Author: HealthyWay Staff Writer

3 Free Money Apps That Can Help You Get Your (Financial) Life Together

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date June 9, 2018

If your phone isn’t loaded up with a few money apps, you’re missing out. By pairing state-of-the-art tech with simple, easy-to-follow saving techniques, money apps can transform your ho-hum savings account to help you meet your money goals. That’s a big deal since the majority of Americans struggle with financial literacy.
We’ve rounded up a few of the most popular free money apps available on both the Apple Store and Google Play. Before we introduce them, remember: Money apps help you put good concepts into practice, but they’re useless if you don’t put some effort into developing sound financial habits. What’s more, an app that works perfectly for your best friend might not appeal to you.
“I always suggest using what works for you,” says Ellie Thompson, CEO of Money Therapy Consulting. “If you find that budgeting apps are distracting, go without. If you find them useful to keep track of your finances, then there are many to choose from. Just like a diet, a budget should be tailored to what works for you.”
With that said, Thompson notes that certain money apps can make intimidating ideas—for instance, sticking to a budget or saving for retirement—much more approachable.
If you’re looking for a place to get started, here are a few free money apps that have caught our attention.

Mint

The granddaddy of free money apps, Mint has revamped budgeting for the 21st century. Enter in your bank accounts, credit cards, mortgage, car loan—pretty much anything that involves a bank or credit union—and Mint will build your financial portfolio. It has powerful tools for creating budgets and saving money, and because it tracks purchases automatically, it’s relatively hands off.

“Money managing apps are useful because they aggregate all of your information into one dashboard,” Thompson says. “They allow you to check in and see where you stand financially without having to log in to every different account. They help keep you accountable if you are striving for a financial goal, and they remind you if you have gotten off track.”
“Mint is made for the masses, but one drawback is that it does not hone in on investing capabilities,” she notes.
“Once you know your spending is tracked, it’s easy to highlight the areas of improvement,” notes Sean Potter, the mind behind the popular My Money Wizard blog. “And just knowing there’s a record of my spending somehow encourages me to spend less and save more.”

With that said, Potter prefers the similar Personal Capital app for his money management needs since it provides a better set of tools for monitoring investments. Personal Capital, is also free, but Mint’s probably the better choice if you’re taking your first steps toward a healthier financial future.
Download Mint for iOS and Android and Personal Capital for iOS and Android.

Digit

Digit automatically transfers small amounts of money out of your checking account to help you move painlessly toward your savings goals. The FDIC-insured service takes a small amount per day based on what you’re earning and what you can afford.

When we signed up, the app moved $6.50 toward our rainy day fund, and for the first week, most automatic transfers averaged around $5 to $8. After a week, we stopped thinking about the transfers but our balance continued to grow.
Digit is designed to work primarily through text messaging but there’s a free mobile app and a web app you can use as well. After you’ve set up your account, you’ll receive regular updates on the status of your savings goals, and the positive feedback makes it easier to commit to the process. You can also add additional users to your account, which can be helpful if you have a joint checking account.

The downside is that Digit is only free for the first 100 days, at which point it costs $2.99 a month. It does provide 1 percent annual cash back on saved funds that’s paid every three months. In other words, you’d likely save more by using some discipline and a standard savings account, but if you’re having trouble putting any money away, Digit’s algorithm-driven system deserves some attention. There is something liberating about saving money without actively thinking about it.
Download Digit for iOS and Android.

Acorns

Like Digit, Acorns is designed to turn the process of saving money into a painless part of your day. Install the free app, connect your debit and credit card accounts, and the app will automatically round up your purchases and invest the difference. In other words, if you buy a latte for $4.93, Acorns invests $0.07 on your behalf. The investments are diversified over thousands of stocks, and you can choose a risk level that matches your investment strategy.
“Investing in the stock market can be intimidating and scary, but Acorn settles the uneasy millennial mind,” says Natasha Rachel Smith, personal finance expert at TopCashback.com. “This is a great app for those who are new to investing and are genuinely interested in learning about the stock market.”
Although it eventually makes money, note that technically speaking Acorns isn’t free; it costs $1 per month for all accounts with a balance under $5,000 and 0.25 percent of the balance per year on accounts over $5,000.
To really make the most of Acorns, you’ll want to set up recurring investments since small roundups won’t exactly set you up for retirement. Still, Acorns’ simple approach makes it a powerful tool for first-time investors.
Download Acorns for iOS and Android.

Free money apps can get you started, but they’re a means to an end.

Once you’ve used these apps for a while, try increasing the percentage of money you save from each paycheck.

“I urge my clients to use the 50/20/30 rule if they are new to budgeting,” Thompson says. “This is where you spend 50 percent of your income on fixed expenses, 20 percent on savings goals, and 30 percent on guilt-free spending. I find that percentages are much easier to stick to and to start out with. Also, it gives you a good baseline into what areas you may be overspending.”

Be sure to check out our guide to budgeting for a more in-depth look at money management. Remember, financial literacy doesn’t mean living in squalor and meticulously counting pennies; it means guilt-free spending, more financial freedom, and, most importantly, peace of mind when something unexpected happens.
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Gym x Studio Sweat

Tabata Workouts And Why Personal Trainers Think You Should Try Them

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date June 7, 2018

If you’re new to the fitness world, you may have noticed some unfamiliar terms popping up on the fliers on the bulletin board at your local gym. Maybe you’ve seen a mention of the violent-sounding HIIT or guessed at which syllable gets the inflection in Tabata.
While these terms might seem very different, they’re quite closely related—and you should really get to know them. High-intensity interval training (HIIT)—specifically the practice known as Tabata—is actually one of the most successful methods for fat loss.
Tabata workouts have become increasingly popular over the last few years, but how do you know if this type of training is right for you? What exactly is HIIT, and what makes Tabata workouts so great, anyway?
We’ll tell you everything you need to know about Tabata training and how to incorporate this method in your own fitness plan.

Understanding High-Intensity Interval Training

First of all, what is HIIT? The answer is in the name (when you actually spell it out)! HIIT workouts include a cycle of high-intensity movements followed by a rest period followed by more intensity, and on and on until you’re done. The idea is that you physically go all out during the “on” time (and kind of always wish the “off” times were a little longer).
This type of interval training works by increasing your anaerobic capacity—your body’s ability to physically function without oxygen. Why would you ever want your body to perform tasks without oxygen, you ask? Well, exercising to oxygen deficit with HIIT can eventually increase your endurance and help with fat loss.
Generally speaking, there are two types of exercise, certified personal trainer and nutrition expert Kyra Williams tells HealthyWay. “Aerobic [exercise] is like going for a jog or doing 20 continuous minutes of bodyweight exercises,” Williams says. “Anaerobic [exercise] is something you would do where you become out of breath in just a few seconds, like sprinting up a flight of steps.”
Aerobic exercises, such as taking a walk, will also help you lose fat and can be a great stress-relief option, Williams explains. But too much aerobic exercise has a tendency to backfire.
“If you were to do something like [go] for a 5-mile jog every day, this can actually increase stress on your body and cause you to store fat,” says Williams.
This is where interval training comes into play. “HIIT is not only time saving, but it depletes glycogen from the body very quickly then targets fat stores and is done so quickly, it spares your hard-earned muscle,” she adds.
Tabata workouts fall into the HIIT category. The Tabata method is named for its creator, Japanese researcher Izumi Tabata (pronounced tuh-BAH-tuh, not tab-bit-TA).
In a study Tabata conducted, participants showed a higher increase in metabolism and anaerobic capacity after doing short interval exercises five days a week for six weeks compared to other participants who performed longer workouts at less-intense capacities. Thus the Tabata method was born.

Tabata: the Basics

A Tabata workout is made up of timed intervals in which you push yourself to work as hard as you can for short bursts of time. Then you get to chill out a bit, although you keep moving during the rest interval. The typical timing for Tabata exercises is 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, repeated eight times. This means you can complete an entire Tabata workout in just four minutes.
The quick workout time is definitely a benefit of using the Tabata method.
“Tabata can be done as a stand-alone workout or paired with pretty much any workout,” says certified trainer and health coach Corey Phelps. “It is excellent for those who are short on time or anybody looking to make the most out of every minute of their workout.”
Tabata is also incredibly versatile. ”You can perform almost any movement Tabata-style as long as you are completing only one movement for the four-minute cycle and going all out,” says Phelps.
Plus, Tabata workouts don’t require any specific weights or equipment, so you can do them almost anywhere. You can use the timer on your phone or download a Tabata timer app to keep track of your reps.
It’s a good idea (especially when first starting out) to pay close attention to your heart rate during a Tabata workout. For most people, the target heart rate should be at about 75 percent when you’re “on,” depending on exertion and your level of ability.
While you don’t need a heart-rate monitor, they do make tracking all of this pretty easy. If you don’t have a monitor, you can also simply use this reference guide to calculate your target heart rate.
Here’s an important note: If you start to feel dizzy or lightheaded during a workout, stop and take a break. You might be pushing yourself too hard and increasing your heart rate too much. Take a longer rest period, drink some water, and don’t go quite as hard on the next round. Always be sure to listen to your body during these types of workouts! There’s a thin line between pushing yourself and overexerting your body.

Tabata Exercises You Should Try

Here are some great beginner exercises to get yourself acquainted with the Tabata method.

Mountain Climbers: Mountain climbers are excellent for upper-body and core conditioning. To do this exercise, set yourself in a plank position. Start your Tabata timer, and then alternate pulling your knees toward your chest (think running in place, but with your hands on the floor). Keep alternating your legs for the entire 20 seconds, and then rest for 10 seconds.
Burpees: No one likes doing burpees—but they are a great full-body motion you should incorporate into your workout routine. Don’t worry if you struggle with this motion (especially when Tabataing). If it seems hard, that’s because it is. But the more you do it, the easier it will get. Start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart. Bring your hands to the floor and then jump your legs out so you’re in a plank position. Do a push-up and jump your legs back up toward your hands. Then as you stand, jump as high as you can with your arms over your head.
Sprints: Sprints are one of the most common Tabata exercises. The idea is simple—you’re sprinting almost as hard as you can possibly go for 20 seconds and then either jogging or walking for the 10-second rest. Make sure you find a sprint speed you can endure for the entire 20 seconds and don’t go too hard too soon.
Medicine Ball Slams: This is a great exercise to work out your upper body and release some pent-up aggression. Pick out a medicine ball that isn’t too heavy (remember you have eight rounds of these) and make sure the floor you’re standing on can handle some good slams. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding the medicine ball out in front of you. Extend your arms as far as you can overhead, then flex your core and throw the ball as hard as you can to the ground. It’s important to keep your back straight and your abs engaged throughout this motion.

