January 30, 2020 at 06:45PM by CWC As a beauty editor, I hate to play favorites with my products. Usually, as soon as I fall head-over-heels in love with “the one,” something newer and better comes onto the market and swiftly replaces it in my routine. But two years ago, I found the best tinted moisturizer for dry skin that I’ve ever used, and it’s been a mainstay in my winter regimen ever since. Beauty Counter Dew Skin Tinted Moisturizer ($45) is, in my opinion, a perfect product. It offers sheer coverage that will even out your skin tone without making it look cake-y or packed on, giving skin a natural yet luminous finish. It’s packed with vitamin C, which offers brightening benefits beneath the surface, plus sodium hyaluronate (a sister ingredient of hyaluronic acid, a moisturizing superstar) to promote firmer, smoother skin. And what’s better, it also offers SPF 20 (though you should still be putting another layer of sunscreen on underneath, since dermatologists recommend wearing at least an SPF 30 every day). The product has earned itself 4.6 out of five stars out of more than 2,000 reviews on the brand’s website, and I completely agree with that raving assessment. Since I have such dry skin, my biggest pet peeve is when a foundation makes my skin feel even drier, but this tinted moisturizer does exactly the opposite. No matter how freezing it is outside, my skin never pills or flakes with this baby on… even in instances
Month: January 2020
So, you want to cook with CBD? These are the golden rules to follow
January 30, 2020 at 04:30PM by CWC Once edgy and under-the-radar, CBD has officially become mainstream. CBD tinctures and gummies are likely already part of your holistic toolkit to deal with cramps, anxiety, or trouble sleeping. But the next level of using and enjoying the popular cannabinoid: incorporating it into foods and drinks. Maybe the idea of CBD-infused foods freak you out. But having anxiety about cooking with CBD is not only ironic, it’s unnecessary, because this primer has everything you need to know. From the best foods to start with to the rules to follow to ensure you’re not just washing your money down the drain, consider this the complete ABCs to cooking with CBD. Soon you’ll be able to switch up your CBD habit to be as delicious as it is functional. (Any scientists out there want to study the effectiveness of CBD brownies as a PMS remedy? Get at me.) The golden rules of cooking with CBD 1. Don’t waste your pricey tinctures on cooking While you may already be the proud owner of a CBD tincture, The Ultimate Guide to CBD author Jamie Evans, aka The Herb Somm, says there are more cost-effective ways to infuse your food rather than using up your precious vials. The easiest, she says, is to buy a CBD-infused olive oil that’s ready to cook with. “These are becoming easier to find, but since CBD is still widely unregulated, you want to look for one that’s organically grown so that there’s
Fitness trackers might be smart enough to predict colds and flus, but they’re no replacement for a doctor
January 30, 2020 at 03:00PM by CWC This being 2020, many people have graduated from using wearables for simple step counting to getting more in-depth info about their overall well-being. Want to know how much time you spent in REM sleep last night? Track your menstruation cycle? Clock your heart rate? It’s all information that’s literally now available at your fingertips—and why wellness wearables are one of Well+Good’s 2020 Wellness Trends. According to a new study published in The Lancet, there’s another potential way wearables can help keep their users healthy: detecting the earliest signs of illness. Researchers looked at de-identified data—specifically, resting heart rate data, minutes of sleep, and wear time—from over 47,000 consistent Fitbit users in five states. They created a model that determined that someone likely had an influenza-like illness (ILI) if their sleep time and resting heart rates were both elevated past a certain threshold. Researchers then cross-referenced the Fitbit data with weekly ILI info gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and found that predicting outbreaks of ILI generally became more accurate when they used the Fitbit data. “Week-to-week changes in the proportion of Fitbit users with abnormal data were associated with week-to-week changes in ILI rates in most cases,” the study authors wrote. This could have big implications for public health efforts in the future. “By accessing these data, it could be possible to improve real-time and geographically refined influenza surveillance. This information could be vital to enact timely outbreak response
I’m a relationship therapist, and these are 6 the most common questions married people ask me
