Self-Care Corner – Page 2

Brain Wave, Health and medicine, Self-Care Corner

The Best Fat Burning Cardio Exercises

October 17, 2018 No Comments

Excess fat in one’s body has proved to be dangerous on several occasions. It can lead to conditions like high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. Lifestyle conditions like diabetes and cancer can also be triggered by excess fat in one’s body. Working out turns to be one of the best ways you can get rid of excess fat in your body. Apart from shedding pounds, you also gain an increase in muscle mass.

Combining your workouts with supplements like musclesfax will help you achieve more gains. Cardio exercises are also useful in helping one shed off those extra pounds. These are exercises meant to increase one’s heart rate and even metabolism. There are various cardio workouts that help burn excess body fat you can try out. They include:

Rope Jumping

It is one of the best, and easiest cardio exercises you can try out. This exercise involves jumping over a rope slowly as you increase your speed. Common among athletes, it helps improve one’s foot speed and also movements. You get to burn more fat within a short period with this type of exercise. You should try it because of how cheap and effective it is.

Stair Climbing

It is another effective way to burn more calories within a short period. It also helps make your leg muscles stronger because they are the most used in such exercises. You need to find some stairs or steep area where you can carry out this type of training. Remember to monitor your progress.

Cycling

You also get to burn more calories through cycling. One can try out this exercise using the cycling machine which is stationary, or you can use a real bicycle. You get to use more energy which is vital when it comes to burning body fat. It is also good for your knees and the joints found in your ankle area.

Elliptical

It is a form of stationary workout which can help you lose a lot of fat within a short period. This type of exercise involves the use of an elliptical machine which works by simulating running. It is best known for cardio workouts that are of low impact. Common in many gyms, you can try them out to get quality results within a short period.

Running

This is a simple cardio exercise you can try out anytime and in different environments. You don’t need to go to the gym because you can do it in an open space near you. Morning jogs help one burn more calories. In the gym, you can try out different equipment that can help you monitor your progress. The treadmill is the best for this type of exercise.

Swimming

One can also shed off some extra pounds as they entertain themselves. Swimming is one type of exercise that can keep you occupied as you also gain some health benefits. Fast swimming will help you burn a lot of calories fast. One can also do it at several intervals and wait for some quality results.

Brain Wave, Life in general, Self-Care Corner

Start Feeling Better About Yourself Fast

May 10, 2018 No Comments

If you don’t feel absolutely awesome in yourself, then you need to take action. It might sound cheesy or cliche, but you should be your best friend. You’re the only one who has to live with yourself forever, so you should learn to like yourself! Here are some pointers that will help you to learn to like yourself, or feel better about yourself, quickly:

Start Taking Play Seriously

The problem a lot of people have is taking work more seriously than play. Work earns people money and helps them to live, and play does not – so naturally, people don’t prioritize it, and it falls to the wayside. However, you’ll feel so much better about yourself and your situation when you take play just as seriously as you take work or home cleaning. Play is important as it’s great for your overall well being. It’s great for stress relief, enjoyment, and simply forgetting your troubles for a while. Try a hobby you’ve always wanted to try, or spend more time doing the things that you really love.

Learn A New Skill

Why not learn a new skill? When you set out to learn a new skill, you tend to break out of your comfort zone and begin to feel far more comfortable in your abilities. You may surprise yourself, and realize that you’re capable of far more than you could have ever imagined.

Wear Clothes You Love

The clothes we wear can have a direct impact on how we feel. If you’re wearing lounge clothes each and every day, you’ll likely feel lazy. If you wore a suit to work, you’d probably feel far more productive. This isn’t to say you should go to extremes, but there’s a nugget of truth when people say ‘dress for the job you want, not the job you have.’ As clothes impact the way we feel, they can impact how productive we are. Wear clothes that make you feel great and like getting things done no matter what.

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Take Care Of Your Appearance

Spend more time on your appearance. You don’t have to slather yourself in makeup every day – not at all. Simple spend more time grooming yourself and doing what feels good. There are plenty of resources online that can help you to take care of your hair for next to nothing, like this resource here. Going to a salon is great, but not always affordable. Make sure you have a great skincare routine, too. Take care of your teeth and nails. Let your natural beauty shine through!

