Vitamin Deficiency and Your Skin

Although taking your vitamins doesn't mean you'll never need to wash your face or exfoliate again, making sure you're not deficiency in particular vitamins & minerals can definitely go a long way in helping your skin care routine. Combined with the good old basics of skin care, proper nutrition could give your skin the boost it needs!

Here are some common symptoms of mineral and vitamin deficiency:

• Acne: Acne lesions can be triggered by deficiencies in vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin C, biotin, and zinc.

• Dry Skin: Focus on the proper intake of vitamins A and C, which will replenish and rejuvenate your skin from the inside out.

• Oily Skin: This is a similar symptom to acne breakouts and lesions, but if your skin is excessively oily, it is best to focus on your vitamin B2 intake. This is a common deficiency that can cause oiliness in the complexion, often creating painful acne lesions or making it difficult for your makeup to stay on all day long.

• Rosacea: Rosacea is exacerbated by a vitamin B2 deficiency. Having a proper vitamin B2 intake will work to balance complexion and prevent the redness and swelling that is so common with a rosacea flareup.

• Stretch Marks: If you want to minimize stretch marks in your skin, focus on vitamins E and B6, as well as an ample intake of zinc.

Easy Green & Natural Polisher You Can Do at Home!

Although I've never tried it myself, I've read that pineapple is natural skin polisher that comes with a clinical proof of efficiency! Apparently, just rubbing your skin with a slice of pineapple works magic on dilated pores and minor skin flakiness.

So what is it about pineapple that makes it so special? Bromelain! Pineapples have an abundance of this enzyme that is clinically used as a skin debrider (dead tissue remover) when treating burns.

Additionally, I found out that in a study done by the University of Honolulu, the researchers found that bromelain interferes with growth of malignant cells (essentially slowing down the growth of these malignant cells ) while also decreasing inflammation! Now that's some sweet stuff :)

Homemade Herbal Tea: Apple & Cinnamon

With the recent snow storm warnings, shoveling, and bitter cold winds, I can't help but crave a hot drink! When I've had more sugar that should be allowed (usually from hot chocolate with lots of whip cream!), I look for a hot cup of tea. I drink a lot of green and white tea, but sometimes those are just aren't exciting enough! If you're craving a great cup of tea (and possibility snowed in with some time on your hands), then try out this delicious apple & cinnamon tea recipe:

• In a small pot, combine ½ cup dried apples and 1 cinnamon stick.
• Add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil, then turn off the heat and steep for 5 minutes, covered.
• Pour the tea into a mug and drink, and then munch on the soft, warm apple slices at the bottom! You can reuse the cinnamon stick several times.

Enjoy :)

Does Cranberry Juice Help With Urinary Tract Infections?

Cranberry juice has long had an anecdotal association with fighting urinary tract infections (UTI). UTI are largely the result of E. coli bacteria, which affix themselves and colonise the bladder and urinary system. Recent research has however confirmed how effective cranberry juice fights bacteria and infection at the molecular level.

The US-based Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) found that the little hooks which E. coli use to affix themselves to the lining of the urinary tract are susceptible to cranberry juice exposure, and lose their ability to attach effectively with extended exposure. This makes them more likely to be swept away with the passage of urine in the urinary tract. Furthermore their ability to attach was found to be directly related to the concentration of cranberry juice in the urine.

The bottom line: YES! Add cranberry juice to your regular diet but make sure it's the SUGAR FREE kind.

Getting Enough Sleep is Worth it!

Many of you who know me well know I take my sleep seriously! After struggling with insomnia for over 10 years due to health complications, I'm finally able to sleep and I take advantage of that fact at every chance I get! I'm extremely blessed to be able to work from home on my own schedule because most of the time this allows me to sleep when I need to and for as long as I need to (I average 10 - 12 hours at a time!); this in turn helps me cope much better with the symptoms of AS & fibro that I experience on a daily basis. I know many of you don't have the luxury of being able to sleep as much as you would like - or even WHEN you would like - and I feel for you! I know how much better I feel when I can get a good night sleep (or in my case, a good day sleep!). I'm sure you've heard how important getting enough sleep is to your health but I wanted to share that importance with you again because I think it's especially important as we move into the busy holiday season. Please don't sell yourself short by skipping out on sleep! Not only will this impact your physical health, it can also be detrimental to your emotional health, your relationships, your work, and your overall happiness. If you're having problems sleeping, trust me, I've been there! There were a number of reasons that I experienced insomnia for so long and it took a long time to get each of those reasons figured out and dealt with, but I'm telling you, it was worth the continued fight and frustrating because the pay off of being able to sleep (and sleep well) is worth it's weight in gold! If you're having problems sleeping more often than not, I urge you to talk to your health care providers! It may take a while for them to figure out what's keeping you from dreamland, but stick with it and be an advocate for your own health! If you don't, nobody else will and please know that your physical and emotional well being is worth fighting for!

