December 03, 2019 at 09:00PM by CWC As of late, my road to happiness seems to be paved with impulse buys. Between velvet dresses, festive earrings, and a million-ish lavender lattes, I can’t seem to escape a single day without frivolously swiping my card. This streak of retail therapy isn’t sending me into a spiral of crushing debt, yet I still often feel a sense of guilt linger in the aftermath of my impulse buys. But why is it such a common experience to punish ourselves for choosing to spend any amount of money on products for ourselves that we want but definitely don’t need? “We might feel guilt and shame around these types of purchases because we see ourselves putting our money toward more impulsive desires, leaving long-term goals undermined and shortchanged,” says financial therapist Amanda Clayman. “In the calculus of life happiness, we believe that we would be happier—or at least less anxious—if we had more money in savings or invested for the future.” The other side of this is that our shame often reflects a sense of discomfort with facing the emotional needs we aim to satisfy in the present with our purchases. “But the truth is, being too restrictive and too judgmental of our needs and feelings can actually make us more inclined to act impulsively and with less self-control,” Clayman says. “For example, I use the concept of a ‘dissociative splurge’ to explain to clients what’s happening when they go into a spending experience and
Category: Your Healthiest Relationship
It’s been a big decade for sunscreen—so we’ve filtered what you need to know about the state of SPF
December 03, 2019 at 09:00PM by CWC The year is 2009. Barack Obama is president. Everyone’s talking about Kanye interrupting T. Swift on stage during the VMAs. Apple launches the iPhone 3G. And people are taking selfies with those brand-new devices to show off their sun-kissed skin, glistening with tanning oil. Flash forward to the present and instead of whipping out the baby oil, people are now bragging about who’s scoring higher on the SPF scale (bonus points if you’ve got zinc). The past decade has seen massive changes in all areas of our lives, sun protection attitudes included, and while many of these are positive, there are both existing and new challenges present in the quest to keep people safe from the sun. “There’s still so much confusion and misunderstanding around sun protection,” says New York City dermatologist Elizabeth Hale, MD, senior vice president of the Skin Cancer Foundation. “We know that sun exposure is responsible for over 90 percent of all types of skin cancer and contributes to 90 percent of premature skin aging. We need people to practice safe sun habits and get in to dermatologists for skin checks. That’s the most important point and that hasn’t changed,” she says. So, what has? One of the greatest tangible differences from 10 years ago is the shift away from sun worship (aka tanning) and towards sun protection (we know tanning of any kind damages DNA and tanning in a bed ups a person’s risk of melanoma by an
Superbugs are crawling all over your favorite cosmetics—here’s how to get rid of them
December 03, 2019 at 07:30PM by CWC I’ve used the same old makeup palette since December 2014. It features three different sparkly hues, a pale pink blush, and a bronzer that makes me look like I live in sun-soaked Miami Beach. Oh, and (apparently!) about a million “superbugs.” A study published Monday in the Journal of Applied Microbiology found that “a vast majority” of cosmetic bag items—particularly beauty blenders, mascara, and lip gloss—are contaminated with superbugs. And yes, the researchers out of Aston University did use the words “life-threatening” in their report. Amreen Bashir, PhD, and Professor Peter Lambert, PhD, who led the study, found the highest levels of potentially harmful bacteria in beauty blenders. In fact, 93 percent of people surveyed said they’d never washed the blender, even though 64 percent had dropped the foundation-blending tool on the floor at some point. Bacteria found in old makeup items can cause illnesses ranging from a mild skin infection to blood poisoning—particularly when the infected makeup is applied near the eyes, mouth, or an open wound. “Consumers’ poor hygiene practices when it comes to using make-up, especially beauty blenders, is very worrying when you consider that we found bacteria such as E. coli—which is linked with fecal contamination—breeding on the products we tested,” said Dr. Bashir. “More needs to be done to help educate consumers and the make-up industry as a whole about the need to wash beauty blenders regularly and dry them thoroughly, as well as the risks of using
Feeling a little lost? Jupiter Return helps you find your personal compass
