October 18, 2019 at 07:30PM by CWC An estimated 5.5 million Americans age 65 or older live with Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists haven’t yet found a proven way to slow its progression or prevent it, but we do know that changes in the brain begin to happen years before a diagnosis. According to the National Institutes of Health’s Institute on Aging, there’s a “window of opportunity” to stop memory loss. Speaking at the Time 100 Health Summit in New York, Maria Carrillo, PhD, the chief scientific officer of the Alzheimer’s Association, spoke about the importance of a yearly wellness check-up that includes cognitive health testing as the first step to fight the disease. “Today, we encourage everyone to think about ensuring their loved ones have an appropriate clinical assessment, annual wellness visit, and cognitive assessments as part of their routine annual healthcare,” said Dr. Carrillo. When caught in its early stages, Alzheimer’s can be combatted in several ways. “While current medications do not prevent, stop, or reverse Alzheimer’s, they can help lessen the symptoms, such as memory loss and confusion, for a limited time,” reads the Alzheimer Association’s website. “An early Alzheimer’s diagnosis provides you with a better chance of benefiting from treatment.” “Today, we encourage everyone to think about ensuring their loved ones have an appropriate clinical assessment, annual wellness visit, and cognitive assessments as part of their routine annual healthcare.” —Maria Carrillo, PhD, CSO of the Alzheimer’s Association If your primary care provider doesn’t already assess the health of your
Tag: Well+Good
The single-most important thing to remember when dealing with acne, according to a dermatologist
October 18, 2019 at 07:01PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd7wXj6q3L4] Welcome to ‘Dear Derm,’ our new beauty series in which dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD shares serious skin-care realness. In each episode, she’ll answer your most burning beauty questions and give you all the tools you need to take your glow game to the next level. Show me a person who has never dealt with a pimple, and I will take you for a ride on a unicorn and personally introduce you to Santa Claus. Of all the skin concerns out there, acne is the one that everyone deals with, whether in the form of a single zit or by way of pervasive breakouts. While there are a lot of different types of acne and reasons why pimples pop up, in the latest episode of Dear Derm, board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD, shares that there’s a particular one-two punch of ingredients that tends to stop most pimples in their tracks (you can learn alllll about them in the video above). She also schools us on the best ways to deal with pimples, from how to avoid them to how to treat them, but then she drops what might be the most earth-shattering (and counterintuitive!) intel we’ve heard yet: To nix zits and keep your complexion happy, you’ve gotta moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. Wait, what?! According to her, when dealing with pimples, many acne-fighting ingredients like glycolic and salicylic acids, benzoyl peroxide, and retinol have a drying effect on skin (fun fact: Dr. Gohara’s favorite
Let’s stop believing the myth that all good workouts end in soreness
October 18, 2019 at 06:11PM by CWC There’s a certain pride that comes with soreness after workouts. Aching muscles serve as a reminder that you killed it, right? Contrary to popular belief, that soreness you’re feeling doesn’t necessarily mean you had a good workout. It actually means it might be time to scale back. In a recent episode of the Mind Pump podcast, the guys chatted about some of the most common signs you’re overtraining. One of those, hands down, was experiencing muscle soreness. According to personal trainer and podcast host Sal Di Stefano, there isn’t a necessary amount of soreness you should feel post-workout. In fact, the more sore you are, the more you’re overtraining—and potentially hurting—your body. “I think some people, when they work out, feel like they have to feel sore or some form of sore—that’s false. It’s not a good sign to dictate your progress,” he says. “Sometimes you’ll feel some soreness the following day, but that doesn’t mean you had a better workout. And a lack of soreness doesn’t mean you had a bad workout. But if you’re sore and it lasts for two days or longer, you did too much for sure.” If soreness is a no-go, how should you be feeling after a workout to know you’re making progress? Di Stefano says when he works out really hard, the goal is feeling no soreness or a little soreness—just a different kind that what you might be used to. “It’s not the kind of soreness
If you’re going to do one move every single day, make it a push-up