Sassy all tried out after last Halloween!

What Exactly is Sleep?

Physiologically speaking, sleep is the daily restful state all humans need to assume on a daily basis in order to replenish and live another day. It is a reduced state of motor activity in which consciousness of the surrounding world is suspended due to the diminished sensory stimulation response that occurs when a person lies down and closes their eyes.

Science has now revealed that sleep is fact a dynamic process in which the brain continues to work while we sleep. Some of these activities include:

• The production and release of certain proteins essential to growth (especially in children) and tissue repair.
• Replenishment to areas of the brain responsible for emotional and social functioning throughout the day.
• Helping the mind learn complicated tasks by retrieving knowledge potentially forgotten throughout the day.
• The preservation of emotional memories, whose components become unbound throughout the sleep process.

Brain Activity in Sleep

Brain activity plays an important role in the sleep cycle. It directs the chemicals responsible for nerve signaling (neurotransmitters) to act on nerve cells in different areas of the brain whether the person is asleep or not. These nerve cells (brain cells otherwise known as neurons) control sleep by inhibiting the other parts of the brain that keep an individual awake.

Princess & Drew catching a nap on the couch :)

5 Good Reasons to Get Enough Sleep

Memory and learning – the sleep cycle helps the brain in committing new information to memory via the process of memory consolidation. Scientific studies have also linked higher test results to students that had slept after learning the particular task being tested.

Weight and metabolism – a disturbed sleep cycle and chronic states of insomnia have been linked to a disturbance in metabolism and consequent weight gain. This can be attributed to its affect on appetite-controlling hormones and the ways in which carbohydrate is stored and processed.

Safety – daytime errors and mishaps such as falls, medical errors, air traffic mishaps and road accidents can statistically be linked to disturbed sleeping patterns prior to the event taking place.

Mood – a disturbed sleep cycle can cause an imbalanced amount of hormones and neurotransmitters, causing irritability, impatience, moodiness and concentration difficulty.Cardiovascular Health – Science has linked disrupted sleep and sleep disorders to conditions harmful to cardiovascular health, including irregular heartbeats and hypertension.

Disease – A lack of sleep directly affects the activity of the body’s killer cells and therefore depletes the body’s immune system. Recent studies have also shown good quality sleep patterns may play a part in the fight against cancer.

How Much Sleep is Enough?

Adults: 7-8 hours per night (although some adults may function better with 5-10 hours of sleep a night)

Teenagers: 9 hours per night

Infants: 16 hours throughout the course of the day and night.

Pregnant women: need increased amounts of sleep, particularly in the first trimester of pregnancy.

Noel using me as a pillow!

Easy Ways to Relax and Combat Stress

Relaxation is important and being able to let go of the stress of everyday life and recharge is what can make the difference between striving and thriving! This is especially important as we head into the busiest time of year for most people - the Christmas season. If you're already feeling stressed out, it's particularly important for you to get a handle on that mental strain now before you feel completely overwhelmed and start looking for cave to hibernate in!

There are many different ways the body can relax and which one you choose will depend on the amount of time you have, what you are comfortable with and what you enjoy. Read on for some great relaxation methods.

1. Relax Your Muscles

One great way of relaxing the body is using progressive muscle relaxation. This is easy to do:

• While sitting quietly and comfortably, close your eyes and slowly breathe in and out.
• Bend your right hand back at the wrist, briefly hold it and relax.
• Do the same with the left wrist.
• Form fists with your hands, hold them and feel the tension spreading up towards the elbow before relaxing.
• Bend both arms up at the elbows and raise your hands towards your shoulders, tightening the biceps.
• Hold and then relax.
• To relax the face, first raise your eyebrows as high as you can, hold and relax.
• For the eyes, squeeze your eyelids shut, holding and then relaxing.
• For the jaw, just bite down, hold and relax.
• To relax the neck, bend your head forward, feeling the tension at the back of the neck and then relax.
• Raise your shoulders, hold them, drop them and relax.
• To relax the chest, you will need to take a deep breath and hold it while trying to touch your shoulder blades together by pulling your arms back.
• To relax the stomach, just pull it in, hold and relax.
• Relax the back by arching away from the chair and holding it for a bit before relaxing.
• The next step is to place your feet flat on the floor and press down to feel tension, holding it and then relaxing.
• For the thighs, raise first the right leg and hold it for a little before relaxing.
• Do the same for the left.
• To relax the feet, bend the toes up and then relax.
• Provided you have stayed calm and still, your body will continue to relax and your mind will follow. Think of pleasant places and things so that your mind does not wander back to more mundane thoughts and worries.

2. Play Music

Music is actually one of the most common ways for people to relax and de-stress themselves. There are specific types of music that are geared towards relaxation but all types of music are capable of helping you to relax. By listening to music that you enjoy, the sound receptors trigger the brain to release dopamine, which is associated with elevated mood and pleasure.

3. Reduce Stimulation

Too much stimulation can actually cause stress to the body and make it difficult for it to relax. This could be caffeine from tea, coffee or soft drinks, loud noises, sudden movements and so on. Cutting these out of your lifestyle and replacing them with healthy alternatives such as softer sounds, slower movements, and healthier water, herbal tea, and juices can keep your body on a quieter, more even keel.

4. Breathe Deeply - Batty's fav!

Deep breathing is actually one of the most important things that we can do to help our bodies to relax. By focusing on your breathing, your mind automatically starts to quieten. Deep breathing also helps you to get more oxygen into your body and expel more waste products, so you start to feel more invigorated. The extra oxygen also helps to reduce stress and makes you feel better.

5. Meditate

Meditation is extremely beneficial to the body, with relaxation being just one of the benefits. There are different types of meditation to choose from but in general, meditation is about calming and taming the mind, so that you are no longer thinking about stresses, anxieties and worries. It is about quieting the mind and dissolving stress. Meditation can be done anywhere whenever you have a few spare moments.

6. Do Gentle Exercise

Exercise not only helps with your physical fitness, it can also help you to relax as well. For exercise to be beneficial for relaxing, you don’t need to go on a long run or do be vigorous. Gentle exercise such as walking, swimming or cycling will help to release the body’s feel good chemicals called endorphins, reducing stress and leaving you on a natural high.

7. Look at your Lifestyle

Your lifestyle can actually have a significant effect on how stressed you are. If you are always going out to your next appointment or obligation, only grabbing takeaways when you have a few spare moments, and so on, your body becomes run down and finds it harder to deal with stress. Try having a few nights to yourself a week, where you can sit down and not have to be anywhere or answer to anyone. If you can’t manage a whole night, try to fit in an hour or two just to yourself. Eating a healthy diet filled with fresh vegetables, fruits, balanced proteins, and healthy carbohydrates can also be of tremendous benefit, strengthening the body and supporting the mind.

8. Think Positively

It may sound simplistic but thinking positively can make a huge difference to how stressed you feel and how relaxed you are overall. Negative emotions and thoughts can cause stress to build up in the muscles and make you feel on edge mentally. Thinking that you can instead of you can’t makes a whole lot of difference. You will feel better able to cope with the pressures of everyday life and your mood will be a lot lighter and happier. Another advantage of positive thinking is that putting out good things in the universe will tend to net you good things in return.

Beauty from the Inside Out: Tomato Sauce

It's one thing to pamper your body on the outside with skin-loving handmade bath & body products, but what about the inside? Natural beauty just doesn't come from the products we put on our skin, but it also comes from our state of mind (being healthy mentally and content - I'll touch on this more in future posts) and from the foods we feed our bodies.

Today's power food is Tomato Sauce!

You're probably thinking, "you mean my super budget friendly would-put-a-college-student-to-shame cheap pasta and sauce is good for me!?".. Yup, that's what I'm saying! Although now that you're "grown up", you may want to opt for the whole wheat pasta, but keep that tomato sauce coming because it's full of lycopene. Lycopene is an antioxidant that helps skin protect itself from the suns rays. One of word of advice though, stick with the low-sodium brands.

Beauty from the Inside Out: Flaxseed

It's one thing to pamper your body on the outside with skin-loving handmade bath & body products, but what about the inside? Natural beauty just doesn't come from the products we put on our skin, but it also comes from our state of mind (being healthy mentally and content - I'll touch on this more in future posts) and from the foods we feed our bodies.

