October 01, 2019 at 12:00AM by CWC I used to laugh off my constant self-doubting and self-obsessing with, “Well, you know me, I’m a narcissist.” I said it lightheartedly yet matter-of-factly, as if to communicate something factual and completely devoid of controversy, like “I’m a journalist,” or “I’m a Taurus,” or “I’m more of a rosé girl.” That’s because as a millennial, narcissism just seemed to be part of the package for me. But as time passed and I remained very self-absorbed, I became self-conscious and eventually began to worry that I’m a full-blown toxic narcissist who everybody hates. My existential worry about whether I am a narcissist or not led me to take a psychologist-vetted quiz, to ask the opinion of my co-workers (and essentially anyone else who would listen), and to do endless amounts of internet research. Finally, over some Thai food, my friend Tiffany offered her opinion: “You’re not a narcissist, you just have anxiety.” …Oh. I already knew the second part but never thought to relate the two conditions, let alone consider the situation of accidentally confusing the two. But then I introspected: I write for a living, and often about myself. I don’t have problems sharing details about my life, choices, and opinions, but—OMG, am I overdoing it? Is this current piece boring? Because why would you care about what’s going on in my specific head? Are you sick of me? Should I shut up? See, clearly I deal with anxiety, but the root of
Month: September 2019
Achievable Weight Loss May “Reverse” Type 2 Diabetes, New Study Finds
September 30, 2019 at 11:15PM All hail the power of healthy living. Continue Reading… Author Ray Bass, NASM-CPT | Life by Daily Burn Selected by CWC
The 3 surprising parts of your face where you should always go light on foundation
September 30, 2019 at 11:00PM by CWC Your foundation is the base of your entire makeup look, so if your application’s not down pat, it can wreck the rest of what you put on—concealer, blush, you name it. That’s why I copy foundation tips from makeup artists all the time to make sure my complexion’s perfectly primed. And yet—I still tend to get some cake-y action on certain spots of my face. “People tend to over-apply foundation to their T-zone area—meaning their forehead, nose, and chin—and that can cause the product to build up and become cake-y,” says Gabriel De Santo, makeup artist and CEO of Gabriel Cosmetics. “Skin problems, like excess oil or intense dehydration, tend to be amplified in that section of your face, which can also cause your foundation to appear uneven, cake-y, or flaky.” Ironically enough, the T-zone is the area that usually needs more coverage. Like, my chin has post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, the area around my nose gets red more than anywhere else on my face, and my forehead sometimes gets shiny—so I like to put foundation on those areas specifically. So what can ya do? “I think any area can look cake-y if the skin isn’t well hydrated, the makeup formula is wrong, or the application is too heavy,” says Merrady Wickes, makeup artist and beauty director at The Detox Market. “You want to go as lightweight as possible in areas where your makeup tends to gather or crease.” She also deals with broken capillaries around her nose
This just in: Nuts really *are* the healthiest snack
September 30, 2019 at 10:30PM by CWC Certain food trends come and go (remember when everyone was amped about banana milk?), but eating nuts, it seems, will never go out of style. Yes, they’re delicious and versatile, but as practically every nutritionist will attest, they come with lots of health benefits. A new study published this week in the journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention, & Health looked at the diet and weight of 280,000 people from three different data sets over the course of more than 20 years. Participants (all healthy adults) were asked every four years to report their weight as well as how often they had eaten a serving of nuts. Researchers found that eating more nuts over time (just a small handful, per NPR) was associated with a lower risk of obesity as people aged compared to those who had a more limited nut intake. Of course, this study does come with some caveats. Like many other nutrition studies, it relies on self-reported data, meaning we’re relying on people to accurately and honestly recount the things they ate. (Do you remember what you ate last Saturday for dinner? Neither do I—which is what makes self-reported data a bit tricky.) Additionally, the study authors note that the subjects were 97 percent Caucasian “with relatively higher socioeconomic status,” making the results of this large study potentially not as applicable to other populations. Speaking of nuts, this is the very best nut butter, according to an RD: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsASWf_1AG0] Still though,
