When it comes to taking care of our skin many times we need expert help. It can be confusing at times to know which skin care products to buy or how to treat different skin care problems. To get skin care advice you can see a dermatologist or an esthetician. But how do you know when to see one and not the other? What is the difference between a dermatologist and an esthetician?
Meditation can have many positive affects on our health, but did you realize it can also have major benefits for our skin? All the skin benefits of mediation are explained here.
What Is Mediation?
Meditation is an ancient practice found in many cultures worldwide that brings about self awareness and helps focus attention. There are many different ways to practice meditation. Each person needs to find the practice that best fits their personality and lifestyle.
Some people can easily meditate on their own sitting quietly in a room while others need guided meditation in order to practice. There are even great apps that you can download to your smartphone that make meditating easy to do anywhere.
The Health Benefits Of Meditation
Meditation offers numerous health benefits - both physical and spiritual.
First and foremost meditation is known to reduce stress and help you relax. By reducing stress you can both feel better physically and look more relaxed. In addition, regular mediation can help decrease the risk of heart disease, can improve your memory, reduce blood pressure, and help with pain management and even depression. Spiritually regular meditation increases your self awareness and your emotional well being making it easier to deal with life's challenges. Meditation can also teach you patience and can focus your attention.
How Meditation Helps Our Skin
When it comes to our skin reducing stress always makes a positive difference in our looks since stress ages our skin and can even make us breakout.
Research has shown that regular meditation greatly reduces stress which only has a very positive outcome on our skin. There is even photographic proof that regular meditation can improve your looks. As soon as stress is reduced our skin will look better since chronic stress leads to inflammation in the body.
Inflammation is one of the causes of both skin aging, it breaks down collagen in the skin, and pimples. If you can reduce inflammation in the skin you can absolutely improve how your skin looks. Furthermore, we all know that if we are experiencing stress in our lives our looks can suffer. Our skin can appear dull and we can have dark under eye circles when we experience difficulties in our lives. Taking even 5 minutes daily to meditate is definitely a great way to help your skin fight stress and look its best.
It turns out that chronic skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema show improvement when meditation is added to more traditional treatments. Meditation can trigger the body's ability to heal itself. Both of these skin conditions can get worse with stress. So, once again, by reducing stress through regular meditation you can help treat these skin conditions.
While mediating you also breathe deeply instead of shallowly which helps oxygen get to your skin. When more oxygen circulates in our skin we have a healthy glow and our skin cells can work normally. Meditation can also help you sleep better which benefits our skin in so many ways. When we get enough beauty sleep our skin can repair itself as needed, dark under eye circles can disappear, and fine lines can appear less pronounced. If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep consider trying meditation to help you sleep better.
Bottom Line
When we reduce stress in our lives, sleep well, and feel good physically our skin can look great. One way to help our bodies, our health, and our skin to look its best is to meditate. Find a meditation practice that suits your lifestyle and start meditating today. Your skin will thank you.
Applying body lotion. Bambu Productions/The Image Bank/GettyImages
Everyone needs 4 skin care products as part of their home skin care routine: a cleanser, an exfoliant, a moisturizer, and a sunscreen. By following the tips below you can be sure you are getting the most out of your moisturizer so that your skin will look and feel great.
When To Apply Your Moisturizer
Moisturizer should always be applied to damp skin. For example after getting out of the shower and toweling off do not wait more than 3 minutes before you apply moisturizer to your body.
This locks moisture into your skin before it can evaporate. The same rule applies to your face as well. Never apply your moisturizer to a bone dry face. If you use toner than apply your moisturizer immediately after applying your toner. If you don't use toner apply your moisturizer right after washing your face and gently drying it off.
How Much Moisturizer To Apply
Don't glob your moisturizer on your face or body. If you use too much product your skin will not be able to absorb it. Also if you use too much moisturizer then trying to apply other products on top such as sunscreen or make up will be impossible. Your skin will also feel quite greasy if you over apply product. Use about a quarter size scoop of moisturizer on your face. Of course this amount can change depending on the consistency of the product you are using and how your skin is feeling. Sometimes you might find that your skin needs more moisturizer and other times less moisturizer. Your moisturizing needs will change with the seasons - in the winter you will need a thicker, creamier moisturizer and more of it while in the summer you will need a lighter weight lotion moisturizer.
Remember there is no need to rub your moisturizer really hard into your skin. If you do this to your face you could end up hurting your skin instead of helping it. You can even tap or pat your moisturizer gently into your skin. Always be sure your fingers are clean before applying moisturizer to your face, and don't forget to apply moisturizer to your neck and chest as well.
Lastly, allow your moisturizer to really sink in before you move on with your skin care routine.