If you want to kick things up a notch, you can try a whole Tabata circuit. This is where you go through multiple movements back to back with Tabata timing for all eight rounds. These workouts are no joke, and you’ll definitely be feeling it when you finish.
A good beginner circuit includes push-ups, squats, medicine ball slams, and jumping rope.
The circuit would go:

Push-ups for 20 seconds
10-second rest
Squat for 20 seconds
10-second rest
Ball slams for 20 seconds
10-second rest
Jump rope for 20 seconds
10-second rest
And then repeat all of that seven more times.

Just remember to pay attention to your body when you start down this Tabata path. Take things slow, be sure to do some kind of warmup, stay hydrated, and don’t feel bad about taking a break—after all, Tabata really puts the “intensity” into “high-intensity interval training.” And that’s why it works.

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Fitness Advice x Motivation Sweat

Decoding The Microbiome: Can Exercise Promote Healthy Gut Bacteria?

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date June 6, 2018

Need yet another reason to get on the treadmill or roll out the yoga mat? Scientists have found evidence that regular exercise could help you maintain a healthier microbiome.
Your microbiome, of course, is all of the microorganisms living on you and inside you—bacteria, viruses, fungi, protists, and other stuff you likely remember from ninth grade biology class, collectively referred to as microbiota. This microscopic world is somewhat mysterious; scientists know that the microbiome plays a critical role in keeping us healthy, but studying the vast number of organisms living in any given person is, well, complicated to say the least.
What we do know is that exercise seems to help our gut microbiota do their job. A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that exercise alters the composition and function of the microbiota. We spoke with University of Illinois professor Jeffrey Woods, PhD, one of the leaders of the study, to find out what this insight really means for our gut health (and our next trip to the gym).

In your body’s microbiome, nothing’s really simple.

Things get pretty complicated at a microscopic level, so while we’d love to generalize and say that exercise helps good bacteria and kills bad bacteria, that’s not exactly the case. In fact, scientists try to avoid terms like “good” or “bad,” since a particular species of bacteria might be beneficial in one area of the body and detrimental in another area.

It’s also important to understand that every person’s microbiome is different. Bacteria that serve an important function in one person might be entirely absent from another person.

“That’s what makes it so hard to compare between people,” Woods says, “[It’s] better if measured over time in one person. [Other factors] contributing to the differences include our environment—mode of birth, where we live, what we eat, who we cohabitate with—and our genetics.”
We do know that the microbiome is incredibly important to our overall health.
“The microbiome is tasked with important jobs, such as digestion, synthesizing vitamins and hormones, and training our immune system,” says Samantha Nazareth, MD, a gastroenterologist in New York City. “These microbes have even been implicated in weight control. There are more than 100 trillion microorganisms.”
If you’re like us, your eyes just homed in on that “weight control” comment. In one study referenced by Anthony L. Komaroff, MD, of Harvard Health Letter, scientists transferred bacteria from two strains of mice, one of which was naturally obese and one of which was naturally lean, to a third strain of naturally lean mice. The mice that received gut bacteria from the obese group gained weight, while the other group stayed lean.
But before you go rushing out to buy probiotic weight products, note that scientists still aren’t sure how the microbiome works—and they’re generally skeptical of over-the-counter supplements.
“It is difficult to say what benefit people gain by buying probiotic supplements, which may not be standardized,” says Amesh Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “A less costly alternative may be to consume fermented foods such as kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, and the like.”

Another inexpensive way to change your microbiota: Exercise.

That’s where Woods’ research comes in. For the study, the scientists found 32 men and women who didn’t exercise at all. Those participants began a moderate workout routine consisting of 30 minutes of easy cardiovascular exercise (walking or cycling), performed three times per week. Over time, the workouts increased in intensity. The participants were told not to change their diets.

After six weeks of exercise, the volunteers were told to stop exercising. Researchers then repeated the tests after another six weeks.
“We found that six weeks of moderate to vigorous endurance exercise in previously sedentary adults altered the gut microbiota and some of the things that it can produce,” Woods tells HealthyWay. “This effect was greater in lean people when compared to obese people.”

With that said, the effect was noticeable in both groups. Woods’ study references “compositional and functional” changes in the microbiota; we asked him to explain what those changes were.
“The compositional changes refer to ‘who’s there?’ in our gut microbiotas,” he says. “The technology we used gave us an indication of the different types of bacteria present in the samples—we did not measure viruses [or other microorganisms]. The functional changes relate to the capacity of the bacteria to produce short-chain fatty acids, a potentially beneficial metabolite produced by some bacteria.”

After the tests, participants’ microbiota had changed considerably and were producing more of those short-chain fatty acids. Here’s the big question: Are these good changes for the body?
“Potentially,” Woods says. “Short-chain fatty acids have shown to be anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic. However, their production can also increase energy harvest from food—good if you are increasing energy expenditure, bad if you are overweight or obese and want to reduce energy storage.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the fastest way to lose weight is to stop exercising. By far, the most important factor in weight loss is caloric consumption, so even if those short-chain fatty acids change the way that we harvest energy from food, exercise still has overwhelming benefits for a weight-loss strategy.

When considering any microbiome study, remember: It’s complicated.

Scientists are just starting to understand how our bodies’ microbiota function, and although we don’t want to belabor the point, it’s crucial to keep that in mind when reading the results of these types of studies.

We asked Woods whether he could draw any conclusions as to how—or why—exercise changes our microbiota.
“This is the big question,” he says. “We did show that [the effect] was not due to changes in diet or other confounding factors. As for how this type of exercise might alter the gut microbiota, we don’t know. Possibilities include alterations in gut immune function, gut blood flow, production of host metabolites that interact with bacteria, increased gastrointestinal motility or other exercise-induced hormones or factors that can interact with the gut bacteria directly or indirectly through interactions with our immune or enteric nervous system.”
Keeping that in mind, Woods does believe that exercise helps us maintain a healthy microbiome. As with all things, moderation is key. Although starting an exercise program could dramatically change a person’s microbiota, overexertion can have the opposite effect.
“Moderate to low-end vigorous exercise appears to be beneficial to our gut and its bacteria in healthy lean and obese adults (more so in lean). However, there is evidence that a small fraction of people who overdo the exercise—i.e., prolonged high intensity endurance exercise or competitions, especially if [the person is underprepared] or if performed in hot, humid conditions—may induce transient damage to their intestines,” he notes. “We did not study that aspect, but others have.”

Woods theorizes that his research explains some of the benefits of exercise.

For instance, other studies have shown that even 20 minutes of regular exercise reduces inflammation throughout the body. That’s important because inflammation is responsible for a host of serious health issues, including high blood pressure, some types of cancer, and type 2 diabetes. The changes in the gut microbiota could be responsible for some of that anti-inflammatory effect.
If you’re hoping that your microbiome will reap the benefits of exercise, keep these tips in mind:

Consistency is important.

Participants in the study engaged in 30 minutes of moderate exercise three times per week, so that’s a good place to start if exercise isn’t currently a regular part of your life. Long-term consistency is more important than the length of your individual workouts.

Diet affects your microbiome, too.

While Woods’ study shows that exercise affects the microbiota independent of other factors, that doesn’t mean that you can ignore diet entirely.
“We are in the infancy of understanding how to manipulate one’s microbiome,” says Adalja. “However, there are studies which compare microbiomes of those with high- and low-fiber diets which reveal marked differences. High-fiber diets favor specific microbes, and given we know the benefits of high-fiber diets for prevention of certain conditions such as colon cancer, there is likely a link between diet, the microbiome, and health.”

A high-fiber, low-sugar diet will likely help you maintain a healthy microbiome, so if you’re really concerned with your microbiota, that’s likely a good place to start.

Be careful when making significant lifestyle or dietary changes.

We’re sure this is obvious, but you shouldn’t dramatically change your diet or engage in a strenuous new exercise regimen before speaking with your doctor. That’s particularly important if you’re on any medication or if you have any ongoing health issues.
Woods acknowledges that more research needs to be done to confirm his team’s findings. In any case, it’s an exciting time for researchers—and for anyone looking to incorporate moderate exercise in their daily routine.

Just remember that the human microbiome is a relatively new field of study. If you’re going to start exercising, your gut bacteria probably shouldn’t be your primary motivation (although it is a nice secondary motivation).

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No Gym Required Sweat

Why Pool Workouts Are The Ultimate Summertime Exercise

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date June 5, 2018

You might think of swimming pools and beaches as places to relax and catch some rays, but they also make excellent gyms. There are tons of exercises you can do in the water, and we’re not just talking about swimming laps.
If you have your own backyard pool, using it to exercise is a no-brainer. If, like most of us, you don’t, there’s always the community pool or your local YMCA. Whatever it takes to try pool exercises, trust us, it’s worth it.
Moving your workout routine to the pool can help beat burnout, re-energize your motivation, and allow your body to activate and work muscles you’ve been missing at the terrestrial gym. Plus, exercises in the pool are low-impact, meaning they’re easier on your joints. If you have access to a pool this summer, consider trying out some of the following workouts. Your body will thank you!