December 03, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC The cosmos and their transits can really do a number on you. Whether that means getting all your technological lines crossed during Mercury Retrograde or being delivered nothing but break-ups and career upheaval during Saturn Return, we’re wary of any sort of planetary movement. Cue my stomach tenseness the first time I heard of Jupiter Return, the 12-year transit when Jupiter swings back to the place of your birth. (WTF, Milky Way Galaxy, can I live?) Scary as it sounds, though, your Jupiter Return is the opposite of cosmic discord. Instead, this planetary return focuses on luck as well as the magnification and transformation of our values. And Jupiter Return is when our convictions become clear, according astrologer and author of the upcoming You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance Chani Nicholas. “A Jupiter return is a time that helps us to gain a deeper understanding about the nature of our faith, what we hold to be true, what we tend to overdo, and what we need to put in place in order to grow,” says Nicholas. Your Jupiter Return—which happens at age 12, 24, 36, 48, and so on—is also largely about being able to seize opportunity. Jupiter is known to be a planet of abundance and good fortune, so your Jupiter Return also tends to be your Emerald Year, in which you are the Cosmic Prom Queen. This year Capricorns are going to get the sash, which means you get everything you’ve wanted and worked hard
It’s been 5,000 years, but yoga just can’t be stopped
December 03, 2019 at 06:00PM by CWC Every yoga class shares a guiding principle: Listen to your body. And clearly, there’s something to this golden rule that resonates with yogis, because it’s been 5,000 years since the practice’s inception, and it has a larger following than ever before. The number of American yogis rose by 50 percent between 2012 and 2016, and in 2019, the Global Wellness Institute crowned yoga the world’s most popular workout. Take a quick glance at a chart showing the climb of Google searches for “yoga near me” over the past decade, and you’ll notice it looks more like a handstand than a plank pose. The versatility of the practice is a major contributor to its spike in popularity. After all, yoga isn’t one thing—and there’s a style for everyone. Hatha-style classes focus on breathwork, meditation, and foundational poses, while hot vinyasa classes raise your heart rate and offer the sweaty satisfaction of a HIIT workout. As we enter a new decade, and yoga tacks another 10 years onto its five-century track record, we asked some of the biggest names in yoga today to talk about why the mindful practice has such staying power and why so many of us will keep asana-ing our way into the future. The history of yoga—and why it just keeps growing in popularity Before the mid-20th century, the physical practice of asana (or the body postures associated with yoga) hadn’t arrived in the United States. While the exact history of
Reebok is launching a plant-based running shoe, and I can’t wait
December 03, 2019 at 05:34PM by CWC Words I did not expect to type today: plant-based running shoe. And yet, Reebok just announced the arrival of their Forever Floatride GLOW, which you guessed it, comes from plant-based matter. Sure, when you tell your mom that you want “plant-based running shoes,” she might tease you about being “so L.A.” like she did with your collection of crystals or your favorite farm-to-table pizza (who’s keeping tabs?!), but I can assure you that it will be well worth the initial reaction. Reebok set out to create a sustainable version of their Forever Floatride Energy shoe, as part of a larger initiative to create products from natural or recycled materials. For example, in 2018, the brand launched vegan sneakers made of cotton and corn, but the Forever Floatride GLOW will be their first foray into plant-based performance running shoes. “The biggest challenge in making a shoe like this was developing plant-based materials that could meet the high performance needs of real runners,” says Bill McInnis, Vice President of Reebok Future. And so, the brand spent three years developing the shoe, which will launch next fall. The upper is made from sustainably sourced, biodegradable eucalyptus tree, and the outsole is made from real rubber from rubber trees—versus petroleum-based rubber—that is also sustainably sourced. The midsole, AKA the part of the running shoe that cushions and absorbs shock, is made from sustainably grown castor beans, a unique material that was exclusively developed by Reebok with the
Matcha and turmeric and CBD, oh my! Looking back at a decade where ingredients became the heroes
December 03, 2019 at 05:00PM by CWC It’s a truth universally known in the wellness world that once a certain healthy ingredient becomes popular, you can expect to see it everywhere. Matcha isn’t just for lattes anymore—it’s in our skin-care products and baked goods, too. Turmeric has transcended curries to create golden milk, protein bars, and face masks. Even collagen—once just a forgotten by-product of animal bones—has transformed itself into a must-have wellness ingredient in the kitchen and in your bathroom cabinet. It’s the wellness equivalent of a Top 40 radio song—you hear it once, and then you start to hear it everywhere, all the time. While these ingredients often get placed on what seems like a newly built pedestal, the truth is, most of them haven’t exactly gone from zero to hero overnight. “Lots of popular [ingredients] out there that we learn about come from other cultures, like Chinese or Ayurvedic medicine [both centuries-old practices]—and that just goes to show how much we can learn from others,” says Robin Foroutan, RDN, an integrative medicine dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. While many of these above-mentioned ingredients could only be found at an herbalist or acupuncturist’s office, the wellness industry has propelled them into the limelight over the past 10 years—and into practically everything we eat, drink, or use on our skin. Why people look to ‘hero’ ingredients Nate Favini, MD, medical lead at Forward, feels that medicine has traditionally focused on disease prevention rather than how