The 800-pound gorilla in the room? Oh that’s your spirit animal, here to help you be a badass
September 30, 2019 at 10:23PM by CWC Ready to be brave? This month, you’ve got a big, strong ally in that department because “RockStar Shaman” Alyson Charles is sensing that the gorilla is here. And this spirit animal is here to help you upgrade your whole life. Last month was a powerful time of starting to really, truly take significant steps beyond old fear-based story lines in order for us to enter into new ways of feeling and living our lives. And with the rabbit spirit animal’s help, we were able to catch the old patterns quicker, and try our best to make new, elevated decisions that create higher-vibrational patterns for us! This month, October’s energies are also bringing forth a strong essence of bravery to release old (yet familiar and often very comfortable) ways of being. We can then walk through a portal and birth, getting acclimated to new feelings and new ways inside of us that are a match for the elevated romantic relationships, healthy love bonds, contracts, and careers that we are ready for! The most potent energetic aspect of October: dropping into the knowingness that our true home is within. And our dear gorilla spirit animal will be with us for this ride. This particular medicine can be tricky at times, though. The old, familiar patterns have a very sneaky way of luring and calling you back in. Stepping through these portals and truly birthing a new, higher energetic grid inside of you will require bravery, trust,
In the great oil vs. moisturizer debate, which should you *really* be grabbing when your skin is dry AF?
September 30, 2019 at 10:19PM by CWC Now that pictures of football Sundays and apple picking have begun to dominate our Instagram feeds, it means that dehydrated skin season is upon us. As the weather changes, so too do the needs of our skin: We need all the hydration we can get. As far as getting our faces nice and lubed up in order to combat what the cold air is doing to them, we generally have two options—moisturizer and oil. But which one reigns supreme in the battle against dehydrated skin? The answer, to put it simply, is… both. “A cream contains more hydration because they are composed of both oil and water,” says board-certified dermatologist Rachel Nazarian, MD. On the other hand, she explains, oils “work best to ‘lock in’ moisture.” So using them together is like a double whammy for your dewiest complexion. To understand how this works, it’s important to know the difference between “dry” and “dehydrated” skin, terms that are often used interchangeably but actually mean different things. Dry skin is a skin type, meaning you’re born with it, while dehydrated skin is a skin condition, meaning that it’s impacted by things like stress, products, and yes, the environment. In order to keep your skin from experiencing either this time of year, you’re going to want to address both. “Creams are better at penetrating skin because they are partly water-based, and can deliver ingredients that improve the ability of skin to maintain moisture, and are thus more
Butterfly pea flower is Thailand’s buzzy blue ingredient that’s full of antioxidants
September 30, 2019 at 10:00PM by CWC I went to Thailand recently with next to no travel cred, if you know what I mean—my companions had heavily-stamped passports, while my favorite island is Staten. The one exception where I was worldly, though, came in the form of ultra indigo butterfly pea flower tea. While my companions were baffled by this brightly hued drink that we saw on practically every menu, I sipped on mine like, “Wait, you’ve never been to a Met Food?” Fun fact: I am a capital-S Sucker for colorful beverages, so I’ve long been enjoying it in Honey Drop’s Galaxy Lemonade. But seeing it offered in Thailand massage parlors as a premium spa drink, I knew there had to be something special here. Sure enough, butterfly pea flower or blue hibiscus is the raddest of ingredients. For one thing, it’s a gorgeous, Georgia O’Keefe-style flower; its scientific name is Clitoria ternatea because it looks like that part of your anatomy. Big win for the matriarchy. And it could come with a side of health benefits. “This is a beautiful plant with a wide range of uses—from agricultural to medicinal, nutritional and otherwise,” says herbalist and holistic health practitioner (and host of Well+Good’s YouTube series Plant Based) Rachelle Robinett. “Which is, frankly, the case with so many plants in the world. Also common is our only beginning to understand and test or study the active compounds in them.” Fair. So we did a little bit of investigating to see if