What the Pool Workout Has Over a Standard Gym

Pool workouts have a ton of benefits for people of all ages and abilities.
“Water workouts are safe for most people, as the low-to-no-impact movements and hydrostatic pressure can be therapeutic for those with injuries or other limiting factors,” certified trainer and certified Aqua Group Fitness Instructor Kelly Morgan tells HealthyWay.
Pool exercises are especially helpful for those in cardiac disease rehabilitation, as well as people with diabetes who may physically struggle with exercising.
“This type of exercise is also customizable and adaptable to any ability, and the intensity can be changed easily,” says Morgan. “Many of the movements are simple and familiar!”
Once you’re in the pool, you don’t need any equipment to have a successful workout. However, adding some pool noodles or aquatic weights is always a great option when you want to incorporate more resistance into your pool workout.

Pool Exercises for the Whole Body

So you’ve made your way to the water. What now? Well, that’s mostly your call! Pool exercises can be customized in many different ways, so you can work your whole body or target specific areas. Here are some of Morgan’s favorite pool exercises.
Pick and choose your favorites and build your own routine. Try doing three sets of eight reps for each movement. If that’s too easy, move to three sets of 10! You can perform each of these exercises one at a time, resting in between each set, or you can develop a circuit for a full-body workout.

Pool Exercises for the Arms

Perform arm workouts in the pool with or without weights. These exercises work best in neck-high water so that your arms remain submerged for the most part.

Bicep Curls: Lift your arms out in front of until they are just below the surface of the water. Flip your arms so that your forearms are facing up. Then bend your arms at the elbows and raise your hands (or weights) toward your shoulders, up and out of the water.
Side Raises: Start with your arms (and weights if you’re using them) down by your sides under water. Lift your arms out to your sides until they are just below the surface of the water, making a T-shape with your body. Return to your starting position.
Front Raises: Start with your arms down in front of your body under water. Lift your arms out in front of you until they’re just below the surface of the water, then return to your starting position.
Punches: Hold your hands (with or without weights) close to your chest, just below the water’s surface. Punch straight out to the front, alternating arms.
Tricep Dips: Stand with your back against the pool wall and your hands on the ledge. Push down to lift your body out of the water, and then slowly lower your body back into the water.

Pool Exercises for the Legs

Swimming and treading water are great exercises for the legs, but they don’t necessarily isolate the region. These moves will give your leg muscles what they need without involving your whole body in the motion.

Flutter Kicks: Keeping your legs just under the water’s surface, do small, quick kicks. You can do these kicks while holding onto the side of the pool wall or with a kickboard. If you have the space, it can be fun to travel a bit while doing flutter kicks.
Frog Jump: Find a spot where the water is about waist high. Start by standing with your heels together and your knees slightly bent. Jump as high as you can out of the water, and return to your starting position when you land.
Bicycle: Using your elbows and forearms, anchor yourself to the edge of the pool in the deep end (or at least deep enough to avoid striking the bottom with your ankle or heels). Face the water, not the land. Once you’re in place, pretend you’re riding a bicycle, pedaling your legs in alternating circles.
Scissor Kicks: While holding onto the side of the pool, straighten your legs out in front of you in a V-shape. Then move to close your legs, but bring one ankle over the other. Open your legs back into the V-shape and close again, bringing the other ankle on top. Repeat.

Pool Exercises for the Abdominals

Take the pain out of abdominal exercises (at least a little bit) by moving them into the swimming pool. Because you do need to stand up for some of these, it’s best to try them in the shallow end of the pool. For greater resistance on the Double Leg Lift and the Knee-to-Elbow Cross, venture deeper into the pool—just ensure you can still stand up with your head above water.

Crunches: Water crunches help you get a better range of motion than their land-bound counterparts. The trick is to anchor your legs. Float on your back near the edge of the pool, then stick your legs out onto the side, up to the backs of your knees. Use your legs to anchor you as you curl your body upward toward your feet.
Jackknife: Start by floating on your back. With your legs straight out in front of you, bend your knees and pull them toward your chest while crunching. Extend your legs back to the starting position and repeat.
Double Leg Lift: Using the pool wall as a support and facing the water, start with your legs completely straight, floating out in front of you. Raise them up as high as you can (without bending your knees).
Knee-to-Elbow Cross: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. While you bring one elbow down across your body, bend and lift the opposite leg, allowing your elbow and knee to touch. Repeat the motion using the opposite arm and leg.

Pool Exercises for Cardio

Taking your cardio to the pool is a great way to get the same benefits of high-impact exercises without your bones and joints paying the price. Try these to get that heart rate up quickly.

Jogging Across Pool: This is just what it sounds like. Jog going forward, back, right, and left across the length and width of the shallow end. Then jog with high knees moving forward, back, right, and left in the same area. Finally, jog with butt kicks moving forward, back, right, and left in the same area. Do this circuit three to four times.
Jumping Jacks: Start off with your feet together. Do 15 jumping jacks in the water while moving forward and back. Do this set two times.
Jogging: Jog in place, then sprint in place for 15 seconds for three sets.
Cross-Country Ski: Start with your legs shoulder-width apart. Imagine holding ski poles and propelling yourself forward, bringing your left arm up to the surface of the water while jumping your right leg back. Then bring your right arm up to the surface and jump your left leg back—returning your left arm and right leg to their starting positions. Keep repeating for two sets of eight reps each.

Pool Exercises With Noodles

Noodle Push Down: Hold the noodle so it looks like a smile. Push the noodle down and up in front of the body. Repeat, twisting the torso to the right and left side. Combine these movements, pushing the noodle to the left, middle, right, middle, and so on while keeping your core tight.
Noodle Wave Pool: With the noodle in front of the body, push it out and pull it into the torso in a large circle, creating a churning motion. Repeat, circling in the other direction for three sets of 30-second reps.

Pregnancy and Pool Workouts

“Aquatic exercise is fantastic for pregnant women because of buoyancy. Don’t do any jumping if it doesn’t feel good, but adapt the exercises to suit your stage of pregnancy,” says certified trainer and aqua yoga specialist Karen Shopoff Rooff. “Using a noodle to support the upper body and treading water with the lower body is a great modification.”

Rooff recommends doing each of the exercises in waist-deep water for one minute for two complete circuits that will total 10 minutes of exercise.

Squats: These are done just as they would be on land. Be attentive to your form, and be sure your knees never go past your toes.
Jumping Jacks: These should also be done just as they are on land. For an added challenge, keep your arms underwater to increase resistance.
Stair Dips: Use the pool steps to complete tricep dips.
Cross-Country Ski: Expecting mamas can complete this exercise just as it’s outlined under Pool Exercises for Cardio. Start with your legs shoulder-width apart. Imagine holding ski poles and propelling yourself forward, bringing your left arm up to the surface of the water while jumping your right leg back. Then bring your right arm up to the surface and jump your left leg back—returning your left arm and right leg to their starting positions. Modify your sets and reps based on how your body (and baby!) responds to the movement.

“At the end of the circuit, move to deeper water and tread water,” says Rooff. “At the beginning, five minutes of treading water will be challenging. Work up until you can tread water for 10 to 15 minutes for a great cardio workout.”

Getting the Kids Involved in Your Pool Workout Routine

If you’re worried about the kids getting restless while you’re enjoying your pool time, get them in on the exercise action! Kids can join in on scissor or flutter kicks, or put them on your back and walk laps around the pool.
It’s a good idea to get kids interested in and excited about being physically active early on. For most kids, play is the best exercise option, and what’s more fun and playful than a day at the pool? Many of the exercises from this list can be easily transformed into “games” for kids, keeping them busy and active right along with you.
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Conscious Beauty Lifestyle

7 Sheet Mask Questions Answered By K-Beauty Experts

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date June 2, 2018

Sheet masks are starting to dominate the skin care market, and that’s a good thing. We could all use a little rejuvenation in our lives, right? Sheet masks—Korean sheet masks in particular—have taken Western markets by storm in recent years; according to one estimate, in 2015, the global sheet mask market was valued at $160 million; by the end of 2024, it’s expected to reach $336 million.
While we’re psyched to see this Korean beauty secret take hold in the States, we’ve seen conflicting tips for using sheet masks. Do you leave them on for hours at a time? Does brand really matter? Could we get the same moisturizing effect by simply covering our faces with lotion and standing under a waterfall?
We had a lot of questions, so we reached out to the experts. Whether you’re looking into sheet masks for the first time, or you’re a well-moisturized veteran of the sheet mask game, here’s what you need to know.

What is the difference between a sheet mask and a regular mask?

If you’ve used cream or clay facial masks, you might wonder what makes Korean sheet masks so remarkable.

“Sheet masks are face-shaped sheet fabrics soaked in serums or essences that have many benefits to the skin,” says Yves Saint Laurent Beauté ambassador Elisa Lee (@sokobeauty on Instagram). “Depending on the active ingredient, it can help with sebum production and refining the skin texture.”
“The sheet can be made of a variety of materials [such as] paper, fiber, or gel. They’re usually packed individually, so you can only use them once,” Lee explains. “They’re very different from regular wash-off clay or cream masks. With sheet masks, you are hydrating your skin by locking the moisture in during the 10 to 20 minutes when you have the mask on. You often don’t need to wash off after applying a sheet mask, while you normally would with a regular mask.”

Basically, Korean sheet masks are designed to hydrate your skin, while wash-off facial masks are intended to provide a cleansing effect.
“Sheet masks and regular masks do, in fact, complement each other,” says Ryan Sim, better known as Singapore-based beauty blogger Ryanraroar. “There is a reason why you can only experience a truly deep cleansing effect from a clay mask that comes in a jar. On days when you want an exfoliative deep cleanse, pick a clay, mud, or charcoal mask over a sheet mask. A sheet mask would not be able to offer that kind of deep cleansing effect.”

Lee agrees with that assessment.
“If you would like to exfoliate dead skin cells, remove white or blackheads, and deeply cleanse the skin, then I would recommend to go for a clay or mud mask,” she says. “Sheet masks mainly focus on hydration and nourishment. Depending on the active ingredient, [a sheet mask] can remove excess sebum as well, but it won’t deeply cleanse the skin.”

What’s in a sheet mask, exactly? What ingredients should I avoid?