January 30, 2020 at 03:00PM by CWC No matter the duration of time you’ve been with your spouse, couples therapy can be a proactive way to target aspects of your marriage that might benefit from some extra attention. But whether you’ve already reached the conclusion that this is the best next step for you and your relationship, or you’re unsure about whether it’s a an avenue that would be appropriate for you to explore, rest assured that you’re not the only person curious about what actually happens during these sessions. Like, once the time for the appointment rolls around, and you’re expected to ask questions in marriage counseling, what should you ask? To clue you in about what typically happens in her sessions, below, Tammy Nelson, PhD, relationship and sex therapist and author of When You’re the One Who Cheats, shares some of the most common questions in marriage counseling she gets asked. Check out the 6 most common questions in marriage counseling a relationship therapist gets asked. 1. Can we revive our marriage? “When a couple asks about reviving the marriage, that’s usually code for ‘can we bring back the desire we felt for each other in the early stages of our relationship’ or ‘will we ever have good sex again,’” says Dr. Nelson. “The answers are yes, you can, and it depends. [The latter] depends on communication, honesty, and commitment.” Considering the reality that you’re already in therapy together, there’s a good chance you’re willing to admit that
Hit a rut with your self-care routine? Here are 11 expert-approved methods to try
January 30, 2020 at 01:00PM by CWC Like with anything else in life, doing the same old thing over and over again can start to feel stale. So, if you ever find yourself in a self-care rut, know that it happens to the best of us, and you certainly won’t be stuck there forever. The secret to solving this issue is to ideate new self-care ideas that will fulfill you and shake up your routine so that you’re filling your metaphorical tank rather than draining it. Keep reading for tips to gauge how to tell if it’s time for a ritual shakeup, then get self-care ideas from experts that’ll breath new life into your tired routine. 5 steps to assess whether you’ve hit a self-care rut 1. Assess how your self-care routine makes you feel The first step of completing a self-care audit is assessing how your current rituals make you feel. Do they make you feel grounded, alive, and nourished? If not, it’s definitely time for an edit. “If your self-care routine isn’t supporting you anymore, it could be a sign that you’re up-leveling and you need an upgrade to keep growing to the next layer of yourself.”—Gwen Dittmar, life coach “If you observe that your current self-care routine is not supporting you anymore, it could be a sign that you are up-leveling,” says, life coach and breathwork teacher Gwen Dittmar. “When we up-level, the things that used to serve us stop working because our system needs an upgrade
This yoga flow boosts flexibility so you’ll be touching your toes in no time
January 30, 2020 at 12:00PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpkWNyU20iw] You may feel drawn to yoga for its stress-relieving reputation or its cool, contortionist shapes. But according to The Yoga Alliance (which is basically the Supreme Court of Vinyasa), the majority of folks seek out yoga to become more flexible human beings. Every yoga pose requires at least a little bendiness to properly perform, but if you’re looking to really up your flexibility to become the limberest of them all, instructor Andrea Russell put together a flow just for you. On this week’s episode of Well+Good’s YouTube series Good Moves, Russell guides you through a sequence designed specifically to unwind the tension in the creakiest, crankiest parts of your body—including your hamstrings, groin, quads, hips, and spine. For twenty luxurious minutes, all you have to to think about is breathing into whatever tightness has accumulated in your body from, you know, life. For this particular sequence, you’ll only need a yoga strap (a towel works, too!), a mat, and your body. You’ll start by warming up your hammies with reclined head-to-toe pose. Then, you’ll move into other yoga mainstays like lizard, goddess squat, and bridge. By the end, you’ll have 10-plus new poses in your playbook that you can pull out whenever your muscles doth protest after a particularly challenging gym session or fitness class. What’s more, 20 minutes accounts for quadruple the amount of stretching you need to do in a day. Physical therapist Meghan King, DPT, previously told Well+Good that
10 affordable plant-based staples everyone should buy
January 30, 2020 at 03:00AM by CWC Grocery shopping tends to go one of two ways: you nail it and wind up with a cornucopia of ingredients… or you panic and arrive home having only purchased bread, frozen peas, and a box of Wheat Thins. Both scenarios have happened to me many times, so to make supermarket stops a little more efficient, I asked a dietitian for help in the form of a plant-based grocery list. Below, Malina Malkani, RDN, media spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and creator of Solve Picky Eating, shares ten items that deserve a forever-spot in your pantry, fridge, and freezer. No more wheat thin frozen pea sandwiches for you. Bookmark this 10-item plant-based grocery list for years and years of smart shopping 1. Plain, unsweetened soy milk “Calcium and vitamin D are important for bone health, and when fortified, soy milk is a good source of both,” Malkani says. You’ll also find 8 grams of protein in each cup and plenty of potassium. Pour it over your favorite healthy cereal, slice up some fruit, and breakfast is on. The best alt-milk you can buy: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO5rBK1Lte0] 2. Whole grains such as oats, brown rice, barley, or quinoa Whole grains deserve a place at every meal because of their fiber content, explains Malkani. They’re satiating and will help your blood sugar stabilize after you’ve eaten a meal. “Whole grains also offer some plant-based protein, healthy fats, and many essential micronutrients such as magnesium, iron, copper, selenium,