Take Some Time For A Pamper

Run yourself a bath and spend more time in it than you usually would. Paint your nails. Moisturize your skin with something luxurious. Spend time pampering yourself once or twice a week. Don’t just save it for special occasions!

Spend Time With People Who Lift You Up

We become most like the people we spend time with, so if you’re spending time with people who are constantly negative about themselves, you’re probably going to feel the same, eventually. Spend time with those who are positive and lift you up!

Brain Wave, Self-Care Corner, Shopping and Merchandise

5 Laser Hair Removal Myths You Should Stop Believing

April 27, 2018 No Comments

There are about as many myths about ridding yourself of body hair as there are methods of removing it in the first place. Often, the information you’ll find is confusing at best and conflicting at worst. Is laser hair removal for you and can this makeover treatment do you any good? Below, we separate the fiction from facts:

Myth 1: Laser hair removal causes the hair to grow back faster and denser.

How fast your hair grows back, as well as how thick or coarse it is, is pre-determined by your genes. This means that regardless of the method you’ve used to remove the hair, it will always come back at the same rate. People believe this myth because untouched body hair lies flat, soft, and thin; a stark contrast to freshly shaved hair with blunted ends, which feels courser against the surface of the skin.

Laser hair removal should cause a marked reduction of hair growth, anywhere between 10% and 25%. There should also be a visible reduction in the density and thickness of the hair when it grows back, as well as a decreased rate of growth for every successive session. The hair that does grow back should be much finer and lighter than before, meaning that problematic areas won’t bother you as much when the hair does start growing back.

Myth 2: Laser hair removal lasts forever.

While it is a highly effective method of getting rid of unwanted body hair, laser hair removal isn’t permanent. However, it does drastically reduce hair growth, and as stated above, the hair that does grow back is thinner and much finer. After a point, it will become unnecessary for you to pick up a razor ever again, so long as you are able to complete your recommended number of treatments faithfully. This means going in for a sitting up to 12 times to fully realize the effects, though around 6 to 8 sessions is enough to notice a visible reduction.
Laser energy is used to damage the follicles in the growing phase, and several treatments are needed to get all of them. Depending on the hair type and your genes, certain people may require more treatments to fully rid themselves of hair.

Myth 3: Laser hair removal only works on a certain skin or hair color.

There’s a lot of misinformation out there about laser hair removal only being effective on those with light skin and dark hair. While this used to be true, the technology has advanced enough that people of all colors and hair types can now avail of laser hair removal and achieve the same results. However, it may take light haired, fair-skinned individuals a few more treatments for the lasers to get the work done. You’ll want to consult with a professional about this to determine how many sessions it’ll take for you personally, as it can vary from person to person.

Myth 4: Laser hair removal can burn the skin.

It’s actually very rare for the machines used in laser hair removal to cause burns. It depends on the condition of your skin, as darker-skinned individuals may be more at risk for this. That’s why it’s important to talk to a medical professional before undergoing any sort of aesthetic treatment. Listen to their advice and take any pre- and post-treatment medication you may be prescribed.

Myth 5: Laser hair removal is extremely painful.

How painful the treatment will be largely depends on which tool is used – there are many different kinds! Ask your aesthetician for a list of options and inform yourself well on each one, especially if you have a particularly low tolerance.

The pain level can vary for different people: some treatments are virtually painless, while others have reported to feeling a mildly uncomfortable pinprick sensation. Others still report a manageable amount of discomfort – certainly less than waxing, for example. You can rest assured that your aesthetician will do everything within their power to make the process as comfortable as possible for you, so don’t be afraid to speak up. Furthermore, laser treatments get progressively less painful as the hair becomes finer, so you can just grit your teeth until the worst has passed, for lasting hairless comfort.

Again, it’s very important to consult with a medical professional and educate yourself about laser hair removal prior to signing up for a series of treatments. This way, you can properly set your expectations and clear any misgivings you may have about it.

