Tag: Well+Good

July 15, 2019 at 04:10AM by CWC Difficult people are like burpees in HIIT class: no matter how much you will them out of your life, they still show up to test your kindness, patience, and yes—stamina. These folks arrive in our lives in all different forms (see: judge-y family members, narcissists, and energy vampires). But when two experts took a closer look at the qualities that truly get under people’s skin, they found that 10 stood out from the rest. Rick Kirschner, ND, and Rick Brinkman, ND, two naturopathic physicians and co-authors of Dealing With People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst, call out 10 specific behaviors that really (really) push other people’s buttons. Once you hear them, you’ll be nodding along and making all the mental praise hands emojis. According to work and life website Sources of Sight, they are as follows. 1. Tanks: These confrontational folks swing first and ask questions second. When you’re dealing with them, it’s important to hold your ground and using qualifying statements like, “From my point of view…” Don’t let them run you over. You got this! ad_intervals[‘407470_div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘407470_div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’]); googletag.cmd.push(function(){googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’);}); } }, 100); 2. Snipers: If words are weapons, then these people are sharp shooters. They know how to use sarcasm and rude comments to hit the mark on hurting your feelings. Because snipers like to operate behind thinly veiled disdain, you can stop them in their tracks by pausing

Read More

July 15, 2019 at 03:00AM by CWC When you’re a manager, it’s your job to give feedback, right? According to career expert Amy Odell—whom you may know as the former editor of Cosmopolitan.com and founding blogger of New York magazine’s The Cut—maybe not quite in the way you think. In this week’s Good@Work column, she counsels a new manager struggling with giving “constructive criticism.” Question: I recently started managing someone and I’m really struggling with feedback. This person is really smart and talented but also deeply sensitive—which means that they often can get defensive. Or worse, they assume that any kind of constructive criticism means they’re just inherently bad at their job (not true!). It makes me want to avoid giving them feedback altogether, although that obviously isn’t a good thing, either. How do I navigate this kind of situation? ad_intervals[‘405726_div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘405726_div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’]); googletag.cmd.push(function(){googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’);}); } }, 100); Answer: The current thinking about office work seems to be that we should give and receive criticism, rebranded for this millennium as “constructive,” all the time. Just because that’s the conventional wisdom raining down upon us from Forbes bloggers and your HR department and your friend who heard a podcast once about “radical transparency,” that doesn’t mean that sitting employees down to give them feedback in a specific and sanctioned way works for every workplace or every boss or every worker. I’d guess that most of the time, feedback does exactly what you describe—temporarily destroys someone’s ego, which makes them

Read More

July 14, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC It’s that time of the year: People are Marie Kondo-ing their makeup bags, opting out of fancy dinners in order to save money, and making room in their beauty cabinet. Because it’s summer sale season, baby. My head’s practically spinning (with heart eyes, mind you) with all the sales going on RN. There are summer sales at practically all of your fave stores, and then, coming up is the Christmas of them all: Amazon Prime Day. What I’m eyeing? All of the beauty finds, at a fraction of their regular cost. These are exciting times, y’all. That said… have you ever filled your bag (or cart) so freakin’ much that, come six months later, some items are still just sitting on your shelf, unopened and collecting dust? Same. Majorly. Sometimes your heart is bigger than, well, the square footage of your skin (and apartment), and you can’t just use every single product that you hoard. In the Herculean effort to make sure we shop beauty product sales with a strategy—no penny or product wasted—I consulted a pro to see just how much you should really buy when the prices are slashed. ad_intervals[‘407600_div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘407600_div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’]); googletag.cmd.push(function(){googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’);}); } }, 100); Here’s the deal—regular skin-care products typically have a relatively long time of use. “For beauty products such as a moisturizer or anti-aging product, adhere to the expiration date for anything that has been opened and already exposed to air,” says

Read More

July 14, 2019 at 12:02PM by CWC I’ve ruined so many songs for myself by setting them as my alarm. John Mayer. Taylor Swift. Drake… all casualties. After day upon day of waking up to the same song blaring in your face, you can’t help but cringe every time you hear it play on the radio. Music is not being the best wake-up option for me anyway, nor is using my phone as an alarm in general. That means it’s always within arm’s reach on my bedside table, resulting in an hour of scrolling when I could have been fast asleep. That’s why I decided to switch things up and swap my phone for an ever-growing trend in alarms: options that wake you up in the most soothing way possible—not with “In My Feelings” for the 100th time. Long gone are the days of traumatizing twin bell alarm clocks. Now, there are alarms that use the sounds of ocean waves or birds chirping, the smell of your favorite essential oil, and—my personal favorite—Casper’s Glow Light that lets you schedule a gentle wake-up to soft light that’s as soothing as candlelight. It also doesn’t show the time, which forces me to get out of bed instead of lying there for “just 10 more minutes.” Instead of being scared awake with a typical alarm, which releases cortisol into the body, I rise stress-free and feel more calm throughout the day because of it. ad_intervals[‘405816_div-gpt-ad-5443410-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘405816_div-gpt-ad-5443410-3’]);

