December 23, 2019 at 11:05PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL9te9J60zY] Ready to learn all about aqua cycling? Watch the video. What if you could combine the low-impact benefits of swimming with the cardio you get from hopping on a spin bike? Well, with aqua cycling, you totally can. The most recent episode of Well+Good’s YouTube show What the Wellness features director of creative development Ella Dove trying a submerged spin session for better lymphatic health. According to Esther Gauthier, founder of AQUA Studios in NYC, water is about 1,000 times denser than air. The density of liquid means aqua cycling acts as a full-body massage for your lymphatic system (which is in charge of collecting your body’s excess liquid and filtering out cellular waste, bacteria, and pathogens). Throughout the workout, Dove petals in place, stretches, and even does a round of high knees in the pool. She leaves feeling “like Gumby.” Hey, I guess if you spend enough time pedaling through the extra weight of the water, moving on land is a cinch. Watch the whole video to learn even more about the underwater workout. So… will swimming in the ocean while you’re on your period actually attract sharks? Here’s your answer. Plus, the gross reason why your eyes get itchy in swimming pools. Continue Reading… Author Kells McPhillips | Well and Good Selected by CWC
Day: December 23, 2019
5 delicious high-fiber recipes you can make in an Instant Pot
December 23, 2019 at 08:00PM by CWC Fiber makes you feel and look good. It keeps your gut healthy, makes you poop regularly, and keeps your blood sugar and cholesterol in check—not to mention keeps healthy your skin, hair, and nails. And if you’re wondering how to add more to your diet, it’s as easy as grabbing your Instant Pot. Whether you’re in the mood for cozy chili or oats, there are some healthy high-fiber recipes you can whip up in record time. These are the best Instant Pot recipes to help you increase your fiber intake. The best high-fiber recipes to make in your Instant Pot Photo: Detoxinista 1. Instant Pot spaghetti squash When it comes to pasta alternatives, spaghetti squash is the high-fiber option you should be eating regularly, as it contains 2 hearty grams per cup. Plus, you can make it in your Instant Pot in only seven minutes. Photo: Pinch of Yum 2. Instant pot pumpkin walnut chili Between the black beans and walnuts in this dish, you’ll be loading up on fiber, healthy fats, and plenty of vitamins and minerals. Black beans contain 6 grams of fiber per 1/2 cup. Photo: Rainbow Plant Life 3. Indian spiced black beluga lentils There’s 11 grams of fiber (and 9 grams of protein) per 1/4 cup of black beluga lentils, so it’s safe to say you’ll be good to go after one bowl of this dish. Photo: Cozy Peach Kitchen 4. Instant Pot vegan cream of broccoli soup This creamy
The most common ways your skin tells you to “listen up”
December 23, 2019 at 07:00PM by CWC Sadly, our pores can’t speak. But considering our skin is the largest organ of our bodies, it has plenty to tell us about our overall health and vitality. The only trick, of course, is figuring out how to listen to what it needs. As dermatologist Zain Husain, MD, FAAD explains, our skin plays a major role in the protection of our bodies from damage, infection, and disease, so it can be helpful to pay attention to skin changes that stick around for a while. While it won’t scream at you to change things, paying attention to subtle signs such as increased redness, sensitivity, dryness, and rogue breakouts could tip you off to what it needs and how to best take care of it. Ready to start paying attention to skin in a more in-depth way? Here’s how to tell what you need by looking in the mirror. Are you giving skin the moisture it needs? You likely don’t need us to remind you how vital it is to drink H2O every day. But what you might not realize is one of the main functions of our skin is to serve as a protective barrier. As Dr. Husain explains, the lipid barrier works to retain moisture and reduce trans-epidermal water loss (aka water leaving skin) in order to keep skin looking healthy and supple. When your skin is super-duper dry, cracked, or dull, it’s impaired and not able to do its job in the
A facialist shares the most genius hack for keeping skin hydrated when you’re wearing makeup
December 23, 2019 at 07:00PM by CWC By the time the clock strikes noon during the winter months, it can feel like every ounce of moisture has been sucked straight out of your face. Thanks to the combination of cold air outside and the blasting heat in your car/house/office, parched skin is pretty much a given. While most skin pros will tell you that the easiest fix for this sitch is simply to slather on some moisturizer or oil as soon as that dryness sets in, that isn’t exactly the most helpful advice when you’ve got a full face of makeup on that you don’t want to risk ruining. But, says celebrity facialist Angela Caglia, there’s an easy solution on how to hydrate skin with makeup on: the pat-pat method. According to her, it’s A-okay to put moisturizer on over your foundation—as long as you’re doing it the right way. “Pat an oil based moisturizer on top, which will protect your skin,” she says, noting that the same goes for an oil. “It doesn’t effect makeup—it will just make it softer and make lines less pronounced.” She suggests keeping the products in your purse and using them for a quick hydrating touchup for when your skin is begging for a bit more moisture. If you’re worried about this reverse layering clogging your pores (and causing breakouts), Caglia says it shouldn’t be a problem. “If you’re wearing clean makeup that won’t clog your pores [on its own], putting a moisturizer on