The death of the ‘bikini body’ is the best thing to happen to fitness in the past decade
December 03, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC In the days before you could order both groceries and magazine subscriptions online, it was damn near impossible to walk through a supermarket checkout line without seeing the term “bikini body” plastered on glossies at the newsstand. By today’s standards, strapping two pieces of material onto any body fits the bill, but a decade ago, the term was still reserved for only those with six-pack abs and not an inch of perceived bodily “imperfection” in sight. The definition was so narrow, the ideal so unattainable, that when actress and runway model Kate Upton appeared in a bikini on her first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover in 2012, people straight-up called her fat. Fast forward five years to when she appeared on the magazine’s cover again in 2017—a year after Ashley Graham became the first curve model to cover the issue—and that same body was criticized for not being “diverse enough,” proving just how much our definition of the “bikini body” has changed for the better over the last 10 years. Sports Illustrated isn’t alone in broadening the loaded term’s definition: Major magazines have banned it (for what it’s worth, at Well+Good we’ve never used it unless the words “every body is a” were out in front), the Victoria Secret fashion show is dead, and heck, even Barbie got a body-positive reboot. “It was a ridiculous notion that you couldn’t be considered beach-worthy or ‘bathing suit-worthy’ or beautiful in general because you didn’t fit into
How mindfulness came to save us from a mindless world
December 03, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC Mindfulness is hardly a new concept; in fact, the practice of cultivating an awareness of (and, often, gratitude for) the present moment stems from 2,500-year-old Buddhist psychology. Yet, in the past decade, learning how to be mindful came to the forefront of wellness culture and subsequently mainstream culture at large. Now, whether you want to stop biting your nails, or smash your fitness goals, or channel your ambition at work, mindfulness is a go-to tool for making it happen. And if you’re curious about specific strategies for practicing this modern mindfulness, there are no shortage of resources. You can try a walking meditation, any number of meditation apps, or celebrity-vetted tips from the likes of Tim Ferriss, Miranda Kerr, and Oprah. Evidence of the societal-wide embrace of mindfulness is also clearly seen in pop-culture references. “We’re seeing celebrities, major CEOs, fashion icons, and musicians like Kendrick Lamar [who rapped about meditation on several tracks on his last album] speaking openly about how meditation is critical to their lives,” says Jesse Israel, founder of mass meditation movement, The Big Quiet. “When individuals of significant cultural influence speak positively about something that has impacted their lives, people pay attention.” It’s clear that the ancient practice has found a foothold in the collective conscious, essentially becoming the backbone of modern self care during these past 10 years. But how and why did it happen, especially given the multiple millennia during which mindfulness certainly existed before it
Social media isn’t perfect, but it’s brought us together in community, health, love, and beyond
December 03, 2019 at 01:00PM by CWC Neither smartphones nor the internet itself were invented within the last 10 years, but both have revolutionized our lives in the past decade thanks to key innovations that have changed the way we connect with one another and access information. Tools that cater to social connection—like Instagram in 2010, the App Store in 2011, and Tinder in 2012, to name just a few—have paved the way for a more connected and democratized world, and now, the positive effects of social media extend to so many avenues of our lives. Sure, most of us would benefit from embracing best practices for our usage (like moderation) to serve as safeguards from the adverse effects of these products and platforms that can lead us to work longer, burn out, and feel badly about ourselves when we mindlessly scroll our feeds. But we’d be remiss to ignore all the benefits and positive effects of social media we’ve enjoyed. We now have easier access to social support and community; free education on many topics; increased freedom and acceptance to be authentically ourselves; and new ways to cultivate romantic relationships. Here’s how the positive effects of social media platforms have positively affected our well-being in the past decade. It’s increased access to social support One of the foremost health benefits of digital connectedness is increased access to various communities that might be far away or spread wide IRL. Support groups on social platforms, forums via online communities, and dedicated