September 24, 2019 at 09:01PM by CWC Right now, there’s a pile of “stuff” (ahem, that’s a euphemism) under my desk. Over the past few weeks, it’s been slowly accumulating to the point where there’s basically no room for my feet—and I’ve accepted that what I need is an organization intervention. That’s why I tapped some of the tidiest minds on the internet to doll out decluttering tips that work in the office, at home, or—ya know—anywhere. Best of all, their genius advice won’t cost you a cent. So grab your smudging materials and some elbow grease. It’s time to clear out your space. 7 brilliant decluttering tips from experts in tidiness 1. Time will tell you what to keep, and what to toss “If it hasn’t been used in a while or won’t serve you in the next 3 to 6 months, it’s time to toss it—and by toss, we mean responsibly recycle or donate of course,” says Allison Evans, co-founder of non-toxic cleaning company Branch Basics. That foam roller you haven’t used since last February? Yeah, it may go to better use in another sweat-enthusiast’s hands. 2. All duplicate items must go Raise your hand if you have two muffin pans and absolutely zero intention of ever making muffins. Me, I do, that’s me! “Unless you need two spatulas, four matchboxes, or three empty plastic soap pumps, it is time to clear the duplicates out,” advices Clean My Space blogger Melissa Maker. “Sort through all items, space by
Tag: Well+Good
I’ve had a funeral for every pair of running shoes I’ve ever owned—here’s why
September 24, 2019 at 08:00PM by CWC Whenever the time comes to retire an old pair of running shoes, I repeat the same ritual. Laces in hand, I carry my sneakers to the trash, drop them inside, and proceed to ugly cry for the next 20 minutes. The waterworks portion of the footwear funeral might seem dramatic to you. Hey, maybe it is. But I’m not crying because the shoes themselves have ceased to be of use to me. The tears are because several hundred miles are behind me, and I feel endlessly, stupidly grateful. The best way I can explain it is this: Some people collect things as a hobby; I collect miles. Running shoes hold the tactile memory of every bridge, beach, or forest I’ve ever covered. They’re a memory capsule of my footsteps, but before that, they’re something even better. The right pair of sneakers can give you what you need. In early 2019, I took a pair of Brooks Ghosts (my long-time favorites) on a trip to Sedona. I spent a lot of time out west hiking deep into the forest, unplugging, and reconsidering what I wanted out of the next few years of my life. Even when when I was walking—not running—I wore these shoes, and dreamed about my life. They carried me through canyons and below tree canopies, and they also let me wander deeper into my mind. They supported me—period—and I left Arizona with red clay caked thick into their soles and something else,
5 foods that destroy your endurance, according to a sports nutritionist
September 24, 2019 at 07:30PM by CWC Endurance is strictly defined as the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity. Anyone whose ever trained for a race or another competitive event will agree that “stressful effort” seems like just the right way to phrase it. Completing the same movement patterns again and again (and! again!) can be taxing on your body—especially if what you’re eating before a workout doesn’t fuel your efforts. Clinical nutritionist Nicole Lund, MS, RDN, of the NYU Langone Sports Performance Center, says that five specific foods are best avoided before any exercise that heavily relies on endurance. First and foremost, she says that fats don’t deserve a spot on your plate in the hours leading up to intense exercise. “Fats remain in the stomach longer than any other macronutrient because of their complicated digestive process,” says Lund. “Furthermore, since all digestion slows during exercise, fat can interfere with performance by causing gastric distress.” Besides the fact that fats like to stick around in your GI tract longer than, say, carbs, they also won’t boost your energy levels in the immediate future. “The energy from fat is not immediately available for use, so they should not be consumed for fuel soon before training,” says Lund. If you’re thinking about scooping avocado onto your omelette or spreading cream cheese on a bagel, freeze—and consider the long game. (You can save your healthy fats for after you’ve crushed your workout, when they’ll help you recover.) Besides fats,
What’s better for you, matcha or green tea? We asked a dietitian to find out