October 18, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC As far as workout moves go, push-ups are the great equalizer. No matter where you are in your fitness journey, there is always going to be a way to use push-ups to challenge yourself—whether that means working up from your knees onto your hands (no small feat!) or adding a military-style clap between reps. One way to continue improving your push-up practice? By doing push-ups every day. No matter what modification you’re doing, push-ups are one of those moves that will give you a whole lot of bang for your buck— a single rep is enough to give you a full-body workout. They work your chest, triceps, shoulders, and core, plus what trainers call the “wing” muscle under your armpits, and the more of them you do, the stronger you’re ultimately going to get all over. As long as you’re doing them the right way (we’ll get to that in a sec), integrating some up-and-downs into your daily routine on a regular basis can be great for your body. “Push-ups are a low load-bearing, bodyweight exercise that can be executed anywhere with no equipment,” says Joshua Thomas, trainer at Life Time Summerlin . “When completed through full ranges of motion without outstanding movement imbalances, they can help keep your lean tissue healthy, joints healthy, and help with blood circulation.” He adds that doing them every day, while also experimenting with different variables, can be a great tool for working toward your health and fitness
Making my Yiayia’s soup helped me reconnect with my Greek roots
October 18, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC The other day I learned my Yiayia was a fraud. I was on the phone asking my mom if she could dig up my grandma’s Greek soup recipe, a thick rice and lemon concoction I was convinced could heal the pangs in my broken heart. “You mean the lemon egg soup?” my mother asked when I begged her to flip through her recipe index cards. “That’s easy, you just boil the chicken to make broth—” “Um, can’t you buy chicken broth,” I cut her off. Yes, you can. But my mother’s comment made me do a quick Google for Greek chicken soup, just to see if there were any variants of her recipe out there that didn’t require me to deal with a whole chicken. Plot twist: Avgolemono soup, aka Greek chicken soup, is the go-to comfort food of an entire culture, not a Margaret Garis original. I’m not sure if that makes me a bad Greek or a bad granddaughter. All that mattered was that I was craving that connection, and I wouldn’t feel okay until I mastered the meal for myself. My relationship to my Greek heritage is weird and fragmented. I’m only half Greek, yet my most formative childhood memories were forged in that strong cultural pride. (My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Totally accurate.) My grandparents basically ran the Staten Island Greek Festival, and I loved all the sights, sounds, and tastes that came through it. It’s one of the
Checks+Balanced: A 25-year-old restaurant manager in Austin budgets for boutique fitness and beauty
October 18, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC Even in a world where questions about menstrual cups and the ins and outs of sex are completely (and blessedly) normal, somehow the ever-ubiquitous use of money remains a touchy subject for many. People want to live their healthiest life ever, but—#realtalk—it can add up. Have you ever wondered how your colleague who makes less than you do (or so you think) can afford to buy a $5 matcha and a $12 chopped salad every day? Or how your friend’s budget allows her to hit up $34 fitness classes three times a week? It’s enough to make anyone want to ask, “Ummm, excuse me. How do you afford that?!?” That’s where Well+Good’s monthly series Checks+Balanced comes in. By lifting the thick, tightly drawn curtain to expose how much women of varying income brackets spend on wellness, we’re spreading transparency and hopefully providing some inspo that’s possible to copy. Because no matter how much you make, it’s possible to cultivate healthy habits that work within your budget. This week, meet Emma*, a 25-year-old clean-beauty devotee living in Austin, Texas, with her boyfriend. Emma makes $65,000 a year from her job as a restaurant manager, and here, she gets real about her monthly expenses, including how she affords her favorite healthy habits. Here, a 25-year-old living in Austin, Texas, shares her spending habits. Graphic: Well+Good Creative Emma, 25, restaurant manager, Austin, Texas Income: $65,000, plus bonuses. I’m a manager at a restaurant, which means I’m in charge of the schedule, hiring, training, and keeping track
Meet Earth signs: the practical, ambitious, and super-materialistic element of the zodiac
October 18, 2019 at 01:00PM by CWC I am the most aggressively Taurus of all Taurus bulls, and even though I’d never describe myself using the adjective “earthy,” I do enjoy the distinction of being one of the zodiac’s Earth signs. It’s a great, strong-headed element with which to identify. But before diving right in to explain what are the Earth signs in the first place and what being one might mean, first, a primer on the elements: Elements, or triplicities, help determine someone’s basic temperament, whereas quadruplicates, or modes, more so refer to how each sign directs its energy behaviorally. There are four elements—water, fire, air, and Earth—and each include three zodiac signs, hence triplicity. Each element is known for a certain group of traits, but, like with every other astrological quality, each also includes some certain less-than-cute qualities that need to be energetically balanced. Let’s dive more into what this means for Earth signs: So, what are the Earth signs, good and bad traits, included? As previously mentioned by yours truly, Taurus is an Earth sign—the one with a fixed modality— followed by Virgo with a mutable modality, and Capricorn with a cardinal modality. The takeaway here is that all Earth signs handle things differently behaviorally (my fixed modality, for instance, means that I hate endings and changing), we’re nonetheless connected by a similar personality temperament. Earth signs are known for being pretty in touch with practicality. That said, there’s one area where they often go overboard. “Earth
