February 06, 2019 at 07:05AM by CWC When you’re knee-deep in Pinterest pins while on the hunt for travel inspo, the sheer number of possibilities can feel overwhelming. After all, the world is ginormous, full of majestic lights, tropical jungles, and pig-populated beaches. So when in doubt, why not entrust the decision to the cosmos? Rental-property platform VRBO recently curated properties around the globe that appeal to each of the 12 zodiac signs. Pisces needs to take their PTO to chill the eff out, Tauruses need to indulge, and Leos crave some me, me, me-time (no surprises here). Below, learn which destination is basically written in the stars for your next adventure. Here’s the vacation rental that’s ideal for your sign. All Photos: VRBO Aquarius: Grand Canyon National Park, starting at $150 per night Aquarius folks thrive on being fiercely independent at every opportunity. So when you’ve blocked out a week on your Google Cal to GTFO of the office, go bold with your destination of choice. Pisces: North Oregon Coast, starting at $109 per night The fish zodiac sign is a big fan of the “do not disturb” sign…from the first to the last day of their vacay. Choose a spot, like this Pacific Northwest respite, where you can chill in deep solitude. Aries: Honolulu, HI, starting at $1,200 per night According to VRBO, an Aries needs “action” during vacation. However you interpret that advice, my guess is you’ll have a better time doing it in Hawaii than pretty much anywhere else. Taurus:
Category: 2019 Health
How EdenEat’s Eden Grinshpan satisfies her sweet tooth
February 06, 2019 at 05:28AM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqHUybNr4U] James Corden belts out top radio hits with his famous guests, Jerry Seinfeld gets coffee in cars with his, and here at Well+Good, we like to do our interviews while the celebrity, healthy chef, or wellness luminary in the hot seat enjoys their favorite avocado dish for The Avocado Show. The Avocado Show, Well+Good’s new YouTube series, has arrived with chef and restauranteur Eden Grinshpan helping to kick things off. A total #girlboss, Grinshpan is co-founder and executive chef of Dez, a contemporary Middle Eastern fast-casual food joint that opened its doors last year in New York City. For the inaugural episode of The Avocado Show, Grinshpan dishes details about her restaurant, her fitness routine, and the power of women-led businesses—all with an avocado pita in hand. Grinshpan’s Instagram followers love her down-to-earth approach to healthy eating, which is frequently injected with a healthy dose of humor. A native to Canada, Grinshpan satisfies her sweet tooth in a most Canadian way, hyping the country’s stickiest export. “My love for maple syrup, I put it on a lot of food,” she says. “Any excuse, if you need something sweet, it’s just got such a beautiful [flavor]. When it’s the right stuff—Canadian maple syrup, guys!” We just have one question to leave you with: How many avocados have you had this week?” Want to catch up on Well+Good’s other YouTube series You Versus Food? Find out if green juice is really the end-all, be-all of wellness. Or, see what a top nutritionist actually
5 reasons to add vinegar to your laundry if you want your clothes to be as fresh and clean as possible
February 06, 2019 at 05:15AM by CWC Plain old vinegar (not even talking apple cider here!) is one of the most versatile products you can keep in your household for cleanliness and other little life hacks. My household has a rule that anything that touches raw meat or eggs gets rinsed down with vinegar to prevent smells—experts say it’s a great way to deep clean your dishwasher, and it’s an easy way to avoid a fruit fly infestation. Something else vinegar is A+ at cleaning? Laundry. “Vinegar is absolutely your secret weapon when it comes to redeeming difficult laundry quandaries,” says Marilee Nelson, an environmental consultant and co-founder of the plant-based cleaning products brand Branch Basics. Because vinegar is acidic, Nelson says it has properties that help remove lime and rust, can dissolve leftover soap, and has disinfectant qualities among a slew of other properties. Vinegar is, in fact, so multifaceted as a cleaning product that you can find a laundry list of ways to use it below. Photo: Getty Images/Sigrid Gombert 1. It’s a water softener Hard water is a problem for many people depending on where you live. The phrase “hard water” essentially refers to water that has metals and mineral deposits in it. While you might know that it’s abrasive on your skin, “hard water is a laundry enemy as it dulls clothes, leaves mineral deposits and inhibits the cleaning power of your laundry products” Nelson says. To make the most of vinegar’s water-softening properties, Nelson suggests adding
Hear me out: A few bugs in your organic veggies won’t kill you