Make Sure You Find The Right Moisturizer For Your Skin
When it comes to skin care products a lot of people think that expensive is better. That certainly is not the case when it comes to finding a good moisturizer. Just because numerous celebrities love the moisturizer Creme De La Mer does not mean that it is the best moisturizer on the market and that you should rush out and buy it. Far from it. When buying a moisturizer ingredients are what matter not price. It turns out that some of the cheapest moisturizer ingredients are also the most effective in helping the skin hold on to water. A good moisturizer has both humectants which draw moisture to the skin and occlusive ingredients which keep water from evaporating off of your skin. Also look for a moisturizer according to your skin type, and keep in mind that even if you have oily skin you should use a moisturizer. Someone with oily facial skin will want to look for a moisturizer that is a gel formulation instead of a cream. Someone with dry skin will want to use a cream or a lotion moisturizer.
Moisturizer Suggestions
For The Face -
Dry Skin:
CeraVe Facial Moisturizing Lotion AM
Oily Skin:
Purpose Dual Treatment Moisture Lotion SPF 15
Sensitive Skin:
Simple Vital Vitamin Day Cream with SPF 15
Body Moisturizers:
Curel Continuous Comfort 24-Hour Daily Moisturizing Lotion for Dry Skin
This might sound strange to more than a few people, but in order for your skin to look great your gut needs to be healthy. If you want to clear up acne and other skin conditions you should look at what is going on with your digestive system. It turns out that the lack of good bacteria in your gut can have serious affects on our skin.
What Is A Healthy Gut
We all know that when we are nervous or stressed we feel it in our stomach.
Our stomach can get twisted into knots just from us thinking about something that bothers us. This is because our gut not only is in charge of digesting our food but the gut lining also contains hundreds of millions of neurons that function as a "second brain" in our body. Our gut also plays an important role in our immune system by defending our body against viruses and bacteria and keeping us healthy.
Our brain and gut send messages back and forth to one another which explains why if you stressed out your stomach can be upset.
Another important thing about our gut is that it contains hundreds of types of bacteria. Ideally that bacteria should be good bacteria that breaks down food, supports the immune system, and consumes bad bacteria. The balance of good bacteria versus bad bacteria, which promotes disease and secretes toxins, is what keeps our gut, our emotional health, our physical health, and our skin in balance.
The Gut Skin Connection
The balance of good and bad bacteria in our gut directly affects our skin. A lack of good bacteria will lead to inflammation in the body. Both acne and other skin problems are related to inflammation in the body.
Having too much bad bacteria in the gut along with yeast and fungus there can directly affect the skin. Not only could you have acne but also rosacea or other skin conditions. So if you suffer from acne and have tried everything in order to cure it without success make sure you look into what is going on with your gut.
If your gut isn't healthy you could definitely see that in your skin.
How To Fix Your Gut So Your Skin Glows
In order to see if your gut is the cause of your skin problems you can do a number of things. You could go see an expert who can test your urine or stool in order to see how much yeast and how much good and bad bacteria you have in your gut. Once you get those results a nutritionist can help you change your diet so that you eliminate foods that cause inflammation and produce bad bacteria.
You can also experiment on your own. Go on an elimination diet for two weeks. Stop eating all diary, sugar, and wheat (all foods that cause inflammation) and see if your skin starts to look better. Start taking a probiotic which are pills filled with good bacteria. Taking a probiotic daily will increase the amount of good bacteria in your gut and prevents further inflammation which will then have a positive affect on your skin. Limit the amount of antibiotics you take since antibiotics kill all bacteria in the gut both good and bad. Try to stop eating processed food. Consider eating fermented foods such as kimchi and kefir, healthy fats like coconut oil and avocado, and take a fish oil supplement.
While healing your gut will have a positive affect on your skin be sure to be patient. This is not an overnight cure for skin issues. The body can heal itself but in order to do so it needs time and TLC.
Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy/ Photolibrary/ Getty Images
We all know how stress makes our body feel and how it affects our feelings - stress causes tension in our shoulders and neck, headaches, your heartbeat can speed up, and your mood can go from nice to nasty at a moment's notice. But did you know that stress can also do bad things to your skin?
How Stress Hurts Our Skin
When we are stressed out our body starts to produce more hormones especially a hormone called cortisol.
Cortisol tells our oil glands to produce more oil which means that when we are stressed out we breakout. Even people who generally do not get pimples may find that they breakout during stressful periods.
Unfortunately the hormone cortisol not only can cause breakouts when you are stressed but can also start aging your skin early.