If your shoulder mobility is the pits, meet the ‘scapular push-up’
September 30, 2019 at 09:54PM by CWC After a week when I’ve skipped a yoga class (or two, or three), the simple act of raising my arms over my head feels near impossible. The shoulder tension sparked by #desklife is all too real, and something Casey Chiro, DC, says is best solved by everyone’s favorite strength training move. The one, the only push-up. Or, more accurately—a scapular push-up. “The Serratus anterior plays a major role in helping you raise your arms above shoulder height,” writes Dr. Chiro in an Instagram post, describing the muscle at the vertebral border of scapula. “It also helps stabilize the shoulder, protects against neck pain, and helps you hold good posture.” Scapular push ups summons the strength of the Serratus anterior, and helps the shoulder work with both strength and a complete range of motion. In other words, it’s a win-win. Ready to learn the best move out there for improving shoulder mobility? The scapula push up has you covered. View this post on Instagram The Serratus Anterior plays a major role in helping you raise your arms above shoulder height. It also helps stabilize the shoulder, protects against neck pain, and helps you hold good posture. ⠀ ⠀ Scap Push Ups effectively recruit the Serratus Anterior, and strength of this muscle is essential for optimal shoulder performance. ⠀ ⠀ Here’s How To Perform Scap Push Ups⠀ 1⃣Start with your hands on a wall, bench, or floor, with your hands directly under your
WTF is a coregasm… and how can I have one?
September 30, 2019 at 08:45PM by CWC Six-pack abs are a lie, but I just learned about something that’s making me double down on my core regimen in a way I haven’t in years. And no, it’s not J. Lo’s age-defying turn in Hustlers. Thanks, Reddit, for awakening my awareness of the “coregasm.” According to Kinsey Institute fellow Debby Herbenick, PhD, MPH—who literally wrote the book on the topic with The Coregasm Workout—not only are coregasms (or exercise-induced orgasms) real, they’re also not all that uncommon. “In a U.S. nationally representative probability survey, we found that nearly 10 percent of Americans had experienced an exercise-induced orgasm at least once in their lives,” she tells me. “A smaller percentage experience them with regularity.” Dr. Herbenick also tells me coregasms are an equal opportunity exercise perk. Her first study on the topic was performed on women, and after she published it, men “came out of the woodwork,” emailing her from all over the world to tell her about their own exercise-induced orgasms. So you want to coregasm—which exercises are your best bet? There’s a reason this type of climax is known as a “coregasm” and not an “exergasm,” aside from the cute rhyme: Not just any type of workout will turn your gym into the diner from When Harry Met Sally. “Exercises most commonly associated with coregasm include those that are what I call ‘core-demanding,’ that ask a lot of core abdominal musculature,” Dr. Herbenick tells me. Crunches are one way to
Find out how your longevity compares to the people with the longest lifespans in the world
September 30, 2019 at 08:14PM by CWC I have a pretty bad case of existential denial. Anytime I find myself contemplating the day of my death, I start humming Pink’s “So What” to distract myself from the Grim Reaper’s eerie shadow. If anyone’s going to make me contemplate the possibility of a long life, however, it’s the people of the Blue Zones, who just so happen to be the healthiest, longest living human beings on the planet. Blue Zones studies the lifestyles of the longest-living people on Earth from places like Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; and Nicoya, Costa Rica. They’ve applied all their knowledge to the Blue Zones “True Vitality Test,” a quiz that will determine your lifespan based on your background, outlook on the world, movement patterns, diet, sense of belonging, and environment. You know: everything that’s important for living a a good life. All in all, the True Vitality Test will take about three minutes to complete, running you through multiple choice questions like, “Over the last year, how has your health changed?” and “During the past 7 days, how many servings of fresh vegetables did you consume?” The test then takes a “10 points for Gryffindor!” approach to the scoring process. As you select an answer for each, you’ll see days either add (yay!) or subtract (boo) from the duration of your life. Then, at the end, you just plug in your email and get your score sent straight to your inbox. When I gave it a