There’s no standard ingredient list for sheet masks, so consumers have to do a bit of homework. Read the ingredient lists of any two, and you’ll probably find quite a few differences. Sheet mask benefits are largely driven by their active humectants (a substance that keeps skin moist), which vary among products.
“I love sheet masks with hyaluronic acid to moisturize the skin,” Lee says. “I also like niacinamide to brighten the skin. I usually [avoid] arbutin, which is a whitening ingredient, because I personally don’t prefer it. I also avoid alcohol, which may dry out the skin. If one of the two ingredients are listed in the first row of the ingredient list, I stay away from it.”
“I personally don’t like heavily scented sheet masks,” she adds. “I’ve got a sensitive nose, so I stay away from those.”
“With almost any sheet masks, when you look at the ingredients, the top three are usually water and humectants,” says Jude Chao, director of marketing at Beautytap and blogger at Fifty Shades of Snail. “That makes up the vast majority of the volume of the product. When people go looking for sheet masks, usually I just tell them to look at the ingredients.”

“Make sure that it doesn’t have anything that you’re sensitive to,” Chao suggests. “Find things enjoyable to you so that you’ll like using it and you’ll get into the habit of using it. Barring any real sensitivities or allergies, I personally think people can just use what they want to use.”

“There are some ingredients that work exceptionally well for you personally, but not as well for others,” Sim says. “Personally, I adore ingredients like vitamin C, centella asiatica, madecassoside, arbutin, and niacinamide. As for what ingredients to stay away from, I would advise people to read up about [individual ingredients] online to form their opinions, but one ingredient, in particular, is methylisothiazolinone (MIT).”

Widely used in cosmetics, methylisothiazolinone is a preservative and a potential allergen. According to the Environmental Working Group’s cosmetics database, some studies indicate that the substance could be neurotoxic, and the European Union has banned the use of methylisothiazolinone in leave-on cosmetics.

How often should you use sheet masks?

Well-hydrated skin is certainly a good thing, but we did wonder whether or not overuse could cause issues. According to our experts, you can use sheet masks as often as you’d like, provided that you’re not experiencing any negative reactions.

“You can sheet mask every single day,” says Lee, “but if you don’t have the time for it—which I can imagine—I recommend using them two or three times per week to keep your skin moisturized.”
Sim also recommends starting with two to three sheet masks per week.
“We’ve all heard the saying, ‘Everyone’s skin is different,’ and that’s true,” he says. “We all have varying skin types and skin needs, therefore, we should all listen to our skin and address it accordingly. …[Frequency] greatly depends on how the skin feels. There are some people, myself included, who do a sheet mask daily without an issue. I’d like to think that there is no hard-and-fast rule here. Ultimately, you just have to be aware of your skin type/condition and be selective about what you put on your skin.”
If you feel like you aren’t getting results from your current sheet mask regimen, and you haven’t noticed any tender or irritated skin, feel free to increase the frequency of your sessions.
“The basic function of the sheet mask is to hydrate,” says Chao. “It’s not a treatment product, so it really depends on how much you like using them. I think that well-hydrated skin tends to be more resilient in general. It tends to heal faster, and that’s something that sheet masks help a lot with. You won’t get those kinds of effects from any other type of product.”
“So it’s all personal taste,” Chao continues, “but I definitely find my skin looks its best when I’m using them almost every day.”

What should I know about sheet masks if I have sensitive skin?

“I think for some people, ingredients like alcohol or fragrance may be problematic,” Chao says. “That’s especially because of the function of the sheet mask. It’s this cylindrical sheet that holds the product on your face, keeping it moist for quite a long time. [Sheet masks] use a bunch of penetration enhancers to help more of the volume of product get into your skin. Ingredients like alcohol and fragrance that may not pose as much of a problem in regular-use skincare may be more irritating for some people when their skin is exposed to them for such a long period of time.”

With that said, Chao says that fragrance and alcohol aren’t absolute no-nos.
“I’ve used masks that have them and don’t personally have problems,” she says. “I think you kind of play it by ear. Some masks, you open them up and they just smell like alcohol, or they just smell strongly fragrant. I won’t try those, but a little bit here and there won’t be an issue for most normal skin.”

If your skin is especially sensitive, you’ve still got options, but you’ll have to do more research before making a purchase.
“For dry or dehydrated skin, you can look for sheet masks with one of these main ingredients: hyaluronic acid, manuka honey, aloe vera, or snail [secretion],” Lee says. “Some Korean brands also have cream sheet masks, and those are perfect for dehydrated or dry skin.”
“For acne-prone or sensitive skin, you can look for centella asiatica, tea tree, snail, salicylic acid, or propolis, and for oily skin you can look for charcoal or green tea,” she suggests.

Where do sheet masks fit into a balanced skincare regimen?

“On nights when I use a cotton-type sheet mask, I would use it right after my toner step,” says Sim. “However, if it is a hydrogel-type mask, I would first tone my skin and follow up with a serum/ampoule—usually a simple hydrating one with hyaluronic acid—before applying the mask. This is such a great trick to double-up the moisture and increase the overall masking experience.”
“You can use it after your serum and before your moisturizer,” Lee notes, “so the order can be toner, essence, serum, sheet mask, then moisturizer.”
We asked our experts for other general tips for using sheet masks properly.
“You should always, always apply a mask over cleansed and toned skin,” Sim suggests. “The active ingredients will better penetrate the skin when your skin is moist.”
If you’re still not seeing results, consider extending the length of your sheet mask sessions.
“I would say to leave the sheet mask in place for a minimum of 20 minutes,” Chao says. “I personally like leaving them on even longer, so for around 30 to 45 minutes. When I take the mask off, I feel that more of the product absorbed … If you take it off too soon, your face is still really wet, and I always feel like I’ve not absorbed as much product as I can.”

Still, don’t overdo it.
“Avoid leaving the mask on to the point of total dryness,” Sim says.

What specific sheet masks do these beauty experts recommend?

“I normally use sheet masks from South Korea,” Lee says. “I love the ones from the following brands: Troiareuke, A. by BOM, POLATAM, CREMORLAB, MILU, and Common Labs.”
As for Chao, she says, “I really like a lot of Taiwanese brands, actually. There’s My Beauty Diary, Dr. Morita, and also great Korean brands like Papa Recipe.”
“I absolutely love masking and [am] always up to trying out and discovering new ones,” Sim says. “At the moment, some of the ones I have used and liked are Naruko Tea Tree Shine Control & Blemish Clear Mask, Dr Jart+ Dermask Micro Jet Clearing Solution for when I am dealing with pimples, Neogence N3 Arbutin Brightening Mask for brightening, Neogence N3 Ceramide Moisturizing Mask for hydration, The Face Shop Real Nature Mung Bean Mask for soothing, and The Face Shop MASK.LAB Chitosan Face Mask for skin renewal.”
Brand preferences aside, our experts agreed that a sheet mask’s price tag can’t tell you everything.
“It all depends on the brand and what ingredients they use,” Lee notes. “If you purchase a sheet mask of a high-end brand, it doesn’t mean that it will be better than the mid-level ones. The mid-level brands can create amazing sheet masks as well. “
“You may see brands overcharging because they want to profit from the sales, but there are some genuine cases whereby brands actually use new technologies or premium ingredients in their products to warrant a slightly higher than normal price point,” Sim says. “If the science and lab data matches the marketing claims put out by the brand, then I would say go for it!”

How can I use sheet masks in an eco-friendly way?

Let’s address the big, green elephant in the room: Sheet masks are wasteful. That’s true of just about any disposable single-use product—but if you’re careful, you can reduce your footprint.

“The materials used in most mask pouches are not recyclable, so that is an issue,” Sim says. “However, most of the sheet masks themselves are made of biodegradable material (e.g. cotton, pulp fibers), so we can compost those. An eco-friendly option would be to purchase those economical mask packs that come in a pack of 30 sheets.”

“Examples of [those] mask packs include LuLuLun Face Mask, which has 32 sheets in one pack, Saborino Morning Face Mask, which [also] has 32 sheets in one pack, Quality 1st All in One Sheet Mask, which has 50 sheets in one pack, A’PIEU Hyaluthione Soonsoo Daily Sheet Mask, which has 33 sheets in one pack, and MISSHA Pong Dang Water Daily Sheet Mask, which has 30 sheets in one pack.”
“There are certain brands that make a point of being more eco-friendly,” Chao says. “You can look to each brand’s individual policies to find out whether their packaging is recyclable.”

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Fresh Fashion Lifestyle

Fast Fashion: Convenient, Cheap, And Absolutely Awful For Everyone

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date June 2, 2018

You might not have heard about fast fashion, but you’ve almost certainly participated in it. The term refers to cheap, fashionable clothes sold at major department stores and big box chains. As soon as a style hits the runway, fast fashion companies put it into production and offer it to a mass audience, making a considerable profit in the process. On the surface, that doesn’t seem like much of a problem. You get on-trend clothes at an incredibly cheap price; what could be better?
Unfortunately, fast fashion has a dark side.
Ayesha Barenblat is the founder of Remake, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable fashion, the alternative to fast fashion. Of fast fashion she says, “It’s marketed to us as something that’s convenient, cheap, and fast, but it’s only later that we realize in order to enjoy that convenience, we have to cut a lot of corners.”
Fast fashion is like fast food, Barenblat claims, in that “there are so many ways that the food is simply not healthful. Fast fashion is no different in that, in order for our clothes to come to us so inexpensively and so quickly, they’re essentially built for rapid obsolescence.”
In other words, you’re not supposed to wear that cool new t-shirt more than a few times. You’re intended to toss your clothes out and move on to the next big thing.
According to Greenpeace, worldwide clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014. A typical person buys 60 percent more clothing items than an average person did just 15 years ago—and today we keep our clothes for about half as long.
Even if you donate your used clothes to your local secondhand store, you’re still part of the problem. According to ABC News, only about 10 percent of donated clothes get resold; most of the rest are sent off to textile recycling mills. That’s an extraordinarily wasteful process. Clothes that are often imported in the first place frequently have to travel overseas for a second time only to get broken down and turned into cleaning cloths and industrial items that may wind up shipped back to the States.
The goal of seriously considering the impact of fast fashion isn’t to make anyone feel guilty. Fast fashion is nearly unavoidable, and for people on budgets it can often feel like the only choice. We’re not trying to start any new boycotts either (more on that later). Most of us have bought fast fashion products, and we completely understand why clothing brands take advantage of the irresistibly lucrative opportunity.
With that said, fast fashion needs to go away. Here’s why.