Read More

July 14, 2019 at 08:00AM by CWC Photo: Julianna Blizzard All hell breaks loose whenever I have a knot in my muscles. But it inevitably happens, since I’m a bona fide boot camp addict. There are things you can do to get that annoying AF tension out, like roll around on a tennis ball or blast a Theragun to the spot, or even slather on the CBD—but I never thought that something as simple as essential oils could do the trick too. Then Jana Blankenship, beauty guru and founder of Captain Blankenship, schooled me—not that I’m surprised, considering essential oils can help with everything from stress to sleep. In her soon-to-be-released book, Wild Beauty ($12), she gives readers what I’d consider the dream essential oil blend: one that releases muscle tension. “I created this powerful blend of essential oils to relieve anxiety, tension, headaches, migraines, and PMS,” Blankenship tells me. The magic’s in the minty extracts combined with certain botanicals that work together to get those knots some relief. “Stimulating peppermint essential oil is an ancient medicine for relieving tension. The scent of eucalyptus essential oil instantly clears your senses and helps ease anxiety. And Clary sage is a savior for PMS and tension release,” she explains. ad_intervals[‘407376_div-gpt-ad-9261280-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘407376_div-gpt-ad-9261280-3’]); googletag.cmd.push(function(){googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-9261280-3’);}); } }, 100); So that combo, blended with rosemary and lavender essential oils for “fresh air to ease your pain,” can give CBD a run for its money. All you do is blend

Read More

July 14, 2019 at 06:10AM by CWC I’ve fallen in love with coconut over the years. First, it was eating the meat out of a freshly-cracked coconut—a snack that instantly transports you to a sunny tropical island whenever you take a bite. Then it was using coconut oil as the full-body moisturizer my skin never knew it needed. And lately I’ve jumped on the coconut milk bandwagon, using it in my creamy—and ridiculously frothy!—matcha lattes. One thing I’ve never thought about, though, is pouring some on my head. Even though coconut oil is touted as the ultimate saving grace for revitalizing dry strands, coconut milk—which is simply coconut flesh puréed with water—has hair-saving powers, too. “Coconut milk has some restorative qualities,” says Paul Labrecque, the celebrity hairstylist behind Paul Labrecque Salon and Spa in New York City, Palm Beach, Florida, and Philadelphia. “The natural fatty acids in coconut can help grow hair, restore strands, and keep your hair in great condition.” ad_intervals[‘406621_div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘406621_div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’]); googletag.cmd.push(function(){googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’);}); } }, 100); The coconut milk you’re going to be using on your hair might be a little different than the kind most people use in their lattes. Instead of choosing one of the newfangled coconut milks you see in the alt-milk section of the grocery store, buy the creamy canned versions that are unsweetened, organic, and don’t contain a long list of additives. Most will only contain three ingredients (like this one from Thai Kitchen): organic coconut, water,

Read More

July 14, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC We probably don’t have to tell you that CBD is everywhere these days: people are putting it in their coffee, pouring it into their cocktails, rubbing it on their skin, and blending it into their post-workout smoothies. Researchers are learning more about CBD every day, but there’s still a lot about it that we don’t know… and that can be really confusing if you’re a CBD newbie. One of the biggies: How long does it take for CBD oil to work? Because who hasn’t been in the situation where it seems like one person takes CBD and turns into a zen mother earth goddess right away, while you’re sitting over here waiting for something (anything!) to happen to take your morning anxiety away. (What’s that saying? A watched mug of CBD coffee never kicks in?) Turns out, CBD isn’t one-size-fits-all. Various factors—such as the amount you take, the form you take it in, and where you got your CBD from—can all impact how long it takes to work, says Brooke Alpert, RD, the founder of Daily Habit, a line of CBD powder. ad_intervals[‘407637_div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘407637_div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’]); googletag.cmd.push(function(){googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’);}); } }, 100); For example, if you’re putting your CBD product in a coffee that has almond milk or sugar or anything else that might need to be digested, your CBD will kick in more slowly than it would if you put a few drops directly under your tongue. “I look at

Read More