Today's power food is Flaxseed!

For person who don't like fish or are vegans, flaxseed is a great source of omega fatty acids. Omega 3 fatty acids help your skin repair itself, is responsible for moisture content, and will help build flexible cell membranes.

So where can you get your dose of flaxseed?

There's lots of cereals that now contain flaxseed plus you can buy it pre-ground and add it to just about anything! You'll want to go for the ground version because your body can't digest whole flaxseeds. You can also get additional doses of omega fatty acids from canola oil, salmon, soybean oil, and walnuts.

Beauty from the Inside Out: Almonds

It's one thing to pamper your body on the outside with skin-loving handmade bath & body products, but what about the inside? Natural beauty just doesn't come from the products we put on our skin, but it also comes from our state of mind (being healthy mentally and content - I'll touch on this more in future posts) and from the foods we feed our bodies.

Today's power food is Almonds!

So what do almond have to do with natural beauty?

Well, almonds have vitamin E! Vitamin E is an antioxidant that helps protect our skin cells from the sun's damaging rays. If that wasn't enough, Vitamin E does some other marvelous things to keep our natural beauty shining through - it helps form muscle and tissue to prevent premature aging of the skin (close enough to the fountain of youth right?), and it helps protect the skin from dryness.

But aren't almonds why in calories?

Indeed, nuts can be high in calories but don't worry about getting extra junk in the trunk just to get Vitamin E's benefits! You only need a handful of almonds! About 25 almonds provide half of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin E!

Not into almonds?

Try sunflower seeds, sunflower oil, hazelnuts, or peanuts :)

Beauty from the Inside Out: Orange Juice

It's one thing to pamper your body on the outside with skin-loving handmade bath & body products, but what about the inside? Natural beauty just doesn't come from the products we put on our skin, but it also comes from our state of mind (being healthy mentally and content - I'll touch on this more in future posts) and from the foods we feed our bodies.

Today I want to talk about a power food - Oranges!

As you probably know, orange juice is packed with vitamin C. Vitamin C neautralizes free racials in the body (as all antioxidants do). This is a good thing because free radicals damage cells and accelerate aging and disease - if that's not enough to get you to drink your orange juice, I don't know what is! lol.

If you need another reason to get your share of oranges or orange juice, what about this: You need the vitamin C that's found in oranges for the production of collagen which helps prevent our skin from wrinkling and sagging. Sure we can deal with these imperfections with make up and a good primer, but wouldn't you rather avoid them in the first place? In time, we'll all get some great, well earned laugh lines (yes, I'm actually PROUD of mine), but I'd like to avoid looking like that cartoon on the "old maid" card game too quickly! (And I'm not talking about the newer, prettier version! Oh no, I'm talking about the old haggard looking ones from my childhood! The scary thing is I think there may be a resemblance between me and a mix of the "dippy dabb" and the "wacky witch" haha)

If you don't like oranges, don't worry - there's a few other sources of vitamin c including broccoli, grapefruit and strawberries (however your best bet is still oranges!).

Now, I'm off to drink some yummy OJ!

Beauty from the Inside Out: Mangoes

It's one thing to pamper your body on the outside with skin-loving handmade bath & body products, but what about the inside? Natural beauty just doesn't come from the products we put on our skin, but it also comes from our state of mind (being healthy mentally and content - I'll touch on this more in future posts) and from the foods we feed our bodies.

Today I want to talk about a power food - Mangoes!

Mangoes is just one of the foods available to us that is packed with skin-saving nutrients. They are sweet, delicious, an dare an excellent source of beta carotene.

Why do we care about getting beta carotene in our diet?

Well, beta carotene is converted into vitamin A which our bodies need to maintain healthy skin and repair skin tissues. Dry and flaky skin can be a sign of inadequate amounts of vitamin A or from using harsh commercial cleansers that are full of detergents (rather than actual skin loving soap - I explain the different in this post).

A helpful tip: A good thing to know about mangoes, particularly in the summer, is that the vitamin A that your body will get from them may help reduce skin inflammation after too much sun.

When picking out mangoes go for a mango that feels right; ripe mangoes should be slightly soft to the touch.

Not into mangoes?

No worries! I get a lot of my beta carotene from sweet potatoes, but you can also get it from carrots, pumpkin and apricots!