April 17, 2019 at 02:00AM by CWC Lacking empathy, caring little for others’ feelings or interests, being completely self-involved…. The emotional résumé of a narcissist is pretty much the exact opposite of what most people want in a forever (or even a just-for-now) partner. So why then do so many daters fall into their trap, providing them the attention they crave so much? “There are a variety of hooks associated with narcissism that draw us in, not necessarily all in the same [narcissistic] person,” says clinical psychologist Laurie Helgoe, PhD, who literally wrote the book on why, in American culture especially, it’s so common for folks to willingly enter destructive relationships with narcissists. (Seriously, it’s called Fragile Bully.) And, she says, not all instances of narcissism necessarily indicate toxicity and doom. “Moderate degrees of narcissism can relate to confidence, an ability to advocate for oneself, and expressing oneself. So not having any narcissism at all isn’t good either.” But when these traits are taken to the extreme, the relationship is at risk for heading south. Keep reading to see how that looks (it’s not as obvious as you may think) and what to do about it. Scroll down to learn 3 ways narcissists pull you in—and what to do about it. 1. Hook: Confidence “A narcissist can be very bold and confident and willing to draw attention to themselves,” Dr. Helgoe says. This can be an especially powerful hook for people who are more introverted and not so personally interested
Category: 2019 Health
We’ve Been Taught the Outdoors is Skin-Care Enemy Number One—Here’s Why That’s Not Quite True
April 16, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC Have you ever wondered why a day at the beach leaves you with glowing skin not even an expensive facial could replicate? And no, we’re not talking about getting a tan (which is really a sign of damage)—that time spent beachside is doing undercover work toward actually boosting your skin’s health. The secret to keeping your new-found radiance year round (without moving to a tropical island) is simple: All you have to do is go outside more. *Cue shocked faces.* We know, we know—the cardinal rule of healthy skin is to avoid exposure to UV rays, pollution, and other outdoor elements that can accelerate aging, dark spots, and all that other skin stuff we stress over. But by staying indoors we’re missing out on a major portion of the skin-health equation: bacteria. By staying indoors we’re missing out on a major portion of the skin-health equation: bacteria. “Culturally, we have seen so many habits built around fear tactics,” says Jasmina Aganovic, president at Mother Dirt—a skin-care line that promotes balance on the skin by integrating live bacteria into its products. “While an excess of sun and polluted air certainly is not great for us, the manifestation of this rhetoric into products that are sold to us is often disproportionate to the reality.” In short, the outdoors isn’t as bad for our skin as we’ve been made to think. Aganovic credits our fear of harmful bacteria with motivating us to eradicate all bacteria, which
The *exact* steps to giving yourself a mini-workout facial massage
April 16, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC What if we told you your skin-care routine was missing one crucial step—and that said step was basically a beauty-boosting mini workout for your face? Okay, so maybe a facial massage doesn’t have quite the same muscle-strengthening results of your favorite HIIT class, but it does tap into the same feel-good benefits—which is why beauty and style maven Grace Atwood is obsessed with the technique as a part of her nightly routine. “Taking that extra 10 minutes for yourself before bed to double cleanse, use serum, use moisturizer, and maybe do a little bit of facial massage, it makes you feel better,” she says. “There’s incredible amounts of research for all the amazing things pressure-point massage can do for your skin and your body.” The buzzed-about benefits? Helping your products penetrate better, increasing blood flow, and reducing fluid build-up (AKA puffiness). To clue you in on how to incorporate the practice into your own self-care arsenal, we teamed up with Reebok UNLOCKED (the just-launched wellness rewards program that hooks you up with beauty bonuses curated by Well+Good, among other perks) and asked Atwood to share the benefits and instructions for a pressure-point facial massage. Scroll down for your step-by-step guide to facial massage, straight from an in-the-know beauty blogger. https://content.jwplatform.com/players/2RNNMnAH-dUl83MEz.js 1. Start with facial oil The key to a spa-level massage is making sure your face is oiled up first, which is why it’s ideal to add the practice as the last step to
Make room for 18 healthy foods you should always buy at Costco
April 16, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC Costco is an amusement park for adults. Sky-high shelves stacked with anything and everything you could ever want in life—to call it magical would be an understatement. The food section in particular is where I like to spend my time pushing around that oversized shopping cart, but you can shop online for plenty of healthy foods at Cosco. Unlike a typical grocery store, Costco allows you to get everything in bulk. Many of the products are organic and non-GMO and countless options focus on specific dietary needs, with products catered to those who are gluten-free, vegan, and low-carb and keto. This includes huge cases of spaghetti squash, bags of cauliflower rice almost too heavy to carry, and avocados that last twice as long. Costco also has essentials on hand for a fraction of the cost. Instead of spending $40 on a tiny container of high-quality Japanese matcha for your lattes, you can get a bag quadruple the size. Make room in the pantry for huge containers of kosher ground turmeric or organic plant-based protein powders loaded. If you want to go on a shopping spree without even having to leave your home, you’re in luck. These are some of the best food deals you can score right this second. Healthy food finds to shop at Costco Buy Now Kirkland Signature Organic Almond Beverage, 6-count $8.99 Buy Now Quaker Oats Old Fashioned Oatmeal, 2-count $9.49 Buy Now Kirkland Signature Organic Quinoa, 4.5 lbs $9.99
Dear therapist, why do I swoon at PDA in rom-coms but judge it (and hate it) on social media?