New Jersey becomes the third state to ban hair discrimination
December 23, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC In July 2019, California passed the Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace Act (CROWN Act), a law protecting people from hair discrimination in workplaces and schools. New York quickly followed suit. On Thursday, New Jersey became the third state to adopt the legislation. “Race-based discrimination will not be tolerated in the State of New Jersey,” Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey said in a press release. “No one should be made to feel uncomfortable or be discriminated against because of their natural hair. I am proud to sign this law in order to help ensure that all New Jersey residents can go to work, school, or participate in athletic events with dignity.” The bill accomplishes this important, historical mission by amending the current race discrimination law for “traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture, hair type, and protective hairstyles.” Twelve more U.S. states are currently considering the CROWN Act. In late 2018, a referee asked high school wrestler to cut his “unnatural” hair mid-match, reports The Undefeated. The CROWN Act recognizes that hair is never just hair; it can be a vital part of identity with cultural and emotional histories braided into each strand. “While natural hair might seem like an irrelevant front in the never-ending battle against discrimination, we know that hair discrimination is too often used as a proxy for racism in ways that directly impact the success of people of color in schools, courtrooms, and board rooms,”
5 surprising things that can impact your gut health that have nothing to do with food
December 23, 2019 at 06:00PM by CWC When it comes to improving gut health, there’s typically one common focus: food. People are obsessed with eating for better gut health, whether that’s adding more fiber or probiotics to their diets or cutting back on inflammatory foods like sugar. This is all sound advice—what we eat has a profound effect on the health of our gut microbiome—but focusing solely on diet means that you could miss out on some other aspects of your life that can impact your gut health. Yes, things like exercise and stress can also play a big role in your digestive health. We talked to a gastroenterologist to help us understand what they are and why they matter for your gut. Curious to know more about gut health? Here’s the lowdown from a registered dietitian: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpAjl3cFn6A] 1. Your dental hygiene It might seem strange to mention what happens in your mouth when talking about gut health, but it’s all connected. “Multiple studies, including one conducted by Cornell University, have found that harmful forms of bacteria that grow in the mouth often make their way into the gut or even the bloodstream,” says Niket Sonpal, MD, NYC board-certified internist and gastroenterologist. “Regular brushing can keep those potentially harmful microbes in check—and your gut bacteria in balance,” he says. He recommends brushing for at least 20 seconds a time to get the full benefits of cleaning. “Each time you brush, be sure to clean the inner, outer, and chewing sides
A ‘potentially hazardous’ 2,000-foot asteroid is about to buzz Earth—here’s what that means for your sign
December 23, 2019 at 05:22PM by CWC I can think of few things more appropriate to end this year than a NASA alert stating that a giant asteroid will speed past Earth at 27,500 miles per hour on the December 26. Once again, we shall narrowly escape disaster. Just kidding. Space rock CH59 is technically classified as “potentially hazardous,” but I wouldn’t worry too much about that. The asteroid will be closest to our home planet—4.5 million miles away—at 2:54 a.m. ET the day after Christmas. This is 19 times farther away than the moon, in case you’ve also seen Armageddon one too many times and are alarmed by this splashy news. Also, it’s just one of 5,000 “potentially hazardous” asteroids whizzing around up there. All joking aside, this is an astrologically significant event, which is great because the zodiac is the only thing keeping most of my friends sane at this point. (Was there ever a more 2019 sentence than that?) “Asteroids represent very specific things in our natal charts, and you can tell what those are by looking at the name of the asteroid and its associated myth, as well as some of the events that were happening the time it was discovered,” says intuitive astrologer and healer Rachel Lang. “Since this one doesn’t have an exact name—just a number—we will have a clearer idea of what this one means after December 26, when it draws more attention to itself.” Lang tells me that whenever a new object in space