Fast fashion has an extraordinary ecological impact.

Many fast fashion clothes are made with cotton, which is an incredibly thirsty crop. To make a single t-shirt, you’ll need more than 700 gallons of water, per the World Wildlife Fund. The textile production industry also has one of the largest carbon footprints of any global industry. By one estimate, manufacturers produce an astounding 1.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent per year. That’s more than the maritime shipping industry—which also gets plenty of business from the textile trade.
That would be bad enough, but on top of that, these inexpensive mass-produced clothes aren’t expected to last very long. We’re buying more clothes than ever before, but obviously we’re wearing the same number of clothing items, give or take, on a day-to-day basis as people have been for decades. So how is a retailer going to make you buy more clothes that you don’t really need?
“The only way for fast fashion retailers to make money is for [clothes] to fall apart within five or six washes,” Barenblat says. “A $10 t-shirt probably isn’t going to last very long.”
“Fast fashion is based on trends and low price points,” says Quang Dinh, general manager of Girlfriend Collective, a sustainable athleisure brand most famous for making leggings with recycled water bottles.
“To achieve both, fast fashion brands needs to forecast really well and make a lot of units at the lowest cost possible to hit price points that let their customers purchase more frequently,” Dinh says. “All of those things are problematic because making low-price-point goods generally means that those items won’t last. They ultimately end up at the landfill a lot faster than if the item was well made with materials that were made to last.”
When clothes start to fade, rip, or wear, consumers throw them away or take them to secondhand stores.
“A lot of these clothes are either ending up incinerated or in landfills,” Barenblat says. “Often, American clothes will end up in Haiti or North Africa, but because of fast fashion and the staggering volume of clothes that we’re sending to these countries, they’re starting to push back. They’re saying, ‘No, we don’t want your cheap clothes. They’re devastating our local economies, and we have nowhere to put them.'”
In late 2017, East African countries including Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and South Sudan attempted to stop importing used American clothes, pressing for an outright ban by 2019.
Their reasoning: They want to manufacture their own clothes, and cheap American garments prevent that from happening. Government officials in the United States have responded by issuing de-facto penalties for those countries in an effort to protect the American fashion industry, according to a piece in The New York Times.
“Garment manufacturing [doesn’t] take hold when the local markets are flooded with cheap secondhand clothes from Western countries,” Dinh says.

Fast fashion doesn’t empower women.

Part of the appeal of fashion is that choosing your own clothing and expressing yourself through style is a fundamentally liberating experience. Over the decades, the fashion industry has empowered countless women, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always a force for good.
About 75 percent of apparel and footwear exports from low-income countries wind up in the U.S. and EU countries. In many of the developing countries that export clothing, work conditions are brutally difficult, if not outright dangerous.
We spoke with Barenblat on April 24, but we weren’t aware of the significance of that date until she told us.
“It’s great we’re having this conversation today,” she says. “Five years ago, Rana Plaza, which was a big factory complex in Bangladesh, fell down. It was the biggest industrial disaster of our time.”
The Rana Plaza factory building had been illegally expanded to meet the growing demand of the fast fashion–obsessed Western clothing market. Floors were stacked on top of one another without proper reinforcement; when the building collapsed, 1,134 people died. At the time, Barenblat was working with major brands on their sustainability efforts; after Rana Plaza, she left to found Remake.
“It doesn’t seem like this generation [of factory workers] in Bangladesh, Cambodia, or Myanmar are any better off today,” she says.
“The fashion industry is one of the only industries in the world that is predominantly built on the backs of women,” she says. “The formal numbers are 60 million [women employed in clothing factories], but it’s actually quite hard to get official numbers of the industry. There are a lot of shadowy supply chains.”
“The numbers go from anywhere from 60 to 75 million, and 80 percent of those who make our clothes are young women in their early 20s. We pay less for our clothes than we did 10 years ago. There’s only one variable cost in that equation, right? The way for a lot of fast fashion companies to profit is to go into countries where the wages are really low and exploit these women,” says Barenblat.
A common response to this point is that American clothing companies are actually stimulating local economies by providing jobs to warehouse workers who’d otherwise remain unemployed. Barenblat says that there’s some truth to those arguments, but other factors quickly change the math.
“Can we really say that these jobs are good enough when we know about the poor health and safety conditions?” she asks. “Many of these factory workers are young women who might be leaving school, forfeiting an education, to work. If the job is not even going to keep her safe, is that really the type of job we want to be exporting?”
“I firmly believe that unless these are living wages—unless these are jobs of dignity, with safe conditions—essentially, what we are creating is modern day slavery for the worker,” Barenblat says. “We’re keeping her trapped in a cycle of poverty and exploitation, and that’s just not good enough.”
But it’s not just the fast fashion that’s made in developing countries. You might think that buying American-made clothes would solve the problem—land of the free, home of the labor laws—but even clothes made here can be unethically sourced.

Per a paper from the congressional Joint Economic Committee, there are positive signs indicating that the fashion industry is “reshoring,” or returning a sizable part of its manufacturing processes to the United States. Barenblat doesn’t believe that’s cause for celebration, though.
“Fashion is really a global industry, and that’s not changing anytime soon,” she says. “Different countries specialize in different technologies and have different resources.”
The idea that Americans can produce most of their own clothes is, according to Barenblat, naive. Even if clothing companies did move all of their production back to the United States, the industry would remain unsustainable in its current form.
“You look at fast fashion manufacturers that operate in, say, Los Angeles or New York, and you find that they’re still relying on poor working conditions to produce clothes so quickly and inexpensively.”
In 2016, the United States Department of Labor announced a crackdown on alleged worker abuses in the Southern California garment industry, citing “widespread minimum wage violations,” while a 2017 Los Angeles Times investigation found Forever 21 employees working in a “stifling factory” on the outskirts of Los Angeles for less than minimum wage.

Fast fashion might even be harmful to your health.

Aside from cotton, many fast fashion products are made with polyester blends. Polyester, a plastic-based fabric, is inexpensive, strong, and flexible—but it’s not really something that you’d want to find in your drinking water.
Barenblat says, “At this point we’re literally drinking the plastic that’s in our fast fashion.”
That’s not an exaggeration. According to one study, 94 percent of the faucet water in the United States contains microscopic plastic fibers. Researchers at the data journalism site Orb found that most of those fibers come from clothes, upholstery, and carpets, and a separate study found that each washing machine cycle could release as many as 700,000 of the plastic fibers.
Many fashion activists also believe that the chemicals used in textile manufacturing deserve more attention.
Cheap fabrics that are used in fast fashion have to survive rigorous manufacturing and shipping processes, so they’re often treated with compounds like formaldehyde, which can cause allergic reactions for people with certain sensitivities. Some clothing dyes may contain heavy metals, which Greenpeace claims can bioaccumulate over time, potentially posing health risks.
Think you’ll simply wash those chemicals out of your clothes before you wear them? Think again. Research shows that many potential toxins remain in clothes through multiple wash cycles.
“Fast fashion is really creating a public health crisis, and we never think about this in terms of health,” Barenblat says.

To end fast fashion, we need to change the way that we shop.

Boycotts don’t really work in the world of fashion. While most consumers say that they want to buy ethically sourced clothes, they’re often willing to look the other way in the heat of the moment.
“If it’s a cute shirt or a cute pair of jeans, we sort of turn a blind eye,” Barenblat says. “But we don’t really show what we say. We [hold] these values, but it doesn’t translate into actual sales.”
She believes that the best way to fight fast fashion trends is to provide shoppers with the resources they need to purchase high quality, sustainably sourced clothing. Remake—which, again, is a nonprofit—evaluates brands and provides an online directory for consumers.
“We don’t have a relationship with any brand,” she says. “We’re able to give you choices to make better purchases. I think that’s what needs to change, and that’s an area where we, as activists, failed consumers in the ’90s. All we were doing was calling for boycotts, but as it turns out, unless we’re all running around naked—which is the most sustainable option—we need better choices.”
Fortunately, it’s easier than ever to research brands, read about sustainability efforts, and make smarter choices. Your research will pay off since higher quality clothes last for considerably longer, and you won’t succumb to flash-in-the-pan fast fashion trends that you’ll be over by next season—or sooner.
Once you’ve settled on a long-term wardrobe, keep the goodwill going. The World Wildlife Fund recommends air-drying clothes and skipping ironing whenever possible, which can reduce a t-shirt’s carbon footprint by a third—and it’s easier on your clothes than sending them through a hot dryer. With proper care, our clothes can last for decades, and we certainly don’t have to sacrifice fashion in the process.
“A lot of our clothes today come from shadowy places,” Barenblat says. “The best disinfectant for this is transparency. That’s what this industry needs, and that’s what people should demand when they’re shopping.”
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Happy Home Lifestyle

How To Create The Perfect Cleaning Schedule—Without Losing Your Mind

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date June 1, 2018

The notion of spring cleaning isn’t doing us any favors. When the birds start chirping and the crocuses bloom and all you see are dust bunnies and streaks on the windows, that’s a sign that the concept might not be working for you.
You don’t have to live this way. This year, try creating a simple, step-by-step cleaning schedule that will keep you on track all year round. When you bring a bit of organization into your cleaning life, you can keep those tasks from building up all year and instead tackle them as they come.
Lacking motivation? Just remind yourself of this: Studies have found that people who regularly clean their homes are physically healthier and can concentrate better. It turns out that having less clutter around helps you focus on tasks more easily, and the physical exertion from a cleaning activity can help keep you fit. Who knew, right?
Above all, don’t be discouraged! Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and anyone can get on track with the simplest of cleaning schedules. Planning it all out might seem overwhelming at first, but when you begin to think of cleaning your home in terms of small tasks, it’s not so bad.