February 06, 2019 at 05:00AM by CWC One morning two weeks ago, a rare thing happened: I woke up motivated (and with enough time) to make my own breakfast before heading out the door. But something nightmarish happened while I was making my celery juice. As I broke off a few stalks to throw in the blender, a dead bug popped out from the folds of my organic celery. Context: Bugs and I don’t get along. I’m a 22-year-old who’s unashamed to wake up her dad at 3 a.m. to kill a creepy crawler (shout out to my roommates for assuming his role in my new apartment). Consider my bliss ruined. I threw out the offensive, bug-hiding celery, vowed to never again buy organic, and headed to Juice Generation for my green fix. Later, when I’d had time to recover from the Great Bug in Celery Incident of 2019, I wondered if I’d overreacted about the whole thing. Maybe finding bugs in my celery wasn’t the work of the devil but a part of nature that any organic shopper should be prepared for. “There’s no reason to get freaked out about bugs whether they’re alive or dead on your produce,” says Brian Nault, PhD, a professor of entomology at Cornell University. “They’re harmless especially when they’re dead.” He says washing off pests will leave behind perfectly safe food, but even if you *gag* accidentally eat one, he says you’re in the clear. So yes, I def overreacted. Thankfully Sonya Angelone,
Derms sing the praises of this $8 drugstore cleanser for clearer skin
February 06, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC Whether you’re trying to clear up acne or increase your glow (or some combination of the two), any true skin-care aficionado knows that layering on actives is the way to get the job done. From retinol to alpha- and beta-hydroxy acids, these are the ingredients in your various creams, masks, and lotions that actually work to make a difference in your skin. But if you, like me, are regularly relying on an entire shelf full of high-powered serums to help deal with your skin concerns on a given day, you know that mixing and matching can sometimes get a little intense. The solution, according to dermatologist Annie Chiu, MD? Use the right cleanser. And the “right cleanser” for actives enthusiasts, she says, is Burt’s Bee’s Sensitive Facial Cleanser—which happens to retail for only $8, and is readily available in your local drugstore aisle. Cha-ching! “Burt’s Bees Sensitive Facial Cleanser recently showed proven gentleness along with improved clarity even on easily irritated skin types like rosacea or eczema skin,” she says, referring to a 2018 study from the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology. “I recommend using it to restore the natural skin health barrier if you are using actives like retinols or hydroxy acids that can be irritating to the skin so you may better tolerate more concentrated anti-aging or exfoliating products.” Retinols and AHAs are known to cause redness and irritation, especially for anyone with sensitive skin, so pairing it with something soothing is the
How to manifest your breakup pain into personal empowerment
February 06, 2019 at 03:30AM by CWC Imagine a world in which your fresh breakup—which feels like the worst thing that has ever happened to you, your poor heart, and your body odor—is actually one of the best things. Now stop imagining, because that world is real, and it’s very much possible to see your pain as a positive. That’s not to say the process is easy. In the wake of my ended relationships, I would hang out in the finger-pointing zone, retracing every step of the downfall, looking for the source. I’d try to identify my own culpability, but I’d try harder to identify my ex’s. But to unearth the jewels hidden in your breakup pain, it’s not necessary at all to retrace the transcript of your whole story. Rather, take a look at how your life looked both before the relationship even began and right now, in the present. Ask yourself the following four questions, and emerge more powerful and empowered than ever before Manifest your breakup into power by asking yourself the following four questions. Photo: Getty Images/Caiamage Tom-Merton 1. How would you describe your current feeling about the relationship? Write it down in one or two words, then record a list of other feelings in order to flush away the near-inescapable one that’s most loudly ringing between your ears. You can do this exercise for any number of emotions, repeatedly, but start with the most powerful one that feels like it’s running the show. The loudest feeling
If we really want to end HIV by 2030, the Trump administration needs to change its ways
February 05, 2019 at 05:01PM by CWC While tonight’s 2019 State of the Union speech included lots of border-wall chat—with, of course, a few nods to the 35-day government shutdown that’s now inextricably linked with that project—President Donald Trump touched on a topic that most of us probably weren’t expecting. He made a commitment (and asked Congress to do the same) to eliminate HIV and AIDS in the United States within 10 years. “Together we will defeat AIDS in America and beyond,” he said in his address. It’s not yet clear exactly what the Trump administration’s anti-HIV strategy will be, but according to Politico, it’s likely to focus on the states where new HIV infection rates are highest. In general, rates of diagnosis are highest in the southern US (about 17 diagnoses per 100,000 people), where they’re happening at nearly double the rate of the midwest (about 8 diagnoses per 100,000 people). You may be thinking, like I initially did, that this goal is totally outside the realm of possibility. There are 1.1 million people living with HIV in the US, and the latest numbers showed that 38,500 of them became infected in 2015 alone. But there is some cause for optimism here. HIV patients now have access to advanced antiretroviral meds that can prevent them from spreading the virus to others. Since 2012, a new drug called PrEP has been used to prevent people from contracting HIV. These advances have helped reduce HIV infection rates in the US—from 2010-2015, the number