Drunk Elephant raised our expectations of what clean skin care can do and we’re never going back
December 23, 2019 at 05:00PM by CWC Tiffany Masterson has always been an entrepreneur. As a Houston stay-at-home mom, she had a knack for the side hustle: She was a representative for the direct sales cosmetics company Arbonne, developed a healthy pantry renovation company called Holy Pantries, and sold an independent company’s bar soap that, used alone, was heralded as a save-all for skin. Then, of course, she founded Drunk Elephant, which grew to be a brand worth $845 million dollars in just seven years before being acquired by Shiseido in October 2019. Dazzled by the reviews and accolades from beauty editors, dermatologists, and consumers, it’s easy to miss that the “clean beauty” category didn’t exist outside of a choice few (e.g. Ren, Skinfix, First Aid Beauty) when Masterson, who was crowned one of our 2020 Changemakers, began creating her candy-capped empire. Yet, as the decade chugged along, her point of view on skin care—what’s in your products is only as important as what’s not—became the standard for clean beauty that the entire industry would come to know as gospel. It also catapulted the demand for clean, clinical products at large, which today has grown to be a massive section of the beauty industry. In fact, market researchers at The NPD Group have indicated that roughly half of all prestige skin-care lines make claims about their clinical ingredients (such as retinol, hyaluronic acid, or vitamin C). Of these clinical brands, those touting “clean ingredients” are rising by upwards of 100
Meet the 2020 Changemakers: These movers and shakers will change the face of wellness
December 23, 2019 at 03:42PM by CWC Ten years ago, boutique fitness studios like SoulCycle and Pure Barre were few and far between, “clean beauty” was of interest to just a niche audience, and we only wore leggings—gasp!—to the gym. Now, the wellness industry is worth an estimated $4.5 trillion—and all projections indicate it will continue to balloon in the coming years. When we look ahead to 2020 and beyond, the below 27 people are poised to be the driving forces behind innovation and advancement in this booming wellness space. Their brands, inventions, and organizations are changing the way we eat, move, and think—and they have their sights set on helping everyone, regardless of age, location or socioeconomic status, live a well life. Wellness is not—and should not be—an exclusive lifestyle for the 1 percent, and these influential people have made it their mission to make wellness practices accessible and available to more people than ever before. Learn their names now, you’ll be hearing much more from them. Keep reading to meet the Changemakers, the most influential people in wellness in 2020 (in no particular order) 1. Nicole Cardoza Founder and Executive Director, Yoga Foster Founder, Reclamation Ventures “All of us inherently have the right to feel good,” yoga instructor and entrepreneur Nicole Cardoza has said. And she’s made it her goal to share well-being practices with communities that are often left out of the wellness conversation, including people of color and children living in urban areas. Yoga Foster, Cardoza’s
The 7 best sex tips we learned this year, so you can come into 2020 totally satisfied
December 23, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC A whole bunch happened in 2019, but in recounting all of it, I’d be remiss to not acknowledge all the great sex advice I soaked up. For some broad strokes: The world finally awoke to the pleasure revolution; e-commerce finally got some credit for making sex (and sex toys) as widely accessible as it is; and sexual self-care grew from a term into a full-on movement. Of course there’s still a lot of sex advice to be had, given that countless years of pleasure-gap injustice simply won’t be resolved by a single clitoral-sucking vibrator. (Though, FWIW, that vibrator does help.) While we can certainly commit to continuing to push the dialogue of what sexual wellness means, let’s take a moment to celebrate all the great sex advice we learned this year. Below, allow me to get you up to speed, so you can come into 2020 as satisfied as possible. Have yourself a naughty end of the year with the 7 best pieces of sex advice we learned in 2019. 1. There are many ways to speed up your orgasm, including the Kivin Method If you’re receiving oral that doesn’t have you seeing stars, do we ever have a treat for you: The Kivin Method, also known as “sideways oral,” allows for more stimulation than the traditional diving-headfirst-betwixt-both-legs way. Need some convincing? Fans of the method report that it can work in three minutes, flat. Not bad, huh? 2. The best beauty hack for a