April 20, 2019 at 08:00AM by CWC Headaches are day ruiners that halt your big plans in their tracks—or at least make them difficult to flawlessly execute. As someone who gets many an angry migraine, I know that the pain forces me to pack it up for the day and retreat into my dark cave (AKA my bedroom with the shades drawn). But most days, we don’t have the time to sleep off a headache. What’s a gal to do? While doctors maintain over-the-counter or prescription medications are most effective to relieve the tension headache or migraine itself, there are some home remedies worth taking a spin to quell symptoms and feel a bit better, fast. “Treating as early as possible is the best chance to get pain under control,” says Susan Broner, MD, medical director of the headache program at at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian. She says home remedies can help get through an attack alone or in tandem with medication, so whip these fixes out sooner rather than later. And if your headaches are getting more frequent, more painful, or harder to treat, definitely talk with your doctor. Okay, now grab a glass of water (hydration is important here, like in so many aspects of our lives!) and let’s get into what to keep in your arsenal of instant home remedies for headaches: Essential oils You’ll want to grab peppermint, lavender, and rosemary essential oils for their pain-busting properties. “It’s not just, ‘Oh it’s relaxing,’ or
Category: 2019 Health
The fear of rejection has been keeping us down since grade school, but there are ways to cope
April 20, 2019 at 06:00AM by CWC I can’t say for sure when a classic fear of rejection starts blossoming, but my first guess is during recess. So many of us start as itty-bitty extroverts who can ask “Will you be my friend?” with unfaltering bravado, knowing that the answer will be a default yes. Then one day, some 9-year-old shithead in a popcorn shirt tells you that you can’t be Baby Spice, or worse yet, you can’t play Spice Girls at all. All of a sudden, we realize that not everyone is going to like us, and that terror of being rejected leaves us swinging solo on the swing sets. I’ve been ruminating on rejection recently (clearly) because as a newly minted staffer at Well+Good, the last thing I want is for my new co-workers to not like me—in fact, that situation low-key petrifies me. My editor will probably eye roll at that because everyone has been very welcoming and awesome, but recess anxieties are so hard to shake, you know? [Editor’s note: Everyone at Well+Good loves you, Mary Grace!] We’d like to think we get more confident upon reaching adulthood, but by that point, we’re well aware that the scope of rejection extends beyond friendship. That’s why so many of us are terrified of being spurned by anyone and everyone, whether it’s an HR rep, a Bumble match, or the 550-some odd Instagram followers who aren’t double-tapping on that newest post even though that outfit is SO CUTE,
If you aren’t using every lemon peel, you’re missing out on some surprising benefits
April 20, 2019 at 04:15AM by CWC Putting a slice of lemon in your water is hands down the easiest way to feel like a wellness rockstar. You could have spent the whole weekend eating double-stuffed Oreos and your sneakers could be gathering dust in the back of your closet, but put a little citrus in your H20 and boom—you feel healthier already. But while much talk is done around lemon water, the benefits of the lemon peel are pretty much ignored. Which is honestly too bad because they’re full of benefits just like the rest of the fruit. “Despite the fact that lemon peels are often discarded, they do have nutritional benefits,” says registered dietitian Katherine Brooking, RD. “The lemon peel is contains small amounts of calcium, vitamin C, and potassium, as well as fiber.” Considering you’re not exactly going to sit down and nosh on lemon peel, you might be wondering what the best way is to reap that stellar list of benefits. Well, keep reading my friend. Besides more details on the nutritional benefits, we’ve got some other surprising ways to put lemon peel to good use. Scroll down to see the nutritional benefits of lemon peel, how to consume them, and other ways to put them to good use. Nutritional benefits of lemon peel 1. Lemon peels contain calcium. As Brooking pointed out, lemon peels have a small amount of calcium, which is important for maintaining strong bones and cellular communication. Simply put, if you don’t get
You can spot evidence your partner is cheating all over their stupid face
