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Year: 2019

2019 Health

Share your dreams with your S.O. at the right time to boost intimacy

4 min read

May 04, 2019 at 06:00AM by CWC When I wake up from a weird dream, my instinct is to regurgitate every last detail to my unenthused fiancé in hopes that doing so will help me remember the story for longer. He, on the other hand, sometimes shares with me snippets of a sleep-time vignette he “sort of” remembers. Our differing levels of enthusiasm about our REM-world goings on haven’t caused a rift in our relationship (yet), but I am curious as to why these veritable lunatics (sorry, honey—it’s just how I feel) are apathetic at best when it comes to remembering their dreams—AKA a message from their very own subconscious. To my fiancé’s (and all the other dream wet blankets’) credit, the way in which we experience dreams differs from person to person. While one partner might be able to remember a full spectrum of visuals, another person, with a different sleep-cycle pattern, might have a hard time recalling any bit of a dream. “Typically we remember dreams when we wake up in or near them,” says sleep specialist W. Chris Winter, MD, author of The Sleep Solution. “We tend to dream for 20-to-40-minute cycles, 4 to 6 times during the night. These cycles get longer and more robust as the night progresses, [and] awakening during a dream is usually our best chance to remember them.” As a result, these nightly musings can affect some of us more directly and vividly than others, which can also lead some of us

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2019 Health Vegetarians

And I’ll have the jiggly Japanese soufflé pancakes for breakfast, please

2 min read

May 04, 2019 at 05:00AM by CWC I’ve always thought of pancakes as fluffy and golden brown. But Japanese pancakes are more like a jiggly soufflé. It’s like eating a cloud! The trendy breakfast treat has gained popularity in the U.S. recently, with hot spots like Taiyaki NYC drawing ridiculously long lines of people wanting to dig their forks into the airy breakfast food. But there’s no need to wait around. You can make a healthier version right at home. Skyler Bouchard, a Food Network host and the creator of the popular Instagram account @diningwithskyler, is known for creating lightened-up dishes of popular restaurant faves. In her most recent quest, she figured out how to make a batch of Japanese pancakes in only 10 minutes by using the microwave. “I’ve seen these soufflé pancakes explode all over the Internet, and I realized the main component for that fluffiness is really the egg whites, which are good for you,” Bouchard says. “I wanted to maintain that fluffiness while taking out the refined flour and sugar, which I swapped for oat flour (already a great breakfast food!) and coconut sugar. This recipe is basically just a fun way to get your oats, pancakes, and matcha in the morning.” In her Healthy Oat Flour Soufflé Pancakes recipe, Bouchard created her own oat flour by grinding up oats, ditched the egg yolks for egg whites, and used almond milk instead of dairy milk. For an antioxidant boost and a pretty green hue, she also added

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2019 Health Fashion Yoga

How to stretch your quads without getting off the couch

5 min read

May 04, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC One of my favorite places to be is on the couch. It’s where I read my beloved thrillers, re-watch The Office, cuddle up with my dog, and—as much as I hate to admit it—eat dinner on occasion. One thing I’ve yet to utilize the comfy piece of furniture for, though, is a solid “couch stretch.” If you haven’t heard of the couch stretch, it’s about to be a total game-changer for your body. A variation of a hip flexor stretch, it focuses on stretching the muscles that help you lift your leg toward your torso or fold forward. In doing so, you get some much-needed relief from being stuck behind a computer the majority of your day. “Hip flexor stretching—combined with hip extensor strengthening—is a good idea for anyone who sits during the day. While sitting, these muscles are often in a shortened position for long periods of time, causing chronic tightness,” says Stacy Dockins, yoga teacher and corrective exercise expert. “Since muscles work in reciprocal pairs, when the hip flexors are tight, the glutes tend to get a little sleepy. This leads to a lack of tensional integrity around the hip complex. Some muscles are over-firing and tight, while others are lax and stretched. This soft tissue environment creates an imbalance in the joints, which can eventually lead to pain and degradation in the sacroiliac joints, lumbar spine, and hip socket.” Aside from benefiting the hips, the couch stretch also helps out your

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2019 Health City

Apparently skipping breakfast could be bad for your heart—what does that mean for intermittent fasting?

5 min read

May 03, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC You know how your mom always said, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day?” Well, she was on to something. According to this new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, skipping breakfast could be bad for your ticker. The results found that of the nearly 7,000 people it surveyed over a period of roughly 20 years, those who didn’t eat breakfast had an increased risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease. The first thing that came to our minds when reading this story: What does this mean if you adhere to an intermittent fasting-style eating plan? After all, many plans limit a person’s food intake during certain times of the day or on certain days of the week, depending on the particular plan—which can often translate into skipping a morning meal. Looking at the study with this question in mind, there’s one problem—it didn’t examine any people who were on an intermittent fasting diet. “The study says for the general population following a standard US type of diet, that those who skipped breakfast had an increased risk of dying from heart disease later in life. As this study did not examine any sort of intermittent fasters, it is tough to make a comparison between the two groups,” says Toby Amidor, MS, RD, an award-winning nutrition expert and Wall Street Journal best selling cookbook author of The Healthy Meal Prep Cookbook. Another thing: Although the study found an association

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