March 19, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC It’s 3 a.m. when firefighter Molly* jolts awake. Great, just great, she thinks. Molly works 10 24-hour shifts a month and, but this is a night where she’s home in her own bed. “I fall asleep easily, but have problems staying asleep,” she says. When she clocks her rest at the firehouse, she has to be up and ready in mere seconds at the sound of an (extremely loud) siren. Knowing she might have to be awake and alert enough to make literal life or death decisions makes for terrible sleep during shifts. And because her body’s conditioned to spring into action at any time, she has trouble getting quality sleep at home, too. Kimberly Brown, MD, a 34-year-old ER doctor living in Memphis can relate. Her schedule is all over the place; sometimes she works 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., and other times it’s 8 p.m. to 7 p.m. “My night shifts are never more than three days in a row, so I don’t get too used to it,’” she says. Still, because her hours change so often (and to such a high magnitude), she says it’s hard to get consistent, quality sleep. Chasing enough sleep is a pursuit that keeps so many of us awake at night—and in the case of night shift workers, during the day, too. According to Well+Good’s recent survey of nearly 1,500 people about their sleep habits and health, 92 percent of of us feel fatigued more
Year: 2019
The Bizarre Side Effect Of Having A Male Twin
March 19, 2019 Hint: It has to do with hormones. Continue Reading… Author Caroline Muggia | Life by Daily Burn Selected by iversue
I fell in love with pole classes, and TBH I’ve never felt stronger
March 19, 2019 at 12:55PM by CWC I start climbing upward, the pole wedged between my knee and my foot. Once I’m as high as I can go without kicking the ceiling, I swivel my hips to the front, flip upside down so that my butt is over my head, and grip the pole with my right knee. I push my arms outward, extend my legs, and drop, tumbling downwards in a dramatic fashion until I catch the pole with my opposite knee. For a moment, I swear I was flying. I’ve been pole dancing consistently for almost two years at this point, which in the grand scheme of things, isn’t an incredibly long time, but it’s weird to think about what I used to do before I frequented Incredipole multiple times a week. I started going during a period when I was very sad, very insecure, and wanted to explore an active hobby that made me feel good—after all, endorphins make you happy, as the great Elle Woods once said. The problem? I didn’t really know how to work out in a healthy way. Former years dabbling with appetite suppressants, counting calories, then attempting to burn off said calories while feverishly pedaling on an elliptical put me in a place where I didn’t know what a happy medium felt like. When I started taking pole, I hadn’t engaged in that sort of destructive behavior in years, but the anxiety associated with going to the gym was very real for me. But,
Why you should actually do the jump moves in your workouts (even though they’re so damn hard)
March 19, 2019 at 12:03PM by CWC I’m all good with doing squats or lunges or any other workout move that takes place on the floor, but the second an instructor puts the word “jump” before a move I roll my eyes and sigh with utter frustration. I hate jumping in workouts, because it’s so. Freaking. Hard. But it’s also good for your body, especially if you’re working on your strength (ugh). Know that trainers aren’t just trying to torture you when they make you jump—it’s truly about building up your body’s power. “The purpose of jumping in workouts is to engage a large muscle mass to burn calories,” explains Jason Karp, PhD, author and coach and chief running officer of Run-Fit. “Landing from a jump is demanding and includes a lot of force, so it increases your muscle power.” So yeah, though you may feel like you’re truly dying while doing a burpee or a box jump, you’re not alone—people just don’t jump in real life, so your muscles aren’t naturally built to have to do it all the time. “Jumping feels so hard because of the large muscle forces—landing from a jump puts a lot of stress on the muscles and joints,” says Dr. Karp. “Even landing when running uses two to three times body weight, so jumping equals even greater than three times your body weight when landing. Most people don’t have strong, powerful muscles because they haven’t trained their muscles to be that strong and powerful.” I also asked
How to wrap your headphones so they never get tangled at the bottom of your gym bag
March 19, 2019 at 12:01PM by CWC I’m the queen of tangling things. No matter how carefully I pack up my bag, my necklaces and headphones always end up in knots. It’s a conspiracy, I say! And if you feel my pain—the pain of spending 10 minutes fidgeting with a bird’s nest of white wire before moving on with your life—there’s a simple solution. Often the best technique is one that’s been around for a while. Well, there’s a super-old video from YouTube’s youth that perfectly shows how to wrap your headphones so they don’t get tangled in your bag. (The demonstrator uses original iPod headphones, according to video from 2006, but the wisdom still applies.) For someone like me who’s always in a rush and therefore not interested in any hack that takes more than 30 seconds to do, this one fits the bill. According to user CuriousInventor, start by taking the headphones end in one hand, securing them with your thumb, then begin wrapping the cord around your remaining four fingers. Once you get a couple loops away from the end, use the remaining cord to wrap around the middle of the bunch you just created. Then, finish by bringing the headphone jack through one of the loops. While this wrap job keeps your headphones nice and secure in your bag, using them again is as easy as pulling from both ends: it quickly unravels itself knot-free in a second flat. Pretty magical, huh? Of course, if you watch to ditch
You can’t avoid going to work, but “replugging” makes the day easier