Since cortisol can trigger skin inflammation it breaks down the collagen in our skin. When collagen breaks down in our skin wrinkles begin to form. Believe it or not but chronic, ongoing stress can age you by 3 to 6 years. Your skin not only becomes wrinkled but dry and dehydrated as well. Stress can cause your skin to stop functioning as it should which means your skin can go from glowing to dull.
If you suffer from a chronic skin condition such as rosacea, eczema, or psorasis stress can cause a flare-up of the condition or make an existing problem worse. You could even get a rash or hives from stress along with brittle nails and hair loss in extreme cases. When you are stressed you may have trouble sleeping which means that you can have dark under eye circles.
How To Stop Stress From Hurting Your Skin
Now that we know all the terrible things stress can do for our skin how do we stop stress from hurting our skin? One thing that happens when people are stressed if that they stop caring for their skin correctly. When you stop caring for your skin a cycle begins were your skin doesn't look its best because you aren't caring for it like you should, the fact that your skin doesn't look good further stresses you out, and more stress just makes you look worse.
You need to break that pattern. Even if you feel stressed out you must find time to care for your skin. In order to make sure that you do not breakout you need to properly exfoliate your skin. Not only will regular exfoliation help keep pimples from forming your skin will not look dull if you help get rid of dead skin cells.
Making sure to wash your face twice a day is still a must even if you are pressed for time. Try to carve out 5 or 10 minutes for your skin care routine both in the morning and at night no matter what is going on in your life. At the very least wash your face and use a moisturizer daily even if you don't have time for anything else. In the morning never forget your sunscreen as well. Making sure to stick to a skin care routine even while under stress will mean that your skin can keep looking good even when you might not feel your best.
Besides for sticking to a skin care regime you also need to find ways to destress so that stress does not take over your life. For some people that means doing yoga or meditating. For other people that might mean finding time to exercise or listen to music. Figure out what helps you destress and then go for it - your skin and your overall health will thank you.
I've always shied away from shaving soaps, even though they have a cult following and are made by some of the top shaving companies. I think just the word 'soap' and the thought of a thin barrier on the skin between me and the razor, were partly to blame.
Shaving soaps should be used with a shaving brush to create a nice lather. I didn't have one, though it's on my list, so I tried it brushless. Even so, it worked really, really well. The soap provided a lot of slip, I got a pretty close shave and my skin felt really soft afterwards.
Their formula uses the oils of olive, coconut, palm and castor. Bentonite clay, also added, draws out toxins, is highly absorbent, and exfoliates, so it's great for oily skin and can also be used to cleanse with as well. This one includes lavender essential oil. For men, they make a shaving soap with sandalwood.
The bar is huge, which will surely last a long time. With any shaving soap, it needs to be placed on a draining soap dish so that it doesn't sit in water and wear down faster than necessary.
If you've yet to hear of Coola, take note. This sun care company makes the most amazing sunscreens that not only protect your skin, but help protect the planet as well. Did I mention how fantastic they smell?
No Animal Testing - Tested on Humans (Don't you love that?)
Biodegradable Packaging; Earth Conscious Printing; Recycled Paper
Donates a portion of the profits to skin cancer research
Cons
Description
Earth conscience sun care company based in Los Angeles.
Non-typical fragrances make their sunscreens stand out in a world of coconut-scented sunscreen.
Endorsed by the American Lifeguard Association
Guide Review - Coola: Sunscreen
I'm excited to tell you about Coola, because it has become my current favorite sun care line. Before we talk about how fantastic this company is, I have to tell you just how fantastic their sunscreens smell. Coola has four fragrances for your body: Mango, Plumeria, Cucumber and Unscented, and two fragrances for your face: Cucumber and Unscented. I had a chance to try out each scent, and fell in love with them all. My favorite would probably be Plumeria, with Cucumber close behind. If you have always wished for a body moisturizer with SPF, that's basically what you're getting with Coola; fabulous smelling sunscreen that moisturizes as well as protects against the sun and aging with the inclusion of antioxidants.
Coola sunscreen ranges in protection from SPF 30 to SPF 45, and have been endorsed by the American Lifeguard Association. Their approach to business is one that should be emulated by other companies. They use bio-degradable packaging with earth-friendly inks and recycled papers. They do not test on animals, but instead tests solely on humans. Their products are made in the United States, and Coola donates part of their profits to skin cancer research.
If you're looking for your face, Coola: Cucumber Face SPF 30 has a light lingering scent that you'll be happy to apply on a regular basis. It is a thick cream that soaks in quickly leaving your skin matte. It is water and sweat resistant, and uses ingredients known for being gentle and non-irritating.
I really am in love with the Coola line, and would recommend their sunscreens to anyone who is looking for an earth friendly option in sun care. Especially for those who are hesitant to use sunscreens with a strong tropical scent.
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