April 19, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC Need tips for how to catch a cheater? Well, new research notes that literally looking right in front of you could be a better method than, say, snooping through DMs. That is, only if the person in question is a man. For a recent study published in Royal Society Open Science, researchers asked 1516 heterosexual adults (592 men and 924 women) to gaze at pictures of well, other men and women and then judge whether the person in front of them appeared unfaithful. Both men and women were able to tell, with above-average accuracy, which men, but not women, had been unfaithful just by looking at them. Is this just because dudes are trash? Or because they have god-awful poker faces? Something else? While the study posits that makeup may help women alter their appearances (and thus lie as convincingly as an under-oath politician), please eye roll with me at the idea that gals can pencil in their “suspicious” eyebrows in order to get away with cheating. Regardless of gender and orientation though, Tammy Nelson, PhD, sex therapist and author of When You’re the One Who Cheats, says there is a facial expression that helps identify cheating behavior. “Notice their eye movement when you ask them simple, basic questions like, ‘where were you?’ or ‘who were you just talking to on the phone?’ If they can’t make direct eye contact with you, they’re most likely lying or covering up something that they imagine
How EMDR can help people process traumatic events
April 19, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC Do you remember the scene in Netflix’s Russian Doll where Nadia’s adopted aunt and psychologist, Ruth, coaches a client through a traumatic past experience while offering advice on how to improve his marriage? The bleary-eyed client recalls a troubling incident while his eyes follow green dots traveling back and forth across a light bar. No? I don’t blame you—at first glance, the scene didn’t seem related to the plot. However, it depicts one of the multiple tools used in Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (or EMDR), a form of psychotherapy that, according to some Reddit theorists, plays a significant role throughout Russian Doll and might have influenced the name of the show. However, it’s not just a TV thing—EMDR is a real (albeit somewhat controversial) mental health treatment. Kerry Mack, a filmmaker living in New York, has been using EMDR to cope with her traumas over the last eight years. “When I was 12, my older brother passed away very unexpectedly at the age of 17, and I have used EMDR to process memories inside the hospital when he passed, during his funeral, and a lot of the associated aftermath,” she says. But what exactly is this, and how could something seemingly as simple as looking at blinking lights be so helpful? What is EMDR? The short version: EMDR is a type of psychotherapy that helps people desensitize and reprocess triggering or traumatic memories so they’re no longer emotionally charged. “When a person is upset,
The cool temp on your hairdryer is the “easy button” for an amazing style
April 19, 2019 at 12:34PM by CWC When it comes from the boring chore of blow drying my hair in the morning, I want to get the job done as fast as possible. If I were a better person, maybe I would use this time standing wet in front of my bathroom mirror to recite positive mantras or pray, but instead, I spend it flipping my hair around and trying to think of ways to cut the time down as much as humanely possible. It’s probably why the cool air button on my blow dryer goes virtually unused. To me, heat means the whole experience will be done faster. But it got me thinking (hey, I am just standing there), what exactly is that cold air good for anyway? (Besides a cool blast of blessed relief after a sweaty SoulCycle class.) To find out, I reached out to hairstylist extraordinaire Ashley Rubell. “Hot air is used to alter the hair,” she explains. “Hot tools change our texture from straight to curly, or curly to straight.” This, she says, extends beyond straighteners and curlers; it includes blowdryers too. “Temperature should really vary according to your hair type,” she adds. “If you have thicker, coarser hair you’ll need a higher temperature to work your strands, but with finer hair, or damaged hair, you want to keep your heat on a lower temp.” Celebrity hairstylist Bridget Brager adds that while blow drying your hair with hot hair may be faster, the heat can be
How to make small talk that isn’t the lamest of the lame
April 19, 2019 at 12:11PM by CWC How many times have I’ve chatted up strangers and coworkers about the day’s weather report in an effort to make small talk? Mastering the art of going on and on about nothing is a gift some people posses in spades. Personally, I agree with Oprah—we should all be making our words a bit larger. To learn how to transform knee-jerk conversation starters (“How are you!?” and “Gee golly, wasn’t traffic terrible this morning?”) into more meaningful conversation, I asked How to Be Yourself author Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, for a few pointers to avoid canned opening lines. “We all know how small talk works,” she says. “It’s about the weather, traffic, or—if we’re a college student—it’s about finals coming up. It’s a way of connecting in a way that is known and safe.” Conversation offers a strong foundation for you to feel secure in your identity and emotions. If you’re simply sharing a 20-second elevator ride with a colleague, there’s no need to veer away from your tried-and-true topics. But if you find yourself out to coffee or lunch with someone you don’t know all that well, the improvisation technique of “yes, and” can help break the ice. In case you haven’t improvised since high school drama class, the “yes, and” rule means you should never just give a flat “yes” or “no” answer. The idea is to tack something onto your response that allows the banter to continue. Same goes with small talk. “That