April 16, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC Last week our collective gag reflexes were put to the test when in an unprovoked public social media display of affection, Justin Bieber shared a love poem he wrote for his wife, Hailey. And, uh, let’s just say that Biebs almost certainly has no future as a poet laureate. I mean, the thing starts with a misspelling of “abyss” and snowballs from there. Sure, there are definitely worse things than “publicly honoring” your partner, like global warming or the line at Trader Joe’s after 5 p.m. on a weekday. But when someone gets gooey about their relationship on social media like that, even when other mediums (ahem, rom-coms) celebrate the grand gesture, I still get a rough case of the icks—and I’m not the only eye-roller scrolling the ‘gram. Cringing at a gushing Instagram poem or at a viral proposal video or at someone who @s their S.O. in their Twitter bio is a common experience, and generally more of a reflection on who we, the bystanders, are rather than who the people in the relationship are. “There can be a very fine line between what we find exciting and romantic, and what we just find intrusive,” says licensed clinical psychologist Aimee Daramus, PsyD. “You might have experienced this with people asking you out, too. Somebody genuinely thinks they‘re being charming, but for you, it‘s too much too fast. So part of it has to do with boundaries. A lot of us might
We should all be doing at-home workouts in granny panties
April 16, 2019 at 01:04PM by CWC Working out at home puts you in outfit limbo. Should I dirty up my favorite tie-dye sports bra even though no one’s around to drop a compliment? Should I throw caution to the wind and vinyasa the morning away in your PJs? If anyone would know, it’s the founder of workout company b.cm. Fitness entrepreneur and LGBTQ+ activist Bethany C. Meyers says the ideal outfit is one you might not have considered—your most snuggly pair of granny panties. “I started working out in my underwear as a way to say, ‘f*ck bikini-body ready,’” says Meyers. “This is so personal, and so safe, and so from within.” The idea originally came from posting #teamnopants workout videos on Instagram. Pretty soon, Meyers’ followers began to emulate the outfit choice and pants became kind of irrelevant. “I started working out in my underwear as a way to say, ‘f*ck bikini-body ready.’” So much of the cultural narrative surrounding our bodies touts a very specific, non-inclusive form of beauty. We’re on our way to changing that, but in the interim, the underwear you sport through a round of house burpees are worn for you (and only you). “I realized that the bikini is this item of clothing that you wear for the public,” says Meyers. “You wear it outside of your house, sometimes you feel nervous wearing it. It’s like the thing you wear for other people.” Meyers isn’t the only public figure who’s taken to nixing
A dermatologist says *this* is how often you should be showering
April 16, 2019 at 12:59PM by CWC In this world, there are two types of showerers. There are the get-in-there-and-get-it done types who hop in the tub with the mere purpose of cleaning their bodies. Then there are the folks who like to turn their showers into a full-on experience complete with fresh eucalyptus, essential oil-infused body wash and delicious-smelling body scrubs (guilty!). You get the picture. If you fall into the latter category, then you know showers can be pretty time consuming and sometimes, let’s face it, you just can’t be bothered. You’ve got important things to do! People to see! Which begs the question: How often should you actually be showering? Here, we asked Beverly Hills dermatologist Jennifer Herrmann, MD, FAAD all of the most pressing shower-related questions. So how often should you be showering? The short answer: It depends on your lifestyle. “If you’re very physically active or work in an environment where you’re exposed to chemicals, dirt, or dust, showering daily or twice daily may be ideal to keep skin clean,” says Dr. Herrmann. “For the average person, once daily usually suffices.” The news-breaking caveat here is that you don’t actually need to use soap all over your body every single day. “Excess cleanser strips the skin of natural oils and disrupts the native microbiome—the normal milieu of organisms that live on the skin and help keep it healthy—which can lead to dryness and worsen certain skin conditions like eczema,” Dr. Herrmann explains. Just imagine all
Dr. Pimple Popper ranks the best ingredients to get rid of zits—and fast
