June 04, 2019 at 12:07PM by CWC Living your best life should NOT mean you spend your precious self-care time and energy zig-zagging all over town to go to the gym, the acupuncturist, the health coach, the beauty bar, the meditation studio, and healthy cafe. Phew! Now, both newcomers and bold-face brands are capturing the stress-reducing brilliance of a one-stop-shop approach by housing multiple aspects of your wellness routine under one roof. Less commuting, more wellness. EVENT DETAILS Wednesday, June 19, 2019 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Location: Made by We | 902 Broadway, New York, NY 10010 THE PANEL Melisse Gelula | Co-Founder of Well+Good Melisse is the Co-Founder of Well+Good, an award-winning media company, which reaches an audience of 12 million monthly, and an internationally recognized wellness expert. Recently Melisse spearheaded the curation of the first-ever Well+Good cookbook, Well+Good: 100 Healthy Recipes + Expert Advice for Better Living (Clarkson Potter, April 2019), which features the go-to recipes of 100 healthy luminaries from Venus Williams and Gabrielle Bernstein to Dr. Mark Hyman. Kate Flannery | Head of Community + Partnerships at Athleta Kate is a marketing and communications expert of 20+ years who leads Community and Partnerships at Athleta. She connects Athleta with the people and brands that embody Athleta’s mission to ignite a community of active, healthy, confident women and girls who uplift one another to reach their limitless potential. As part of the team that launched Wellness Collective, Kate is driven by Athleta’s ability to make wellness
Category: City
Why Vitamin B12 is essential for lifting your mood and energy
June 04, 2019 at 10:59AM by CWC The vitamin B12 craze has been around for years, which is no easy feat in the wellness world where there’s a hot new supplement launch every single week. (Borage oil, anyone?) But the B-vitamin has successfully held its ground as an elite-status ingredient thanks to its many researched-backed benefits. “B12 is involved in many critical processes in the body such as supporting nerve cell function, making DNA, metabolism, and the formation of red blood cells,” says Jillian Kubala, MS, RD. “And it can’t be made in the body, so it must be obtained through the foods that we eat.” Those foods include animal products like eggs, meat, poultry, and dairy. If you’re not getting enough from your diet (or you don’t eat animal foods), most experts recommend turning to a B12 supplement, since a deficiency (while rare) can be serious. “Symptoms of a chronic, severe B12 deficiency can include serious side effects such as neurological damage, memory loss, and depression,” Kubala says. “If B12 deficiency progresses, it may lead to neurological disturbances, difficulty balancing, dementia, confusion, and irreversible neurological damage in severe cases.” In the short term, having low levels of B12 could lead to a lack of energy, depressed feelings, anxiety, shortness of breath, and tingling hands and feet. In other words, if you have an inkling that you may be deficient in B12, make an appointment with your doctor to get your levels checked—stat. Folks who eat plant-based or vegan diets
We’ve lost individuality in our beauty routines, and it’s time to reclaim it
June 04, 2019 at 09:26AM by CWC “This is what my face looks like.” It’s a phrase that had been spinning around in my head for the better part of the past year as I ponder the true job of beauty in our lives. It’s the opinion of this website, for example, that beauty is something that should inspire confidence via creative expression, that it should call you to try, test, play, and that whatever you swipe on should be in the spirit of feeling even more like yourself. But it shouldn’t make you feel bad. It shouldn’t be a chore. It shouldn’t feel as though you’re shedding natural-born signatures to become the ideal. And yet with an expanding empire of Instagram aesthetics (no longer confined to makeup alone, the wonder now extends to fitness, skin care, infinity), beauty inspiration can feel frozen in a FaceTuned, filtered lens that caters more to mass appeal than individual quirks. As we know, other cultures have actively lauded the latter for their ability to evoke emotion, like the French insouciance that seems so elusive on this side of the Atlantic. In Korea, the “escape the corset” movement has women risking their careers by rejecting restrictive beauty standards. In America, we laud foundation launches in dazzling 40-shade ranges and skin care with cleaner ingredients while the demand for Lolita-esque youth and robotic perfection has become such a streaming constant that it sneaks beneath the radar like white noise—until you’re hit with that fog horn
Not only is laughter super-contagious, but it also boosts endorphins