Having an “addictive personality” is a myth—here’s what’s *really* behind your unstoppable TV binges
February 05, 2019 at 01:52PM by CWC Practically everyone (except maybe nuns) knows what it’s like to do something and then almost immediately regret it. Maybe it’s finding yourself five episodes deep into the show You at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday. Maybe it was eating that third slice of cauli-crust pizza that you know will give you grandma-levels of heartburn, or drinking that second glass of wine. This I-can’t-help-myself behavior is often labeled with two loaded words: addictive personality. But according to medical and addiction authorities, the whole idea of having an “addictive personality” is a big, misunderstood fallacy. “Fundamentally, the idea of a general addictive personality is a myth when we’re talking about it in terms of addiction,” says Samantha Arsenault, the Director of National Treatment Quality Initiatives for Shatterproof, a non-profit devoted to ending the devastation addiction causes families. People of every personality type can become an addict, Arsenault says, whether you’re introverted, extroverted, shy, or something in between. “There’s no universal characteristic trait for people with addiction,” she says. So what are we really talking about when we can’t resist that next episode, slice of pizza, and on, and on, and on? You’re likely struggling with impulse control, says therapist Ruschelle Khanna, LCSW, who operates out of medical co-working space LINA. Impulse control as we’re using it here—compared to the potentially more serious impulse control disorder—is defined as “the ability to manage behaviors,” she says. Or, in board-certified psychiatrist Ellen Vora, MD’s words, “the function that allows you to
Here’s what we actually know about CBD oil and anxiety
February 05, 2019 at 12:28PM by CWC Over the last few years, cannabis has (slowly) started going through a transformation as it becomes destigmatized and increasingly legalized around the country. There’s more information, research, and interest in it than ever before, and one of the buzziest aspects of the booming cannabis industry is a compound it contains called cannabidiol, more commonly known as CBD. The phytocannabinoid, which was discovered in 1940, can be found in many plants but is most commonly extracted these days from cannabis and hemp. We’re still in the early stages of understanding the full potential, side effects, and benefits of CBD. Or, as J. H. Atkinson, MD, of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego, told us earlier this year: “There is very little data from rigorous scientific research on the therapeutic effects of CBD.” That said, Dr. Atkinson did go on to say that some of the early research does show that CBD could be beneficial in treating anxiety. Still, finding out what’s real and what’s false about CBD oil and anxiety can be difficult. To clear up some of the confusion, I spoke to Brooke Alpert, RD, a holistic cannabis practitioner, and Cayla Rosenblum, a healthcare informatics specialist at PotBotics, on the topic to see what experts know (and don’t) about the cannabidiol and mental health. The first thing they both tell me is that should you have anxiety, you should always speak to a qualified medical and mental health professional before incorporating new
Why you don’t want to have a basic vagina
February 05, 2019 at 12:02PM by CWC I didn’t realize this, but it’s important to be mindful of the pH of your vagina. The nether-regions get showered (or bathed), then shoved into undies all day, and, of course, at some point summer (or the gym) comes around and there’s the matter of sweat. All of these factors—along with plenty of others—are impacting the pH balance of your vagina. The pH scale runs from 0 (acidic) to 14 (basic) and FWIW, you want the region to fall somewhere between 3.8 and 4.1. So, just like you care for the pH balance of your skin, so too, do some say that it’s important to take special care in regards to your vagina. “Your vaginal pH matters because it can have an impact on a woman’s overall health,” explains Manon Pilon, author, renowned skin-care educator, and founder and formula of Biofemme by Nelly De Vuyst. That’s because it impacts the flora that can survive, which are important for overall vaginal health. “When your vagina’s pH is unbalanced, you’re having an issue with your vaginal microbiome,” says Lo Bosworth, founder of Love Wellness. “Low numbers of good bacteria can lead to yeast infections, or an overgrowth of bad bacteria known as bacterial vaginosis. Good bacteria creates an acidic pH that helps to protect against infection and irritation.” That good bacteria is maintained by lactobacilli (the friendly lot), according to Omnia Samra-Latif Estafan, MD, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist. “The lactobacilli create a barrier system that prevents