read

April 18, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC If you had to give an award to “World’s Sexiest Nutrient,” I’m not sure what would win, but it probably wouldn’t be fiber. Especially soluble fiber. But TBH that’s pretty unfair of us. Fiber offers your body a ton of health benefits (reduced risk of chronic disease, boosted metabolism, reduced inflammation, and better heart and gut health), and unlike protein, you’re probably not eating enough of it. There are two types of fiber: insoluble and soluble. Insoluble is pretty much the roughage from fruits and veggies that sweeps out your insides and bulks up your stools for regular BMs. On the other hand, “soluble fiber gets its name because it is soluble in water,” says Marjorie Nolan Cohn, RDN, founder and owner of MNC Nutrition, LLC in Philadelphia and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Basically, soluble fiber absorbs water, swells, and creates a gel-like substance during digestion, Nolan Cohn says. That keeps BMs moving, but it also has another power: to keep your heart healthy. “Along with water, the gel-like structure can also absorb fatty acids, so it has an added benefit of reducing cholesterol,” she says. Soluble fiber is also useful in slowing digestion, something that helps regulate blood sugar levels, says Nolan Cohn. A stable release of glucose into your blood helps prevent blood sugar dips and spikes that trigger hunger and mess with the hormones that play a role in appetite control. Finally, like all fiber, soluble

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2019 Health

This body language clue is a dead giveaway that someone’s stressed

4 min read

April 18, 2019 at 11:30AM by CWC Whenever I see someone with impeccable posture, it always catches me off guard. In this slumpy world of desk jobs, binge-watching Netflix, and scrolling through social media for hours on end, finding yourself in an upright position—shoulders back and head high!—is increasingly rare. You might be familiar with some of the most noticeable effects of poor posture (like back pain and headaches), but one you probably haven’t thought about is how it changes your breathing. The next time you’re slouched over, take a deep breath. It’s kind of hard, isn’t it? “Whether we’re exercising or working at the computer, how we hold our bodies can have a strong effect on our capacity to breathe well,” says Stacy Dockins, author of Embodied Posture. “A slumped—or forward rounded posture—diminishes the space in which breath happens by decreasing the chest wall diameter, keeping the lungs from full inflation and free movement. Not only do the lungs have decreased capacity, the functionality of the diaphragm—the main muscle of respiration—is also diminished. With good posture, the natural, neutral shape of the spine and ribs return, freeing up the respiration space, while encouraging full function of the diaphragm and corresponding muscles of respiration.” Poor posture limits the diaphragm’s ability to do its job, which could be one of the prime reasons you aren’t feeling as good as you could be every day. Something as simple as not breathing your fullest breaths could lead to a ripple effect of issues

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