June 03, 2019 at 09:12AM by CWC There are few things I love more than a good, senseless giggle epidemic—you know, the contagious laughter that starts when one patient zero pronounces quiche as “kweesh” at brunch. And that cackle fit, though unquestionably silly, makes sense—something objectively funny-ish happened. But what about the case of when, say, your co-worker starts snickering at at something on their computer screen, and though only they can see it, the whole team ends up in hysterics? It seems that sometimes we start laughing simply because someone else is laughing—which might make it the most joyful communicative disease around…could it be? The short answer here is a loud, cackling yes that the giggles are contagious. One 2006 study by researchers from the University College London and Imperial College London found this is because positive sounds, such as laughter, tend to trigger a response in the premotor cortical region, i.e., the part of our brain that reacts to sound. When we see our toddler niece giggle while watching Moana, for example, the premotor cortical region tells us to smile, and smiling makes us think we’re about to laugh. That phenomenon then compounds with an innate, primitive urge reflex to mimic each other’s emotions. But wait, there’s more: “Another [person’s] laughter can certainly jump-start one’s own seemingly uncontrollable laughter when you are on the same page as someone (same sense of humor), need a release yourself, or enjoy the inappropriateness more than the actual humor,” says clinical psychologist
Not only is laughter super-contagious, but it also boosts endorphins
June 03, 2019 at 09:12AM by CWC There are few things I love more than a good, senseless giggle epidemic—you know, the contagious laughter that starts when one patient zero pronounces quiche as “kweesh” at brunch. And that cackle fit, though unquestionably silly, makes sense—something objectively funny-ish happened. But what about the case of when, say, your co-worker starts snickering at at something on their computer screen, and though only they can see it, the whole team ends up in hysterics? It seems that sometimes we start laughing simply because someone else is laughing—which might make it the most joyful communicative disease around…could it be? The short answer here is a loud, cackling yes that the giggles are contagious. One 2006 study by researchers from the University College London and Imperial College London found this is because positive sounds, such as laughter, tend to trigger a response in the premotor cortical region, i.e., the part of our brain that reacts to sound. When we see our toddler niece giggle while watching Moana, for example, the premotor cortical region tells us to smile, and smiling makes us think we’re about to laugh. That phenomenon then compounds with an innate, primitive urge reflex to mimic each other’s emotions. But wait, there’s more: “Another [person’s] laughter can certainly jump-start one’s own seemingly uncontrollable laughter when you are on the same page as someone (same sense of humor), need a release yourself, or enjoy the inappropriateness more than the actual humor,” says clinical psychologist
We found the very best outdoor essentials to slip on for National Trail Day
June 01, 2019 at 10:00AM by CWC Fitting in perfectly with the trend to “better ourselves,” to get more sleep, eat healthy, and prioritize self-care, comes the quest to spend a little more time outdoors. It’s pretty impressive what some fresh air and sunshine can do to our minds, stress levels, and moods. It is also a great way to connect with the environment, which will hopefully inspire us to be kinder to our planet. In an effort to motivate people to just get out, The American Hiking Society has declared June 1 (ahem: right now, thank you very much) “National Trail Day.” The hope is to have people support public lands by pledging to get to their nearest trail and volunteer to leave it cleaner than they found it (we can all raise a sunscreen bottle to that). Because as more-and-more of us are swapping mimosa-fueled brunches for sweat sessions with our friends, it’s a no-brainer that the camaraderie (and relief from competing over the sound level of the table to the left) found on the trail is nearly unrivaled. Not sure what to wear or bring along with you? Check out the list below for some new and exciting essentials for a day of hiking. And then grab a buddy or your whole crew and make plans to hit the happy trails. Check out the American Hiking Organization’s site for a place near you. Photo: Altra Altra Superior 4 ($110) Keep your feet comfortable in these all terrain
We found the very best outdoor essentials to slip on for National Trail Day
June 01, 2019 at 10:00AM by CWC Fitting in perfectly with the trend to “better ourselves,” to get more sleep, eat healthy, and prioritize self-care, comes the quest to spend a little more time outdoors. It’s pretty impressive what some fresh air and sunshine can do to our minds, stress levels, and moods. It is also a great way to connect with the environment, which will hopefully inspire us to be kinder to our planet. In an effort to motivate people to just get out, The American Hiking Society has declared June 1 (ahem: right now, thank you very much) “National Trail Day.” The hope is to have people support public lands by pledging to get to their nearest trail and volunteer to leave it cleaner than they found it (we can all raise a sunscreen bottle to that). Because as more-and-more of us are swapping mimosa-fueled brunches for sweat sessions with our friends, it’s a no-brainer that the camaraderie (and relief from competing over the sound level of the table to the left) found on the trail is nearly unrivaled. Not sure what to wear or bring along with you? Check out the list below for some new and exciting essentials for a day of hiking. And then grab a buddy or your whole crew and make plans to hit the happy trails. Check out the American Hiking Organization’s site for a place near you. Photo: Altra Altra Superior 4 ($110) Keep your feet comfortable in these all terrain
