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Year: 2019

2019 Health

If you’re a woman, here’s why your gut issues aren’t just in your head

6 min read

April 10, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC Pick a girlfriend in your inner circle and there’s a good chance you know exactly when she’s on her period—and what her accompanying symptoms look like. That’s because over the last decade, menstruation has gone from an off-limits topic to an integral part of your daily dialogue. For the wellness advocates at RenewLife®, makers of probiotic supplements formulated for women, it’s high time for us to similarly normalize the conversation about the gut issues that affect nearly 100 million women. (Feel free to collect your jaw off the floor after hearing that stunning number.) It’s time for us to normalize the conversation about the gut issues that affect nearly 100 million women. The reality is, on a daily basis, millions of women silently endure symptoms of gut imbalance including constipation, diarrhea, and discomfort after eating. “I would say the majority of the population has some degree of gut imbalance, due to a perfect storm of factors, such as excessive reliance on antibiotics, inflammatory foods in our diet, chronic stress, and the ubiquity of glyphosate (from the pesticide RoundUp) in our food and tap water,” says holistic psychiatrist Ellen Vora, MD. So what exactly does optimal gut health look like? According to Dr. Vora, it means you poop like clockwork every morning (TMI? Sorry not sorry), your stomach feels comfortable even after you eat, and you don’t have heartburn, hemorrhoids, bloating, gas, burping, loose stools, or tiny rabbit poops. Do any of those things

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2019 Health

Pass the cold brew, because coffee has a ton of health benefits we’re all (not) sleeping on

5 min read

April 10, 2019 at 05:42PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsQt8aevoZw] The most frequently used appliance in my kitchen is not the stove or the microwave. It’s the coffee maker. I can’t imagine a morning without a cup of joe. (I can, but the thought is so horrible I try not to dwell on it for too long.) Coffee, it seems, is the only substance that grants me the ability to function at full capacity. However, like all things that are delicious and that I imbibe regularly, I’ve started to have doubts and fears about the health effects of my coffee consumption. It seems like my entire Instagram feed is filled with snaps of matcha lattes and people waxing poetic about how they feel so much better after quitting coffee. Is there now something wrong with my morning habit? Thankfully, registered dietician Tracy Lockwood Beckerman, MS, RD, is here to spill the tea—or rather, java—on the benefits of coffee for the latest episode of You Versus Food. And for all those taken by the allure of coffee, I promise you that she has some pretty great news. What are the benefits of coffee? Coffee is actually pretty good for you, Beckerman told me (as I let out a massive sigh of relief). “Coffee, when consumed in moderation with minimal amounts of sugars and creamers, can be a healthy addition to an otherwise healthy and balanced diet.” And each cup includes an impressive array of health benefits: 1. It gives your brain a

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2019 Health

Trainers explain when to actually use those weights machines in the gym

7 min read

April 10, 2019 at 05:00PM by CWC When I’m wandering around in the gym post-cardio, trying to figure out how I’m going to go about strength training, I tend to alternate between hitting up the weights machines and working with the free weights. I’m going to tell you the honest truth: I choose between them based on my mood (or TBH whichever area of the gym is the emptiest at the time). A lot of people I know actually shy away from the weights machines though, because they can be intimidating and not intuitive to use. Every time I sit down on one, I personally have to check out the illustrated instructions to find out what position I should be in and how it functions. Hence why I decided to ask trainers how to properly navigate these machines, and when to actually choose them over dumbbells based on your fitness goals. The main difference? “The machines typically take your body through the range of motion—from the starting point through to the end point, a machine will take you through the same line of motion with each and every repetition,” says Phil Timmons, program manager at Blink Fitness. But there’s a lot more that differs between those machines and your regular dumbbells. When to use weights machines First of all, know that while the two weight-lifting options do essentially the same thing, there are actually noticeable differences when it comes to how your body maneuvers. “While strength training with machines and

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2019 Health Relaxation

Can you be stressed without knowing it?

4 min read

April 10, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC Find me a person who isn’t stressed and I will also point to the pigs flying by the window because that just feels completely impossible. Case in point? In a 2018 survey of Well+Good readers, 95 percent reported feeling stressed. Work and finances topped the list of stressors, while many other people said that their interpersonal relationships were a major source of stress and anxiety. But what about the times when nothing is ostensibly wrong, and you still find yourself lying awake at night or trying to shake off a nagging feeling that something is off? Is it possible that your body could be stressed, even if you don’t feel stressed out? When fight-or-flight goes haywire If you’re asking yourself, “Am I stressed?” despite not having anything concrete to be stressed about, blame that super fun feeling on evolution. When your brain sees something it perceives to be a threat, your amygdala —the part of the brain associated with emotions—takes over, “cutting off communication to the frontal part of your cortex, which is where the rational coping thoughts would be,” says David Austern, PsyD., clinical assistant professor at New York University’s department of psychiatry. The result is that fight-or-flight response: a racing heart, sweaty palms, dizziness, that feeling that your stomach just dropped to the ground. These are all your body’s signs to stop thinking and start running. A thousand years ago, this was a helpful reflex; nowadays, not as much. Unfortunately, our brains

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2019 Health

Looks like a stronger savings account is the silver—er, green—lining to being a bit insecure

3 min read

April 10, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC Remember how in The Hobbit, Smaug the dragon lived atop his riches, which act as a protective armor of sorts? I now wonder if that might’ve been a low self-esteem thing, because new research points to insecurity being a low-key money-saving strategy. Sure, in Smaug’s case it didn’t work out well (spoiler!), but the revelation can be at least slightly comforting for those of us who are lacking in the self-confidence area. Recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the study of 2,410 United States and Israeli citizens and survey of 1,200 people in the Netherlands conveyed ties between saving money and a threats to self-image. Across the board, results showed that those who feel great threats to self-image had a higher tendency to save money. BTW, “threats to self-image” translates here to “things that challenge your self-esteem or your otherwise-positive self-perception.” Basically if you’re insecure about something, like how you interpret the quality of your own social life, for instance, being financially secure can help to ease your anxieties. “Friends may substitute for money as a psychological resource and buffer individuals from anxiety about the future.” —lead author Yael Steinhart, PhD One experiment had participants describe a positive or negative event, then count the people they would call and interact with in a given week and quantify whether they felt this to be few or many friends. Then they imagined receiving $500 and how much they would put in

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