Pro stretchers swear by these moves to relieve sciatica
January 30, 2020 at 02:00AM by CWC Stretching is an important part of any routine, no matter who you are. It helps with recovery, it aids in building flexibility and mobility, it improves posture—and the list goes on and on. But if you’ve got lower-body pain from sitting all. day. long. or you feel uncomfortable after an intense workout, doing stretches for sciatica is critical for relieving pain and discomfort. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the term, sciatica refers to any sort of shooting pain that goes from your back, through your glutes, and down your leg—aka along your sciatic nerve, which is the longest in your body. The causes of sciatic pain are extensive, but it’s usually brought on by extremes: sitting for extra-long periods of time or doing a lot of really intense exercise like HIIT or long-distance running. Stretching, however, can help to temper the effects of sciatica. “Having a healthy joint and soft tissue mobility is important in preventing sciatica and other problems,” says Corinne Croce, PT and co-founder of Body Evloved Fitness. “Stretching is one way to help keep our joint and tissues mobile, and therefore is a great prevention tactic.” If the symptoms have already set in, doing some stretches for sciatica can also help. “Stretching properly is a great way to help alleviate the symptoms associated with sciatica,” adds Jeff Brannigan, program director at Stretch’d. “While the cause of sciatic pain often lies in the lumbar spine, targeting the adjacent and supporting muscle
This trio of drugstore buys will revive dull skin as well as a chemical peel
January 30, 2020 at 01:30AM by CWC Everyone is chasing a “glow” for their complexions, but when it’s this cold and dry outside, all bets are off. Thanks to zero-percent humidity in many winter climates, a dry-skin cell pileup happens on skin, leaving it looking a little dulled down. It couldn’t be any more annoying, then, that the way to deal with dull skin is to exfoliate, which can cause more dryness. It’s a vicious dryness cycle that’s hard to escape, and that’s exactly why we reached out to a derm for recommendations on how to brighten up skin without totally drying it out. “Skin gets dull in the winter because it gets dry,” says Adarsh Vijay Mudgil, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City. “A combination of cold weather and the drying effects of indoor heat creates a double whammy situation.” His tip for getting that radiance back? Hydration is step number one, so start by nurturing the complexion with a moisturizer rich in hydrating ingredients like hyaluronic acid and barrier-building ones like ceramides. Besides that, combatting dullness is all about light exfoliation (read: gentle!) and giving your skin protection through antioxidants to fend off future damage and restore the glow you had before this frigid air came upon us. Keep scrolling for dermatologist-approved dull skin solutions that’ll brighten up your skin, all of which you can grab at the drugstore for cheap. La Roche-Posay Brightening Foaming Cream Cleanser, $25 Begin your regimen with this brightening cleanser, recommended by
This high-protein, brain-boosting trail mix is going to be your new favorite snack
January 30, 2020 at 01:00AM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvW35toe6Gc] This healthy trail mix is guaranteed to be your new energizing snack of choice. Here’s how to make it. The 4 p.m. slump is one of the most persistent banes of existence. Unless you live in Spain and are allowed daily siestas to recharge your batteries, you’re likely well aware of the brain fog that sets in a few hours before you’re actually allowed to vacate the duties of your job. It’s intensely frustrating and difficult to combat, especially given that for many of us, caffeine is not a good idea that late in the day. Personally, the only thing that works for me is a mid-to-late afternoon sweat sesh, but since most office workers can’t jet out for an hour to recharge with a workout, herbalist, Supernatural founder, and host of Well+Good’s Plant Based video series Rachelle Robinett offers a more widely-adoptable solution: nootropic trail mix. “Nootropics are another way of describing herbs, supplements, foods, and compounds that are great for our brains,” Robinett says. “This recipe is designed for the times of day…you’re feeling the lethargy or lowness or brain fog.” One of two key ingredients in her brain-boosting blend is cordyceps mushrooms. Robinett explains that while all mushrooms are great sources of antioxidants, cordyceps mushrooms are especially adept at providing the body with energy. “Cordyceps also enhance our cells’ ability to use oxygen, which is very important for brain circulation and cognitive function,” she says. The second key ingredient is rosemary. “Rosemary is