Kiss stretching and foam rolling buh-bye! Recovery can feel like a day at the spa
May 31, 2019 at 08:45AM by CWC I’ve got a confession to make: Despite knowing exactly how important recovery is (I spend like, 80 percent of my time writing about it), I rarely actually do it. I prioritize squeezing workouts into my schedule, but don’t give recovery sessions the same VIP treatment. Stretching sessions feel like a major snooze, and I’d honestly rather take another semester of AP calculus than foam roll (I know! I know!). Recovery activities tend to feel like as much output energy as the workout itself, so I usually opt to skip them instead of making time. So when I got an email earlier this week from the team at CorePower Protein revealing the recovery routines of some top trainers and athletes, I was shocked to find that a lot of them sounded a whole lot more like spa treatments than what I usually associate with recovery. “This,” I thought, “I can get on board with.” While stretching and foam rolling are definitely important elements of any routine (do as I say, not as I do), there are other things you can do for your muscles that you’ll actually look forward to…which means you’ll be more likely to make time for them in your schedule. Acupuncture People swear by acupuncture for everything from jaw tension to glowing skin, and it can also be a powerful tool for recovery. “I strongly recommend using acupuncture as part of a lifestyle and wellness routine to prevent and minimize pain, inflammation, and
9 comfy ‘Booksmart’-inspired jumpsuits that’ll earn you an A+ in summer party style
May 31, 2019 at 06:19AM by CWC For the uninitiated, Booksmart follows two overachieving besties who try to jam-pack a last chance at high-school revelry into a single night after having spent years playing things, well, by the book. Spoiler alert: They’re as successful in their party endeavor as they undoubtedly were on their AP tests—perhaps most notably in their #lewk for the night out. Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) end up styling themselves like badass Ghostbusters in comfy AF jumpsuits and sneakers. Some might call that an ill-informed fashion faux pas or just like, “a real chore if you need to pee.” But I, for one, am here for it because when you’re ready to eschew the JOMO and be a high-performing social butterfly, nothing says you’re ready to kick ass, take names, and make some memories like a cool jumpsuit. An all-purpose jumpsuit is the outfit for ambitious doers who prioritize function above all. Done right, it’s work-appropriate, errand-appropriate and gym-appropriate. It communicates that you’re crawling out of your introvert shell and you’re doing just fine. Sure, a case could be made for cute floral sundresses being the summertime party go-to, but the one-piece look encompasses enough visual interest that it doesn’t even need a wacky print to jazz it up. It is the strong and silent type that means business—even if the business at hand is a good time. Sure, the summer jumpsuit can be accessorized with the likes of funky belts, heeled metallic sandals,
9 comfy ‘Booksmart’-inspired jumpsuits that’ll earn you an A+ in summer party style
May 31, 2019 at 06:19AM by CWC For the uninitiated, Booksmart follows two overachieving besties who try to jam-pack a last chance at high-school revelry into a single night after having spent years playing things, well, by the book. Spoiler alert: They’re as successful in their party endeavor as they undoubtedly were on their AP tests—perhaps most notably in their #lewk for the night out. Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) end up styling themselves like badass Ghostbusters in comfy AF jumpsuits and sneakers. Some might call that an ill-informed fashion faux pas or just like, “a real chore if you need to pee.” But I, for one, am here for it because when you’re ready to eschew the JOMO and be a high-performing social butterfly, nothing says you’re ready to kick ass, take names, and make some memories like a cool jumpsuit. An all-purpose jumpsuit is the outfit for ambitious doers who prioritize function above all. Done right, it’s work-appropriate, errand-appropriate and gym-appropriate. It communicates that you’re crawling out of your introvert shell and you’re doing just fine. Sure, a case could be made for cute floral sundresses being the summertime party go-to, but the one-piece look encompasses enough visual interest that it doesn’t even need a wacky print to jazz it up. It is the strong and silent type that means business—even if the business at hand is a good time. Sure, the summer jumpsuit can be accessorized with the likes of funky belts, heeled metallic sandals,