April 16, 2019 at 12:31PM by CWC Dermatologist Sandra Lee knows a thing or two about pimples. After all, they don’t call her “Dr. Pimple Popper” for nothing. Which means that in addition to squeezing the life out of the grossest zits the Internet has ever seen (… I’m one of those people who can’t go anywhere near her Instagram feed without gagging), she also knows exactly how to treat them when they aren’t ready to blow their contents all over your bathroom mirror. She’ll be the first to tell you that you should leave the pimple popping to the pros—because, who knows, it could even land you a spot on national television!—which means that it’s in your best interest to use ingredients to treat them instead of the pads of your fingers. To find out which ingredients, exactly, you should be using, we asked Dr. Lee to share her favorites for treating the three most common types of acne… no actual popping required. For blackheads, whiteheads, and acne-related dark spots: salicylic acid Ever wondered what Dr. Pimple Popper’s “favorite” skin-care ingredient is? Look no further than salicylic acid. “It can do wonders as a spot treatment,” she says. “Salicylic acid is a beta hydroxy acid that that crystalizes to a small enough size, allowing it to settle down within our pores to clean them from the inside out thereby preventing the accumulation of dead skin cells, debris, and oil which provide the perfect environment for pimples to live. It’s a
Why sitting still in your workout is just as effective as your sweatiest moves
April 16, 2019 at 12:08PM by CWC Whenever I’m getting my sweat on, I undoubtedly aim to move myself harder/bester/faster/stronger. I like to feel like I’m truly kicking my own butt, and leave my workout exhausted sore. Hence why any workout class that’s meant to move slowly—or even not at all—is super challenging for me (sup SLT?!). In actuality though, fitness trainers don’t necessarily say that you need to be going so hard to get the best results out of your workout. Enter “still” exercises, like yoga’s boat poses and Pilates’ hollow holds, which can give your sweaty moves a run for their money. “A still exercise is also known as an isometric exercise in the fitness industry,” says Autumn Calabrese, Beachbody super trainer and creator of 21 Day Fix. “Isometric exercises are beneficial because they don’t add a lot of extra impact to your joints and can be performed without any equipment. They’re good for building strength without impact or full range of motion, which is great for someone who’s recovering from an injury or just wants to take it easy on their joints.” You can make these moves even harder by adding weights, too. “This puts the muscle under tension for a longer period of time, which is what’s needed for gains in strength,” she adds. Of course, these muscle-blasting moves do come with certain limitations. “Isometric contraction only increases muscular strength in the exact position you’re engaging,” Calabrese explains. “So you need to perform various isometric exercises to
The 7 little words a psychotherapist says your inner critic needs to hear
April 16, 2019 at 11:12AM by CWC In Disney’s fairy tale Rapunzel, the evil witch belts a solo about all the reasons the princess deserves to be locked away from the outside world. She’s “ditzy,” “naive,” “clumsy,” “gullible,” and altogether unfit to fulfill her dreams. My inner geek is convinced that the witch is in fact a metaphor for the inner critic. We’re trapped within a self-imposed tower built upon a shaky foundation. We ask ourselves, “What is wrong with me?” And yet, we could toss our hair out the window, climb down from the prison of self-criticism, and live our lives boldly. Psychoanalyst and author Susan Henkels agrees. In her 45 years of talking clients through their perceived weaknesses, she has discovered that asking yourself one simple question—What if there’s nothing wrong with me?—can help quash self-limiting beliefs. “I’m not saying there isn’t anything wrong with you right now,” she said in a talk at the TEDxSedona conference. “I’m just saying, what if there [wasn’t]? Could you have more confidence and courage to do something that you’ve always been passionate about?” Asking yourself the question doesn’t mean you’re calling yourself the living, breathing embodiment of perfection. It’s really about deleting a narrative that says you’re not enough so you can get to the good stuff. “We really do create this whole list of what we think is wrong and then create an entire life around decisions we made probably when we were five-years-old,” says Henkels. “Wouldn’t it be nice