Brain Wave, Self-Care Corner

6 Ways You Can Be The Best Version Of You

April 3, 2018 No Comments

Self-care is one of the most underrated necessities in life today. When you’re hungry, you eat. When you’re tired, you sleep. When you need cash, you go to work. And yet when it comes to taking care of yourself personally, for your own emotional and mental well-being, I’m willing to bet that you put that right on the backburner. Your future, your present and who you are right now are going to depend not on the way that others see you, but how you see yourself. Success doesn’t happen overnight for people in any field; hard work and living the life that they want is how things happen for people.

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When you were a child, people would tell you to dream big and be the best that you can be in your life so that you can live a great life. Then you get to adulthood and you realise that rather than being free and living without rules, you live with more rules than you ever thought would be possible. The thing is, this is not a bad thing! Responsibility means stress, yes, but it also means prosperity and success. The key is to ensure that you care for yourself while you are caring for everyone else around you, and it’s important that you can identify the self-care that you need to care for yourself. For example, researching the fact that Sahaja meditation relieves stress can mean that those responsibilities on your shoulders that give your life the success that you crave can feel far more manageable, simply because you looked after your mental wellbeing. If you are searching for ways that you can be the best person that you can be while balancing all the tribulations of a successful adult life, check out the tips below:

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1. What Do You Want? The most important thing that you need to know to be able to be the best person that you can be is what you want out of life. Do you want love? Wealth? Friendship? You need to work out what your happy is and why you want those things. Once you work that out, you have a dream, which will develop into a goal and thus help you to find success.

2. Believe In Yourself. You can have all the dreams in the world, but if each thought is full of self-doubt, you’re not going to get anywhere at all, are you? You need to build your confidence up and have faith that you can succeed. Recognising your talents and believing in yourself is vital for the future.

3. Find Inspiration. To be your best self, you need a muse. Take a look at the person that you aspire to be like and see how they act and how they speak and how they treated others to get to where they were. You don’t need to copy what they do, but you can learn from someone that you admire most and go forward with them in mind when you picture your best self.

4. Positivity Counts. Negative minds and negative words will not bring you to the success that you want. You need to surround yourself in positive support; people who will cheer you on not tear you down. Positivity is catching, so make it count.

5. Take Care. Your mental health and physical well-being is important to get you to the best version of you, so make sure that you are nurturing yourself. Take that weekly class that you want to go to. Learn that new language. Anything you can do that you think will make you a better person, do it. You have nothing to lose.

6. Get Uncomfortable. Success and forward thinking is not found in the same routines and steps that you take every day. It’s time to step out of that comfort zone that you love so much and get uncomfortable again. If you believe you can’t do something, you’re less likely to try. You don’t have to change who you are but adding things to your personality is going to make you a much better person.

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Staying happy and pushing your future in the path that you want to follow is going to make you the best version of yourself. You need to love yourself first before anyone else can want to and being comfortable with who you are and who you hope to be is so important for a happy and healthy existence. Don’t put you on the backburner when you’re the front runner in your life.

Brain Wave, Self-Care Corner

Meditation: The Ultimate Self-Care Tip

February 22, 2018 No Comments

I often get asked what my best advice is for self-care. After a lot of pondering, I realized that the ultimate self-care tip is to meditate. Meditation is so beneficial for you in so many different ways. No matter how you’re suffering, a bit of meditation will always help you get a little bit better.

As such, I thought I’d dedicate this article to all the different ways in which meditation is good for your mind and body.

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Meditation Is Great For Controlling Emotions

One of the key benefits of meditation is that it helps you control your emotions. If you’re someone that’s often very emotional and gets angry or upset quickly, then you need to meditate. Long slow breaths will help you calm down and reach a sense of inner peace. From here, you think clearly, and it can stop you from overreacting when something happens. If you feel emotion building up inside you, take a step back and meditate for five minutes then see the difference it makes.