September 24, 2019 at 07:00PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADUuZrFQX7M] When it comes to hot green drinks, who comes out on top health-wise? Watch the video to find out. Matcha is the avocado of wellness drinks—we just can’t get enough of it. It’s in our lattes, our baked goods, and even our skin-care products. However, as with any popular wellness trend, it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon without exactly knowing how it benefits your body. Isn’t matcha just fancy, rebranded green tea anyways? Not quite! In the latest episode of Well+Good’s YouTube series You Versus Food, registered dietitian Tracy Lockwood Beckerman, RD, takes on the matcha vs green tea battle head-on. And she has some major tea to spill on the two beverages. Both drinks are similar in that they come from the same Camellia Sinensis plant, Beckerman says. But that’s where their similarities end. “Green tea is made by steeping tea leaves in water,” she says—we’re drinking the the compounds that are released into the water. Meanwhile, matcha is made by dissolving ground tea leaves into water, meaning we’re drinking the actual leaves themselves. The leaves themselves are less processed than those used for green tea, she adds, and are typically richer in chlorophyll and antioxidants. Matcha and green tea are each pretty healthy on their own. But as Beckerman explains, the difference in processing and brewing results in some different health benefits. One drink in particular stands out when it comes to antioxidant potency, caffeine content, and beneficial
Do less, attract more: Gabrielle Bernstein’s new theory might be her boldest yet
September 24, 2019 at 06:55PM by CWC What if manifesting your best life actually doesn’t require mood boards and pushing hard to reach your goals? What if the secret is simply… to feel good? That’s the concept behind Gabrielle Bernstein‘s new book, Super Attractor: Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams. But here’s the really wild part: When you do less, you attract more. Focus on feeling good, Bernstein says, and wonderful things start to happen—and it won’t feel like work. Here, the best-selling author talks about co-creating the life you want—and shares an audio excerpt from Super Attractor to help you get started. Well+Good: First, what is a Super Attractor? Gabrielle Bernstein: A Super Attractor is someone whose primary focus is on feeling good. When people make feeling good a priority, then they become a magnet for what they want. Can anyone be a Super Attractor? We are all Super Attractors—we just forget. We’ve detoured so far into fear, judgment, and attack that we’ve blocked that Super Attractor power. How can people start to remember that part of themselves? The first step is to recognize the way they disconnected from it. That involves recognizing the ways your thoughts and belief systems work and how they’re making you feel. In the book, I call that the Choose Again method. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/679075296?secret_token=s-AunHA” params=”color=#ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true” width=”100%” iframe=”true” /] How does that method work? The first step is to witness your thoughts: how did they make you feel? The second step is
How to stop a (typically male) chauvinist mid-sentence
September 24, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC I can’t tell if I prefer working from home because I get to spend time with my cats, or because it means I’ll never have to share a cubicle with another chauvinist again. Chauvinism, which typically presents in males who exhibit superiority over another group, commonly crops up in professional settings. But, like me, you’ve likely encountered them elsewhere in the wild. There was that Tinder date who told me I’ll probably never “make it” as a journalist so I might as well quit while I’m ahead (who’s laughing now, Jeff?), to the squat-rack meathead at the gym who placed his outstretched hand too firmly on my lower back, ushering me towards the elliptical machine and away from the heavy weights. The good news is that we shouldn’t have to settle for this kind of condescending behavior. Your first task in dealing with a chauvinist is to validate your own feelings, says Emma Levine, PhD, a licensed psychologist and founder of Perennial Wellness. Remind yourself that, that yes, it’s true—women who stand up for themselves are more likely to be labeled as bossy or aggressive, rather than assertive or self-assured. And that’s okay. “Sometimes being a voice is more important than being well-liked,” she says. “Sometimes being a voice is more important than being well-liked.” —Emma Levine, PhD Once you’ve normalized your feelings of anxiety about speaking up, create some emotional distance between yourself and the perpetrator. “The most important thing a woman
Just by shopping at Marshalls you can save $154 on these 8 major beauty buys
September 24, 2019 at 06:29PM by CWC The only thing better than treating yourself to a luxury beauty product? Treating yourself to a luxury beauty product at, like, half of its usual price. Today, Marshalls has made all of our discount shopping dreams come true with the launch of its first ever foray into e-commerce, which means that all of the A++ skin-care products that you used to have to schlep to a store for are now available online. We’re talking brands like SK-II, Dr. Perricone, and even La freakin’ Prairie, available with the click of the “add to cart” button. While we’ve been shopping the digital discount aisles of TJ Maxx for what seems like forever, this is the first time we’ve been able to do so by way of its sister store. Check out the beauty buys we’re most excited about, and please note the b-a-n-a-n-a-s prices. Clearly I’m excited, because I just quoted Gwen Stefani. Shop our picks below. Photo: La Prairie La Prairie Skin Caviar Essence-in-Lotion, $199 Nothing will make you feel more luxurious than slathering your face with a La Prairie Lotion, especially knowing that you got it for two-thirds of the usual price. It’s literally made with caviar, and hydrates, firms, and conditions skin all while making you look instantly richer. Just kidding. But not. Photo: Sisley Sisley Botanical Gentle Facial Buffing Cream, $70 Another bougie French brand you can now grab at Marshalls.com? Sisley, whose Botanical Gentle Facial Buffing Cream exfoliates skin, and promises