The Cleaning Schedule: What It Is and Why You Need One

Some people are naturally good at keeping up with their chores. Others … not so much. No matter where you fall on this spectrum, adding a cleaning schedule to the mix is only going to help.
The cleaning schedule itself is basically a detailed breakdown of your whole home that assigns specific chores to a timeline throughout the year. This type of schedule will help keep you on top of all your regular housework—plus those pesky chores no one even thinks about (we’re talking about you, baseboard corners and refrigerator tops).
What’s more satisfying than accomplishing a task while getting to cross something off a list? Nothing!
Plus, these cleaning schedules can get you out of some really messy situations. They’re great for people who have grown inured to constant clutter. Because the plans are broken down so extensively, they allow you to make changes gradually.
Translation: You don’t need to spend 10 hours a day with a mop and bucket to make this work.

How to Start Creating Your Personalized Cleaning Schedule

There are a lot of cleaning schedules available online, each one offering slightly different time frames and chore breakdown—but they’re all essentially the same. The goal is to help you get your home clean by dividing the job into discrete, easy-to-accomplish tasks.
Most cleaning schedules list specific chores—from a daily list to the more obscure cleaning tasks that only need to be done once or twice a year.
Don’t just pick an online list generator willy-nilly, though. The best cleaning schedule will be a highly personal plan. Start by thinking about your cleaning goals.
“You need to identify what kind of goals you want for your home. Write everything down, and list those that can wait and those that need to be prioritized,” Joanna Douglas, the owner of cleaning company Clean Affinity, tells HealthyWay. Using a cleaning schedule is great, but setting goals will really help keep you on track.
There are two schools of thought for how to actually take action and make regular cleaning a part of your life. One side believes you should pencil in specific cleaning times each day.
“Sometimes [cleaning] spontaneously can rock you off your groove,” says Douglas. “It’s because you can never know when visitors come to visit you unexpectedly or if there are people in the house it will just make it hard for you to move around. Make sure you come up with a schedule and make sure that there will be no distractions during this time of day.”
The other side believes the easiest way to work regular cleaning into your life is by changing your routines. If you’re the type of person who comes home and immediately throws your bag and coat on the ground, you’re creating a mess to deal with later. If you can change this action—hang up your coat, put your bag in your office—you’ll get ahead of the mess.
For most of us, the best solution is probably using both of these approaches. Blocking out specific, dedicated time (it doesn’t have to be hours and hours) for cleaning and modifying your own messy habits will create a recipe for success.

Breaking Down Your New Cleaning Schedule

Daily Cleaning Schedule Chores

First, the bad news: Your newfound cleaning schedule does need to include a few daily chores. Every day, you should at least make your bed, wash the dishes, do some laundry, wipe down counters and bathroom surfaces, and sweep the floors, according to the venerable cleanliness experts at Good Housekeeping. Once you get in the habit of taking care of these things each day, you’ll never have to spend your weekend washing and folding eight loads of laundry again.

Weekly Cleaning Schedule Chores

These weekly chores should include washing and changing your bed sheets, mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors, dusting furniture, vacuuming, wiping down kitchen appliances, and throwing out expired food. Not too bad, right?

Monthly Cleaning Schedule Chores

The monthly chores start to get a little more obscure, hitting some of the most overlooked spots in your home. You should vacuum vents, dust light fixtures and any curtains or blinds, and clean your dishwasher and washing machine.

Three-to-Six Month Cleaning Schedule Chores

Now we’re onto the three-to-six-month chore list; these are things that don’t need to be done quite as frequently, but let’s be honest, you probably aren’t doing them often enough. Washing pillows and comforters, wiping down the refrigerator, cleaning out the freezer, freshening up drains and the garbage disposal, and cleaning under all your furniture are some chores you only need to hit a few times a year.

Annual Cleaning Schedule Chores

Finally, deep-clean your carpets, windows, fireplace (if you have one), curtains, dryers, and gutters about once a year.
All of this can vary some, of course, depending on how many people and pets are in and out of your home. But it’s a pretty good example of what the complete care package for a typical home looks like.

One Great Complement to Your Cleaning Schedule

In addition to setting goals and using a cleaning schedule, why not take the time to put together a cleaning caddy? It will be easier to keep up with your cleaning routine when all your supplies are kept together and easy to find.
You can put together your own cleaning caddy, complete with DIY cleaning supplies, pretty easily. This caddy will mean you have zero excuses for not cleaning: All your supplies will be in one place!
Check your local dollar store for cute (and cheap!) tote and microfiber cloth options. Stock up on green cleaning products, like Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Multi-Surface Cleaner and Method Daily Shower Spray. Be sure to keep your caddy in an easily accessible place.
If you follow these tips, your home will sparkle all year round, and you’ll be free to spend the spring frolicking outside instead of scrubbing the bathroom.

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Gym x Studio Sweat

Boxing Workouts: How To Start Throwing Punches For Fitness And Fun

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date May 31, 2018

Have you fallen into an exercise slump and can’t seem to get motivated? Don’t be discouraged—we’ve all been there. For something new, try introducing a boxing workout to your routine.
Boxing has grown in popularity over the last few years, with celebs like Gigi Hadid and Adriana Lima endorsing the sport as a great workout, and more and more gyms are offering beginner classes, making boxing accessible even for those who haven’t spent time around a ring. Meanwhile, folks are starting to realize that footwork around a bag and learning to punch (and kick!) safely and swiftly are great ways to relieve stress while also building muscle, stamina, and discipline.
There are tons of resources available for boxing beginners to get acquainted with the sport, and you don’t need to go to a boxing gym to learn the basics. We break down everything you need to know to get fit by throwing a few punches at the gym, or even in the comfort of your own home.

The Surprising Health Benefits of Boxing Workouts

You might think boxing is all about upper body strength, and if you box, you’re going to get giant, hulking arms. If you pursue boxing regularly, your arms will become stronger, but boxing is truly a whole-body workout.
“The health benefits of boxing are numerous—it’s a total body workout,” personal trainer and kickboxing instructor Monique “Moe” Adams tells HealthyWay. “You are engaging several muscle groups through every punch and kick you execute. Your core is engaged the entire time and you are working both upper and lower body for maximum calorie burn.”
Boxing is so much more than just throwing punches! Even beginner-level sessions will get your heart rate going. Boxing is a great cardio option “because your heart [has to] work harder at pumping blood around your body,” fitness trainer Miriam Amselem tells HealthyWay.
Boxing workouts have the power to strengthen your cardiovascular system, improve coordination, alleviate stress, and build muscle—all while burning some serious calories. What’s better than that?

Boxing Exercise Fundamentals: The Jab

Throwing a punch is a lot more complicated than you might think. You’re not just tossing your fist into the ether in front of you, hoping to make contact. A punch, or jab, as the pros call it, involves very specific setup and execution.
“The number one mental tip I tell my students is to first picture their target,” says Adams. “Imagine yourself delivering the jab with the maximum power and be ready to do some major damage.”
After you’re mentally set, it’s time to prepare your body to execute on the move.
“Feet have to be a bit outside of hips and hands have to be in front of the face, as if blocking a punch,” says Amselem. “Engage your core by pulling your belly button into your spine to get your entire torso ready.”
Guarding your face by keeping your arms up is key to proper form. Amselem says that before you move your arm, “you have to pivot your foot and bring your hip around in the same direction, so your shoulder will be right on top of your hip.”
Finally, Adams says to “extend your jab 90 percent, aim for your target’s nose, and let all the power come from your body.” Of course, you probably won’t have a human target, so imagining striking your bag at nose height is the goal.
Also, don’t forget to breathe! Your breath plays an important role during any exercise—and boxing is no exception. Think of matching your breaths to your motion; slow movements require slow, deep breaths, and fast movements require short, quick breaths. When you set your body and stance, inhale slowly through your nose. Then, when you’re ready to punch, exhale quickly in short bursts as you execute the perfect jab.
It sounds complicated, but after you run through the motions a couple times, throwing a jab will become second nature!

Warm-Up Exercises for Your Boxing Workout

Before you begin your boxing session, you should always prepare yourself with a proper warm-up routine.
“Your warm-up should include dynamic and rhythmic movements that serve as a dress rehearsal for what you are about to do,” says Adams. You want your blood flowing and your muscles moving before getting into any serious physical exertion.
Amselem suggests two different warm-up sets to prepare for a good boxing workout. Note that the American Heart Association recommends a warm-up of 5 to 10 minutes before any exercise and recommends intense workouts like fitness boxing begin with a warm-up that’s on the longer end of that spectrum. Of you do both of these warm-up sets, cycling through each exercise for a minute apiece, you’ll be in great shape to begin your boxing workout:

Warm-up I: Lower Body

Jumping jacks, lunges, jump rope, squats—rotating through each movement for one minute each

Warm-up II: Upper Body

Shoulder raises, bicep curls (with light weights), push ups—rotating through each movement for one minute each
Adams suggests a handful of good warm-up moves including step touches (side to side), reaches (both over the head and across the body), squats, shoulder rolls, and knee strikes, all of which can be used to spice up your pre-boxing routine.
Adams notes that any side-to-side motion will help prepare your body for your boxing workout combinations.

Boxing Workout Combinations for Beginners (and Beyond)

Once your body is warmed up, you can get into the workout. You can start boxing with or without a punching bag. In fact, even the pros practice shadow boxing, which involves sparring with an imaginary opponent rather than hopping in the ring with another person or unleashing on a bag. That said, having a stopwatch or your phone for a timer is a necessity.
For a solid beginner workout, Adams suggests the following timed combinations: Three rounds, lasting one to three minutes each, with a 30 to 45 second break in between. Note that in certain combinations, you’ll begin with a right lead, meaning your right leg and right arm will be forward. A left lead, on the other hand, involves your left leg and left arm being forward.