Brain Wave, Careers, Freelancing and Self-Employment, Self-Care Corner

Calling All Freelancers: How You Can Take Better Care of Yourself

January 31, 2018 No Comments

Being able to work from home can bring with it some great flexibility and the freedom to do things as and when you need to. You’re only accountable to yourself, and you decide your workload and the hours that you work. But with that freedom, comes some responsibility; you may be accountable to only you about your work, but also about your health. In an office, an employer is required to adhere to certain guidelines to make sure that you’re working in a healthy and safe environment. But when you’re working at home and by yourself, the only person that will be telling you to take a break or get a new desk chair is you. So what can you to do be more accountable for your health when you’re self-employed? Here are some of the ways you can take better care of yourself.

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Assess Your Desk

Hopefully you have a desk or an office space that you work in at home. You should check the space out and see what you can be doing to make sure that it is a comfortable and safe space. Is your desk chair up to scratch? Is it adjustable and movable? If it isn’t, then it could be worth looking to invest in a new one. Have you got a footrest or somewhere for your wrists to avoid things like repetitive strain? All of these kind of thing can make a difference to your health and posture overall, and stop you getting aches and pains when you’re doing your work.

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Improve Your Health

As well as the environment that you’re in, your own health can have an impact on how well you’re able to work. And at the end of the day, as a freelancer, you’re likely to not get paid unless you are working. So it pays to stay well; literally. So think about regular exercise breaks to take a walk or go to the gym. Think about what you’re eating and drinking; it can be hard to get up early and do work if you’re hungover or feel so lethargic from eating sugar-filled foods. You could also look to purchase health care products online like a blood pressure monitor or a mattress that could help you sleep better. Be proactive and you’re likely to deal with any issues before they actually crop up.

Banish Loneliness

Working freelance can be very rewarding. But sometimes your only contact with someone else during the day can be the mailman! So it can be a pretty lonely place, especially if you work online and deal with people via emails. So in order for it to not impact your mental health, you need to think about what you can do to tackle it. It could mean that you decide to schedule conference calls or Skype calls rather than email. You could work from a coffee shop once a week or even hire a desk in an office. Just do what you need to do to banish that feeling of loneliness.

Brain Wave, Life Hacks & Tips and Tricks, Self-Care Corner

Feeling Run Down, But What Can You Do?

January 29, 2018 No Comments

We all have days, weeks or even months where we feel run down and worse for wear. Perhaps you have been having a difficult time at work, or maybe you are having family issues. Either way, it can take a lot out of you, effecting both your mind and your body. The good news is that there are a variety of ways to improve the situation and we’re talking about both emotionally and physically. Some routes to recovery will boost your body as well as your soul. Perhaps then, it is best to start off by thinking about meditation.

Using Your Mind As A Muscle

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If you have been feeling stressed lately, you should try meditation. Through meditation, you can calm the mind in a very unique way. To start meditating, you don’t need a trainer, you just need to sit down and think about nothing. Or, rather, since this is actually very difficult, think about something. It doesn’t matter what that something is. It could be a bee sitting on a flower. The important thing is that the idea doesn’t grow or expand and instead remains constant in your mind. This isn’t actually as simple as it sounds.

To help, you can think about using music to focus your mind or certain sounds like the noise of the rainforest. CDs and MP3 files like this are easy to come by. When you do meditate, you need to find somewhere quiet where you can be alone. This could be somewhere in your home or if your house is a little bit or a disaster zone, somewhere outside, perhaps in the middle of the forest. It just needs to be a place where you will remain completely undisturbed.

Many people wonder how long you need to meditate for if it is going to be effective. We suggest you spend about an hour or even just half an hour a few times a week meditating. This should be more than enough time to get the impact of this type of calming exercise.

Meditation can be an incredibly powerful tool. Researchers discovered that through meditation, Buddhist monks actually completely restructured their mind. Different pathways were built up in the brain that had never been seen before. However, you probably won’t gain this type of change. So, what benefits could you reap from meditation?

Well, the main advantage would essentially be mindfulness. Through mindfulness, your mind will be clearer, and you will be able to focus on different issues and challenges present in your life. If you have a problem at work or even in your personal life, with meditation, you might find that you know how to cope with it and deal effectively.

Of course, if you want to get the best of both worlds, you may wish to think about yoga. Yoga isn’t quite meditation, but the breathing exercises directly control how much oxygen your brain receives. As well as this, it soothes the body, so it has a double impact on you. Yoga can be learned without assistance. However, you might find it more effective if you do recruit the support of a teacher.