It’s time for women to reclaim the kitchen as an empowering place
April 19, 2019 at 10:03AM by CWC There’s a scene in the *ahem* Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Fifty Shades Freed where the protagonist, Ana, is cooking and her husband, Christian, makes some comment about how he likes to see her in the kitchen. “Barefoot and pregnant?” she jokes. (I’m sure there’s a different pop culture moment I could reference to open up this discussion, but none are as embarrassing as one that admits to the entire internet that I’ve read all three Fifty Shades novels.) I remember reading that part and thinking, LOL if any man ever said that to me, I would not be down. “I could get used to you in the kitchen.” Blah. Invoking my safe word. My gut reaction to this scene is so strong because it immediately conjures images of the Mad Men era, during which time picture-perfect Betty Drapers, wearing waist-cinching aprons and pumps, were expected to make pot roasts and watch the kids while their husbands went off to work. Heck, even the Joan Holloways (women who had jobs) were forced to prepare the meals after spending all day at work. Because, for much of history, the kitchen has been considered “the woman’s domain.” To understand why this is, we have to back up a couple hundred years. Prior to the 19th century, there wasn’t this split between domestic spaces and public spaces (often called spheres), says Catherine Allgor, president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, who’s also on the board of directors for the National
The real reason we’re superstitious about broken mirrors, black cats, and the number 13
April 19, 2019 at 09:28AM by CWC The rules of society say I’m an “adult” now. My hopscotch and jump rope days are long gone, but I still find myself reciting an adolescent rhyme as I walk the streets of New York City: “Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mama’s back.” Superstitions tend to latch on to our belief system early in life. And new scientific research might explain why distrust of black cats, broken mirrors, twitching eyes, and the number 13 tends to spread like wildfire. In an analysis published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a pair of theoretical biologists created a model based on game theory (a branch of mathematics that attempts to predict people’s actions and interactions) that answered the vital question: What are superstitions, and how do they become normalized in culture? They found that groups of individual that start with very different principals can mingle their way toward a shared belief system. “What’s interesting here is that we show that, beginning in a system where no one has any particular belief system, a set of beliefs can emerge, and from those, a set of coordinated behaviors,” Erol Akçay, PhD, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Someone tells us that walking under a ladder is a recipe for disaster, and before we know it, we’re not just believing their warning. We’re actively dodging ladders. “What’s interesting here is that we show that, beginning in a system
How to take the perfect shower for your skin type, according to dermatologists
April 19, 2019 at 08:10AM by CWC I often find myself in a rush, and the challenge is to scrub, shampoo, condition, and shave (if you’re into that) in five minutes or less. But when I’ve got JOMO vibes, I hang out in the shower for the better part of an indulgent hour while contemplating the meaning of life. No matter what time allows, skin experts say following certain shower practices will keep your complexion happy. No surprise, the first step is figuring out how to shower for your skin type. “It’s truly important to remember that what works for you may not work for the person next to you,” says Jen Kramer, a paramedical esthetician and founder of Corrective Skincare LA. In fact, the only hard-and-fast rule is that you shouldn’t linger too long in the shower (i.e., 30-minute showers are too much). “You might think standing in a hot, steamy shower sounds like it would hydrate your skin (not to mention relax you!), but the longer you stay, the more your skin is stripped of natural proteins and oils that protect your cells from the environment,” says Kramer. “No matter what your skin type, limit the time you’re in the shower to 10 minutes. This makes Mother Earth happy, too.” Keep it short, sweet, and full of products that make your skin look and feel its very best. How to shower if you have oily skin Joshua Zeichner, MD, a dermatologist based in New York, advises sticking to