Combination I:

Begin with a right lead
Triple jab/cross 25 times
Jab/cross/hook/uppercut 25 times
Take a 30 to 45 second break
Repeat the entire combination on the left lead

Combination II—The Triple Jab Cross:

3 right jabs followed by 1 left cross for a 4-count combo

Combination III—The Jab/Cross/Hook/Uppercut:

Right jab/left cross/right hook/left uppercut for another 4-count combo

Amselem usually has her clients throw combinations of single arm jab, uppercut, and straight punch for three minutes, plus front kicks, followed by a 60 second “break” during which they practice lunges, planks, or squats.
“[This workout] is a calorie and fat torcher which they all love when it’s over and love even more when they see the results,” says Amselem.
Once you get comfortable with these moves, try working out with a heavy bag. With boxing’s growing popularity, you can probably find one at your local gym if you don’t have the room or the desire to bring one home. When you use a heavy bag, you introduce more resistance into your practice, which ultimately helps you build more muscle.

Cool-Down Routines for Boxing Workouts

Cooling down after a difficult workout is just as important as warming up. The cool-down process brings your heartbeat and breathing rate down slowly, which helps prevent dizziness. It also helps prevent post-workout soreness.
“Cool down should include static stretching for flexibility gains while incorporating deep breathing—bringing your heart rate down and relaxing the body,” says Adams. “Following a boxing workout, stretch your shoulders, biceps, triceps, chest, and back. If your workout included kicks, stretch out your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves.”

How to Get the Most Out of Your Boxing Workout Classes

While it’s great to be able to learn and practice something in the comfort of your own home, changing up the setting and putting your skills to the test in a class is also beneficial, so don’t be scared of signing up for a boxing class!
When you’re ready to try out a class, it’s important to start with the right attitude.
“Be ready to have some fun,” says Adams. “Grab a towel and plenty of water. Remember, this is a new activity for you, so give yourself permission to make mistakes. Any new fitness format you try for the first time will have a learning curve.”
It’s always a good idea to stick with combinations you’re comfortable with at first, and slowly bring new moves into your practice. You don’t want to go too hard right away or develop incorrect form or bad habits. Remember: A good boxing workout begins with the fundamentals.
Want to learn more about boxing classes? Check out Senior Editor Taylor’s reflections on her first experience at TITLE, the importance of hand and wrist wrapping, and why short and sweet might be the way to go the first time you hop in the ring.

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A Full Guide To The Best Women's Running Shoes

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date May 27, 2018

Looking for the best running shoes you can find?
First, of all, we’ve got some bad news: There’s no such thing as the “best” running shoes for every type of runner. That’s partly because there are so many runners. In the United States alone, about 64 million people went for a jog or run in 2016.
It’s also because every runner has different habits. If you run 200 miles on trails every month, you’ll need very different shoes from those of your friend who runs 50 miles per month on roads.
In general, if you’re ready to buy a new pair of running shoes, you’ve resigned yourself to making a major purchase: The best running shoes can cost upwards of $150. But if you get hundreds of miles of injury-free exercise, it’s money well spent.
We spoke with physicians and running shoe designers to determine what makes a great running shoe—and what “features” are essentially marketing mumbo-jumbo. Here’s what you need to know.

What Science Says About Choosing the Best Running Shoes

This might sound somewhat counterintuitive, but before you choose running shoes, you need to go running.
“Probably one of the most important things for beginners is to go to a good shoe store and have them take a look at you,” says Clifford L. Jeng, MD, medical director of the Institute for Foot and Ankle Reconstruction at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.

“Running stores have people who are professional, high-level runners. They’ll have a treadmill equipped with a video camera, and they’ll be able to watch to see whether you’re a pronator or a supinator or whether you have a high or low arch. They’ll look at your body habits, see if you’re heavy or light… Not only will they match you with the right shoe, they’ll probably also give you some tips on how to start your training.”

We realize that some of this language won’t be familiar to everyone—and while we’re really trying to avoid turning this into a vocabulary lesson, these are crucial terms to understand when you’re shopping. Pronation refers to the foot’s tendency to roll inward during natural movement. As your foot contacts the ground, that inward roll helps to distribute the impact from the strike across your foot.
If you pronate too much—if you’re landing on the outside of your foot and rolling excessively—your form might eventually lead to an injury. On the other hand, if you underpronate (or supinate), you might need additional cushioning.
If you’re just getting into running, just be aware that pronation is fairly important, and it’s best to have a professional evaluate your form before plunking down $150 for a random pair of running shoes. Jeng tells HealthyWay that athletic injuries can occur fairly frequently when runners don’t get enough support, and he recommends taking pronation into consideration when shopping.
For heavier runners, he also warns against “bare” or “minimalist” shoes: “A lot of people now like the neutral shoes, or the minimalist shoes, and those have very little cushioning in them, but they look nice and sleek and slim,” Jeng says. “If you’re a heavier person or an overpronator and you continue to plow through those shoes even though they’re hurting [you], you’ll probably injure yourself. So the other key about shopping is not to pick shoes because they’re pretty—pick the shoes that feel the best.”
The science, by the way, tends to back that up; there’s not currently enough evidence to show that minimalist running shoes offer any substantial benefits over traditional running shoes.
Before you start shopping, you’ll also need to consider where you run. Trail shoes typically have mesh uppers and extra treads to give you a better experience on rough terrain. Road shoes, on the other hand, are better for addressing the challenges of asphalt and pavement. Track shoes and “performance” shoes are fairly light, so they’re great for races, but they’re not built for heavy distance.

Understanding the Anatomy of Women’s Running Shoes

Before we look at some of the best running shoes for 2018, it’s important to understand how the different parts of a shoe affect how you run.

The Upper

This is (shockingly) the upper part of the shoe, which covers the top and sides of your foot. For high-quality athletic shoes, the upper’s job is to stay out of the way and let your foot breathe.
Look for mesh materials that don’t squeeze too hard when you’re all laced up. By the way, make sure you’re lacing correctly; there are a number of different ways to lace your shoe, and if you’re having trouble getting the right fit, it might be as simple as switching up your lacing style.

The Outsole

The outsole is the bottom of the shoe. Runners often decide to buy new shoes when their outsoles start to show their age, as the rubber “nubs” on the bottom can break off or wear down over time.

The Midsole

For a runner, this is arguably the most important part of the shoe. The midsole is the cushioning between the upper and the outsole. The midsole protects your foot from shocks and can influence your stability, so it’s where running shoe companies spend most of their research dollars.

The Insole

This is the removable cushion on the inside of the shoe. You can buy third-party insole replacements and if you want a really comfortable shoe, you probably should.
“Most major shoe companies spend millions of dollars on research on their midsole and their outer sole,” says Jeng. “But you look at most people’s insoles—the little liner that you can pull up out of the shoe—they’re worthless. They’re horrible.”

“Often, it’s a good idea to get higher quality insoles. An example of that is Superfeet, which I think are very good. They conform to the foot better [than manufacturer insoles] and have a little bit of an arch support in there.”

Recommended Women’s Running Shoes for 2018

To reiterate, the best way to choose a running shoe is to go to a store and speak with someone who knows their stuff. Try to find someone who runs frequently, and be wary if they only recommend shoes from a single brand.

Try on a variety of shoes to find a comfortable fit. Visit the store later in the day, when your foot is at its widest (yes, your foot expands slightly throughout the day). Don’t assume that you know your shoe size; get measured.
“When you get the shoe on, you should have about a thumbs breadth between the tip of the shoe and your big toe,” Jeng says. “That will allow you to kind of move around a little bit when you’re running, so you’re not stubbing your toe into the front of the shoe.”
As we mentioned earlier, there’s not one best running shoe out there, but we do have a few recommendations to help you get started.

Best Women’s Trail Running Shoe: Brooks Caldera 2

The Caldera 2 features a synthetic Ariaprene mesh upper, a midsole with stacked layers made from a proprietary EVA material, and colorful styling. If you’re looking for a protective trail-running shoe that isn’t excessively heavy, the Caldera 2 is a great place to start.
“One thing we recommend with all trail shoes is that they provide protection no matter what terrain you’re running on—including rocks, roots, and water,” a representative of Brooks tells HealthyWay. “Our Caldera 2 trail shoe uses moisture-wicking meshes to dry more quickly and allow the runner to get back on the trails. Runners should also look for a rubber outsole with high-surface-area lugs to optimize uphill and downhill traction on wet surfaces and tricky terrain.”

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Best Women’s Running Shoe for Average Runners: Mizuno Wave Sky ($150)

The Mizuno Wave Sky provides plenty of cushioning and firm arch support, which makes it an ideal shoe for mild overpronators (if you land toward the outside of your sole, but not all the way, this is where you’d want to start). While it’s relatively heavy at 9 ounces, it’s comfortable where it counts. A segmented bottom allows the shoe to conform to your running style, since each “pod” of the padding can react to shocks independently.
The major downside is the narrow toe, which might constrict some runners. It’s also an expensive shoe, but if you’re looking for decent stability shoes to help you avoid arch and knee injuries, the Mizuno Wave Sky offers a good starting point.

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Best Women’s Stability Running Shoe: New Balance 860 v8 ($125)

New Balance shoes tend to have great cushioning, and the 860 series includes some great road shoes for severe overpronators—if you land on the outside of your foot and roll in, the shoe provides stability that fights back against that effect. The New Balance 860 v8 is designed as a stability shoe, and it’s fairly bulky at 9.8 ounces. Added cushioning in the heel complements a sturdy midsole to keep your foot firmly locked in during longer runs.

Be prepared to break this shoe in; you’ll need to take it for a few runs or short walks before tackling serious distance.

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Best Women’s Light Running Shoe: ASICS Gel Quantum 360

The ASICS Gel series is remarkably popular, and the Quantum 360 is one of the line’s better shoes for neutral or underpronators (in other words, if your foot doesn’t roll too much when you run and if you tend to land on the inside of your sole, this is the place to start). A midsole platform works to correct against supination, while extensive padding throughout the midsole makes it a comfortable shoe for daily runs.
The big disadvantage is the weight. The Gel Quantum 360 comes in at a hefty 9.9 ounces. Still, it’s a well-designed shoe that offers plenty of stability for road runners.