If you’re using a physical exfoliant, the biggest grain isn’t always best
October 18, 2019 at 03:00AM by CWC When you think of physical exfoliants, your mind probably goes to the ones you can clearly see in your scrubs, like sugar and salt. Sure, they do a great job buffing away dead skin, but when it comes to getting silky-smooth skin the safe way, experts say smaller grains are a much better choice. Plus, they’re just as effective if not more so. While larger, more coarse grains are great for pedicure soaks or scrubs where you’re dealing with hardened layers of skin on your feet, they’re too harsh to use on the rest of your body, says Sheel Desai Solomon, MD, FAAD, a dermatologist in North Carolina. In fact, they can even cause damage to your skin. “When it comes to the body, especially the face, finer grains cause the least amount of irritation to the skin while efficiently exfoliating. They’re less harsh on the skin while helping polish the epidermis and clear the dead skin and dirt at the top,” she says. “Coarse, large, or irregularly-shaped grains, on the other hand, can cause microtears in the epidermis. Over time, these minuscule cracks in the skin will affect the protective barrier found in the epidermis.” Those tiny cracks won’t just leave you with chronic inflammation and dry or flaky patches. They can also open your skin up—literally!—to other problems as well. “Our skin is designed to provide a protective barrier for us from the outside environment,” says Caren Campbell, MD, FAAD, a
This no-rinse anti-pollution cleanser made me break up with my micellar water
October 18, 2019 at 12:00AM by CWC Even though I’m a stalwart for the double cleanse, I still like to swipe something over my skin afterwards (yes—that’s a third swipe we’re talking) to make sure there’s absolutely zero trace of the day left. I’ll usually rotate between my dependable acid toner (#P50forlife) or micellar water, but now all I want to use is my Odacite Blue Aura Cleansing Water ($39). Not only is it appealing because of its Miami Beach ocean-blue color, but this cleansing water is truly a no-rinse face wash (… unlike a lot of micellar waters, which dermatologists actually say should be removed afterwards. It’s a concoction of skin-boosting ingredients that swirl together to remove your makeup, pollution, and any other debris while leaving your skin really fresh and soft. Photo: Odacite The base ingredient is aloe vera (not water!), which gives you the most gentle foundation, and then there are the Ayurvedic herbs like turmeric, neem and holy basil that work detoxifying magic on your skin. This trifecta, along with the cleansing water’s gently exfoliating salicylic acid, are especially helpful for breakouts and blackheads. To top it all of, it even has micelles in it… so that takes care of your makeup removing efforts. I haven’t even told you about the smell yet. The scent of this potion is an intoxicating, earthy fragrance mixed with, well, just the scent of clean. It even kind of smells blue, if you know what I mean. It’s divine, and once I am done
How to color-match your lipstick to find your perfect neutral shade
October 17, 2019 at 11:15PM by CWC When I hear “color matching,” I think of finding the just-right foundation shade, looking for shirts that match my ugly nail colors, and wearing shoes that correspond to the hues on the rest of my outfit (just me?). Then, as I gazed upon the hundreds of lipstick hues one day while browsing beauty shelves, I thought: Shouldn’t we color match our lipstick, too? Color matching your foundation involves choosing the shade that matches your skin undertones, which, of course, makes your formula blend as seamlessly as possible with your complexion. With lipstick, it’s the same idea: You pick colors that match your undertones and lip color. “It’s important to color match your lipstick so the color flatters your skin tone and brings out your best features,” says celebrity makeup artist Jamie Dorman. “If your lipstick is the wrong match, it can make skin look sallow and detract from your eye color.” This is actually why Clinique just launched their Even Better Pop Lip Color Foundation ($20), which is a line of 28 shades of lipstick, from which you can find your perfect neutral. The brand uses “shade-match science,” which guides you through your foundation color match (there are 56 foundation shades), then uses an algorithm to get you the best lip options to go along with it. The whole idea’s particularly helpful when looking for a more neutral lipstick, which is probably the hardest one to find. “Neutral shades can be very tricky,