Lavish In A Little Luxury

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Alternatively, you might want to think about retreating to a spa, perhaps for a weekend. There are a variety of spa service options to choose form with everything from massages to beauty techniques and body healing methods on the table. You should perhaps start with a full body massage. You will be amazed how much better you could feel after this type of treatment. Muscles can get very tense and terse. You might have heard of people getting knots in their back. This is because they have become so stressed they are actually struggling to cope and the body is starting to take the toll. By getting a massage from a professional, your body will heal, and you can come away feeling completely refreshed.

Bear in mind that getting a massage isn’t the same as asking your partner to rub your back in bed. Massages are almost a science where you need to hit the right spot in the right way. If you don’t take the right technique, then a massage won’t be all that beneficial. This is why it might be worth paying for a service from an expert.

Of course, a massage isn’t the only treatment that you can get when you head away to a spa. You might also want to think about looking into acupuncture treatment. Acupuncture is a Chinese health remedy and one that has become very popular with western culture. A number of celebrities seem to love this method of healing and regularly get treatment. Acupuncture therapy perpetuates the notion that there are energy fields around the body and with the needles, the pressure points can be released and relieved. While the effects of this could be the placebo effect, so many people claim they feel better after the treatment that you might want to try it. If, you’re not afraid of needles.

If you are a little squeamish about pointy objects, you might want to focus on the way you look rather than how you feel. After all, looking like a mess can make you feel the same way. When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror if you like what you see, you’ll have a more positive outlook through the day than if you hate your reflection. As such, it might be worth exploring ways to give your skin back its colour and rejuvenate your complexion.

One of the ways that you can do this is with nutrients and minerals that can be addressed to a facemask. Wearing an organic facemask, your skin will absorb the benefits from the minerals and nutrients, healing the skin. This can be a fantastic way to minimise the impact of wrinkles and other troubling signs of age such as spots. Don’t underestimate how much changing the way you look could impact how you feel. If you feel beautiful, you’ll have the confidence you need to tackle life’s greatest challenges.

Trouble Inside?

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Of course, you might find that you’re feeling run down purely because of your body. It’s not an emotional issue, it’s a totally physical issue that is causing an emotional effect. This could be due to a build-up of residue in your colon. Your colon is used to break down and dispel food from the body but a lot of food residue can build up that is essentially body waste. This waste can cause a number of impacts including an emotional response. It can make you feel sluggish and tired.

This is one of the reasons why a number of medical experts recommend that you get your system cleared out at least once annually. Clearing out your system you should feel better almost immediately. If you do have this issue, a key sign is that you will struggle to lose weight. An issue like this could mean that you are carrying as much as 25 pounds extra in weight. A lot of people think that a colon cleanse is a medical procedure, but it doesn’t have to be. There are a variety of natural cleanses like herbal tea. Using herbal tea, you can quickly and safely clear out this area of your body without any unpleasant issues.

Since we’re talking about the food in the body, it’s worth mentioning that your diet can definitely have an impact on how you feel. Eating food that is unhealthy will almost always have an impact on the way you feel and all of your emotions. It can increase feelings of fatigue and cause you to experience low moods and feel completely lethargic even in the middle of the day. That’s why if you are feeling down in the dumps you may want to look at your diet. Try and add some more fruit and veg and see what kind of impact that has because you might be surprised. More importantly, do your best to stay away from processed foods.

All foods are too an extent processed however it’s the ready meals that are the real issue. These meals are packed with sugar to add flavour, and the levels of sugar often contained tend to play havoc with the body.

Run For Your Life

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Last but not least, you might want to consider heading out for a run if you’re feeling tired and run down. This might seem counterproductive. After all, surely running is going to tire you out even more. But according to research, running can be beneficial for levels of stress and may even have an impact on ageing. As such, it could certainly be worth giving it a shot. The benefit of the running, of course, is that it actually gives every area of your body a workout. This is one of the reasons why, despite the strain, people tend to feel invigorated after a long run.

We hope you find this advice useful and work to build yourself back up when you’re feeling completely out of it and run down.

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