March 19, 2019 at 11:42AM by CWC We all might benefit from “mentally reattaching” to work, according to a new study published in Journal of Management. Okay, I don’t love all of those words together. Mentally reattaching to work sounds like something I absolutely do not want to do. Despite my skepticism, replugging into work in the morning might help you become more engaged at work. Co-authored by a Portland State University professor (and my boss, probably), the small study surveyed 151 people across a variety of industries. People who take a few minutes to replug into work in the morning created a more positive work experience, the study concluded. What exactly does that entail? It could be anything from going through your to-do list while in line for coffee to planning out specific tasks that need to get done while you’re in the shower, says Charlotte Fritz, co-author of the study, the aforementioned PSU professor, and a person I believe maybe never experienced anxiety because thinking about work while doing mundane tasks is the story of my life. I kid about that last part, because a key component of replugging into work is that you first have to unplug from it. A key component of replugging into work is that you first have to unplug from it. “We know that detachment from work during non-work hours is important because it creates positive outcomes like higher life satisfaction and lower burnout,” says Fritz. On the flip side, reattaching to work (blah) creates a
Got an earache? The remedy is in your pantry, according to a naturopathic doctor
March 19, 2019 at 11:05AM by CWC People who get earaches on the reg can tell you that while they’re obviously not as painful as say, cramps or migraines, they’re still in that sweet spot of being just bothersome enough that it’s hard to focus on anything else. And while most earaches resolve on their own (more on that in a sec), they still hurt—which makes home remedies such a tempting option. As it’s somehow still cold and flu season (also: allergy season) and thus peak angry ear season, Patti Kim, ND, LAC, an LA-based naturopathic doctor, kindly shared with Well+Good her go-to home remedies for earache. Are you all ears? You should be. What usually causes an earache? The usual cause of earaches, according to Dr. Kim, is an ear infection. There are actually two different kinds, she says. First, there’s swimmer’s ear, which is an external ear infection. “They call it swimmer’s ear because people get it from swimming,” Dr. Kim says. “The water will dry up the natural lipids and oil barriers [and] cause inflammation and irritation.” Don’t let the name fool you though—you definitely can still get it even you haven’t been swimming (say, if you damaged your ear canal by going too hard on those Q-tips). Then there’s the less-common middle ear infection (also called otitis media). Dr. Kim describes it as a “cold trapped in your ear” that usually comes from a bacterial or viral infection and while it’s more common in children, it can still
This is exactly when to book a flight for the biggest savings, according to travel experts
March 19, 2019 at 11:05AM by CWC I have the worst luck with getting great deals on flights. Knowing full well the best time to book a flight, I recently postponed purchasing an airline ticket by just 12 hours, and within that time, I saw the price jump not once, not twice, but three times by the time I got the confirmation needed to hit “buy.” Just when it doesn’t seem like there’s any secret formula to scoring the biggest savings on airfare, some travel experts are coming through with the need-to-know tricks and tips on when to bite the bullet. When it comes to booking flights, you basically have to go about it Goldilocks-style. If you purchase your tickets too early or too late, you’ll get burned. But there’s a prime time backed by data that guarantees the most bang for your buck. “While everyone knows there’s such a thing as booking too late, what’s surprising is that there’s also such a thing as booking too early,” said Patrick Surry, Hopper’s chief data scientist, in a press release. “Flights go on sale 11 months before departure, but don’t expect to catch deals more than 150 days prior to takeoff. Booking more than six months ahead can cost you since airlines set their initial prices conservatively.” “Booking more than six months ahead can cost you since airlines set their initial prices conservatively.” While it’s a good idea to start tracking your prices three or four months in advance, it’s hard to
This OTC Natural Progesterone Cream Was The One Thing That Eased My Chronic Joint Pain
March 19, 2019 at 09:50AM Hormones work in mysterious ways. Continue Reading… Author Stephanie Eckelkamp | Life by Daily Burn Selected by iversue
Ring the alarm! The latest Nike Frees have arrived
March 19, 2019 at 08:57AM by CWC Today in “take all my money,” Nike just dropped the 2019 Nike Free Running Collection. I don’t even run that often and I am consumed with want over these. Two new shoes are included in the collection; the Nike Free RN Flyknit 3.0 ($130), and the Nike Free RN 5.0 ($100). These sleek shoes were designed to mimic the way you would run in your bare feet—even more so than previous iterations of the Frees. Because when it comes to things like avocado, more is definitely more. But in the case of running shoes, it’s better to take a minimalist approach. Lightweight shoes without too much cushioning allow for more mobility as you run. Both shoes feature an offset that is lower to the ground than previous designs (4mm lower for the Flyknit 3.0, and 2mm lower for the Free 5.0). In regular person speak, this means that your foot is closer to the ground. It’s that whole “mimicking running barefoot” thing, you know, without actually having to run barefoot because that germ situation would be out of control. Nike also firmed up the midsole from previous iterations because this version is designed for lower mileage. Photo: Nike Plus, they both just look super cool. And really, that’s what’s important right? The shoes were designed to be more “anatomically shaped,” which sounds kind of sexual, but cool. Basically, that means in addition to design innovations that make the shoe feel like a second skin, the