Swinging can add healthy (yep, healthy) excitement to your relationship, according to a psychotherapist
September 24, 2019 at 05:39PM by CWC There’s nothing new, per se, about the swingers’ lifestyle. Thinking about the term conjures feathered hair, key parties, fondue, and maybe things your parents did in the ’70s you don’t need to know about. And, it means the same thing then as it does now. “Swinging means having sex with other partners, together or apart,” psychotherapist Tammy Nelson, PhD, author of The New Monogamy tells me. “It involves consensual experiences that the partners discuss before during, and after with one another, where the details are shared as much or as little as desired.” What’s thoroughly modern about swinging, though, is the normalization of less-traditional relationship forms. For example, Silicon Valley‘s Thomas Middleditch recently declared that swinging “saved” his marriage. And while keeping an open mind to the swingers’ lifestyle won’t necessarily be so integral to the health of your relationship, checking in with yourself about your preferences might be a worthy exercise. After all, research has pointed to swinging correlating to happier marriages and life satisfaction. “Swinging can add excitement to a couple’s relationship when they have a solid foundation of trust and connection,” Dr. Nelson says. “Being with other people in a nonexclusive sexual experience can heighten the attraction to one another. Although that may seem paradoxical, the intensity and the eroticism can add an element of aliveness to the commitment.” So in essence, swinging is more about being open to new physical experiences. But before you kick up your legs and
Sun salutation B is the best way to fire up your entire body in a matter of minutes
September 24, 2019 at 05:00PM by CWC For those of you who think that yoga is all calm, slow, relaxing movements that don’t make you sweat or get your heart rate up, sun salutations can prove you wrong. These vinyasa sequences happen in the beginning of your flow, and are basically the cardio part of your yoga practice (yes, yoga can count as cardio). While all variations of these salutations can be challenging, it’s sun salutation B, specifically, that gets your body ready for certain poses you’ll be doing later on. If you’re not familiar with sun salutations, they’re the part of the vinyasa flow that tend to get your body generating heat. “Sun salutations are commonly used as warm-up yoga sequences usually in the first half of a class that involve repeating the same series of postures several times, while linking breath to movement, often with chaturanga transitions in between sides and repetitions,” says Christine Kick, master trainer for YogaSix. “Sun salutation B is a flow of poses that generally begins with a chair pose to chaturanga transition, followed by a sequence of poses on the right, ending in the chaturanga transition, then again on the left, also ending with a chaturanga transition.” You’ll repeat this several times to really get your body warmed up. In a yoga class, you may be doing sun salutations A and/or B or neither—it depends on the parameters of the class and what the teacher’s preferences are. “It really just depends on the
Learn what kind of relationship-oriented Libra you are, according to your moon sign
September 24, 2019 at 04:30PM by CWC Type “famous Libras” into Google and you’ll get served a pretty impressive list of powerful women: Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gwen Stefani, and Kim Kardashian West, to name just a few. It makes sense that so many human supernovas were born between born between September 23 and October 22: Libras are known for setting trends (tennis catsuits!), speaking up for justice (KKW, Esq.!), and being involved in spotlight-grabbing partnerships (conscious uncoupling!). In other words, they’re not exactly the type to fade into the background. But, clearly, as exemplified by these women, there are also a lot of differences in the way they do life—differences that can be partially explained by their individual Libra moon sign. Astrologically speaking, a person’s moon sign represents their innermost self and the way they experience their feelings. For Libras, the moon sign impacts the degree to which they go deep emotionally. “Libras in general are particularly deep feelers. Libra is an air sign, and air is more intellectual than it is super emotive,” says astrologer and coach Natalia Benson, creator of the Astrology Empowerment Class Series. “But Libra does rule relationships, so they’re very much about connection to other people.” When a Libra sun is looked at in connection to a person’s moon sign, it has a major influence on the person’s connection style. For instance, Paltrow’s cerebral Gemini moon makes her a master at analyzing her feelings, while Stefani’s Cancer moon gives her a more nurturing and