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When should you replace your running shoes?

Hopefully, you’re now ready to hit your local running store and evaluate a few pairs of shoes. With some luck, you’ll walk out with a great pair.
Depending on your exercise habits, you’ll get months of service from your purchase. But nothing lasts forever.
“Most running shoes last about 400–500 miles before the foam [in the] midsole starts to collapse and doesn’t give you as much protection,” Jeng says. “You should track how many miles you’re doing in order to decide when you should replace your shoes.”

We reached out to several running shoe manufacturers who provided similar suggestions.
“We recommend runners replace their running shoes every 300–400 miles,” a Brooks Running representative tells HealthyWay.

Jim Monahan, president of running shoe company 361˚ USA, says that there’s no perfect mileage.
“This topic is very subjective because the answer lies with the runner themselves,” Monahan says. “If a shoe feels ‘dead’ or no longer comfortable, then it is time for a new pair of shoes. Some like to assign a length of time or a certain number of miles, but so much depends on each runner’s program: number of miles per week, body mass, surfaces run on, etc.”
If you’re not great about tracking your mileage, you can always examine your shoes.
“A good rule of thumb: If you look at the side of your running shoe and you see wrinkles in the midsole foam, you’re probably getting close to a change,” Jeng says.

Likewise, you should consider switching shoes if you feel like they’re pinching your feet or if you’re experiencing any recurring pain.

“Unusual aches and pains which can’t be attributed to a change in your training are a sign you may need to look for a new shoe,” a Brooks Running rep explains. “The key aches and pains to look out for are knee pain as well as shin splints. However, the goal is always to replace your shoes before you start feeling aches and pains.”

A final word of advice: Never assume that you know your running shoe size; it changes regularly.
“Our feet sag a little bit as we get older,” Jeng says. “I was about a 9½ all of my life, but when I turned about 40, I became a size 10. You should always have your foot sized on that little machine to decide what size you’re going to wear.”

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Is She Actually Born With It? Here's How Genetics Influence Your Skin.

Post author By HealthyWay Staff Writer
Post date May 22, 2018

“Maybe she’s born with it.”
That’s the tagline of a popular cosmetic line, which we won’t mention here—okay, fine, it’s Maybelline—and a reference to the timeless appeal of beautiful, natural skin. Dig a little deeper, though, and there’s an assumption within the tagline: Our genes control our skin’s appearance.

That’s partly true, but of course, it’s a lot more complicated than that. We decided to look into the science of skin genetics—with special attention to products that claim to leverage the power of genetics to slow down the aging process.

When people discuss “aging” and “skin,” they’re really talking about something else.

Admit it: When you think about aging and skin, you think about wrinkles. They’re arguably aging’s most visible sign, and for the most part, wrinkling is inevitable. However, we wondered what actually causes wrinkles to form and whether there’s a way to slow down or reverse the process.
As we age, we produce less collagen, the structural protein that gives our skin its strength. We produce about 1 percent less collagen every year, so over time, the skin becomes more susceptible to wrinkling and sagging. That’s a simplified version of the aging process—we also become worse at sweating (which sounds way more awesome than it actually is), and we produce less elastin, another protein that acts as a connective tissue.

While everyone ages, the process is certainly more pronounced for some people. That’s partially due to genetic differences.
“One of the bigger factors is how your parents have aged, how your grandparents aged,” says Suzanne Friedler, MD, a board-certified fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. “If you look at that, you’ll probably get a good idea of how you’ll age.”

Michele and Mikaela Lilly, winners of the Herald-Whig’s Mother & Daughter Look-Alike contest. (Phil Carlson/Herald-Whig)

However, external factors play an enormous role, and it’s difficult to completely isolate the genetic factors from those external factors. UV radiation is an especially significant problem; while our bodies have some built-in protection from sunlight, sunlight can cause extraordinary damage to the skin in a fairly short amount of time. That’s why sunscreen and sun avoidance are crucial to slowing the skin’s aging process. Unfortunately, people typically apply sunscreen at under 25 percent of the recommended dose.

If you’ve got lighter eyes and hair, you’re probably more susceptible to getting wrinkles.

That brings us to one of the key ways that genetics affect skin aging.
“In general, darker-skinned individuals skin will age more gracefully as there is more melanin in the skin which protects the skin from sun exposure,” says Jerome Potozkin, MD, a California dermatologist.

@bglhonline I love my dark skin!!! It is even and beautiful with no wrinkles.

— Barbara Felton-Wilso (@Sajada11) November 8, 2015

This is the reasoning behind the saying that’s now the title for Viola Davis’ possibly-upcoming comedy, Black Don’t Crack. Research backs that up. A 2016 paper found that “individuals with darker skin are overall thought to have firmer and smoother skin than individuals with lighter skin of the same age.”

The authors also noted that cultural ideas of beauty differ quite a bit, and that all types of skin age, albeit in different ways. Nevertheless, darker skin tends to show fewer wrinkles due to the melanin difference.
That brings us back to one of those external factors, because…

UV light—the light from the sun—ages the skin.

“UV light is probably one of the biggest factors in skin aging,” says Friedler. “To put it simply, the more sun exposure you’ve had, the worse your skin ages. Darker skin tones have more natural protection against UV, so they tend to age a lot better.”

Do you drive for a living? This is an image of a truck driver's sun damaged skin. Sunscreen & Shades! #KnowYourSkinNI pic.twitter.com/QchzdaWBUG

— Know Your Skin NI (@KnowYourSkin_NI) August 10, 2015

With that said, people with darker skin can still get skin cancer, so sunscreen is important for everyone. Don’t assume that your skin’s natural defenses are enough to keep you safe.
“The two most common forms of ultraviolet exposure are exposure to sunlight and tanning beds,” Potozkin says. “To decrease the acceleration of skin aging, it is prudent to protect the skin from the sun through the use of sunscreen and sun-protective clothing.”
[pullquote align=”center”]”There’s no such thing as a healthy tan.”
—Suzanne Friedler, MD[/pullquote]
Granted, you’ll want to get some sunshine, since vitamin D is a crucial nutrient, and your body creates vitamin D when prompted by sunlight. Still, high levels of vitamin D have also been associated with premature skin aging in mice, so moderation is key.

Never assume that your skin is healthy simply because you didn’t get a sunburn.

Friedler says that’s a common mistake.
“There’s no such thing as a healthy tan,” she says. “A tan is a sign of skin damage, period.”

Tanning occurs when your body is exposed to relatively high levels of UV radiation, typically from sunlight or a tanning bed. Your body responds to the threat by increasing melatonin production. That sounds like a healthy response, but the FDA notes that suntanning is associated with higher levels of skin cancer. Even if you don’t tan or burn, you shouldn’t step into the sunlight without adequate protection.
“All kinds of UV affect skin aging,” Friedler explains. “Not only UV-B, which we associate with sunburns and suntans, but UV-A, which is more of an invisible radiation—it also affects your skin aging.”

Are you addicted to tanning? Make every effort to break this habit. Tanning is dangerous for your health and skin. Use a self-tanner.

— Renée Rouleau Skin Care (@ReneeRouleau) June 22, 2016

“For example, the windows on a car block out UV-B. In Australia, there have been studies that look at people and compares the driver’s side—which is hit with a lot of UV-A rays—versus the passenger’s seat, which is on the shadier side of the car. And in the studies, the side that was exposed to UV-A had a lot of solar elastosis, which means a breakdown of the collagen, breakdown of the elastin, and a lot of fine wrinkling. That’s just from those UV-A rays.”
[related article_ids=1001303]
Moral of the story: Wear your sunscreen, even if you don’t think it’s necessary.
[Editorial note: We think that Friedler is referring to this study, performed by a team led by Matthias Moehrle, MD.]

If you have thicker skin, you might also age more gracefully.

As Friedler explains, thicker skin contains more collagen, that fun structural protein we’d referenced earlier.
“The more collagen you have, the better your skin will look [as it ages],” she says. “That’s if you naturally have more fullness or thickness to the skin. But I don’t know if that’s a main factor in skin aging—it’s just one of the factors that has a genetic basis.”

Once again, darker-skinned people tend to benefit in this department, specifically because they have smaller collagen-fiber bundles than lighter-skinned people.
“People with darker skin naturally have a little bit more collagen and a different kind of collagen, and your skin might age a little better along the way,” Friedler says.

Still, our experts agreed that, over time, external factors tend to play a much bigger role than genetic factors. That’s not a bad deal—external factors are controllable, but genetic factors obviously aren’t.

What about skincare products that claim to use genetics in order to provide better results?

We’re talking about products that claim to use a “genetic profile” to create an optimized skincare routine for every consumer. Basically, these products claim to be the 23andme of dermatology. Orig3n, a Boston-based company, offers a “skin health and appearance” test for ~$38, along with a more comprehensive “beauty DNA test” for ~$47.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh_3oZknoDv/?taken-by=orig3n_inc
“It sounds a little hokey to me,” Friedler says. “I don’t know too much about it. But I think the things that determine a skincare routine have more to do with oils.”
Friedler notes that oilier skin tends to have fewer wrinkles. There’s a big caveat to keep in mind: Some wrinkles seem to pop up regardless of your oil levels or skin type, according to recent research in Clinical Anatomy. Crow’s feet (the little lines around your eyes) are a notable example.
Still, oilier skin tends to prevent forehead wrinkles, per the Clinical Anatomy research, and forehead wrinkles are obviously pretty notable. If you’re not dealing with issues like acne, oily skin might actually be a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s also unpredictable.

“If you’re younger, your skin may produce more oils,” Friedler says. “But there are patients and people who age and their skin stays so oily, which is unusual. Typically, skin gets drier as you age, but there are people who actually get oilier skin as they get older. And oil levels also vary depending on the time of year.”
If you use a skincare routine optimized to your “genetic profile,” you’re probably going to be disappointed, simply because genetics are far too complicated for a single test to reveal anything useful.

#DidYouKnow: Oily skin means that your skin has lesser tendency to develop early wrinkles, fine lines, and discoloration. #Amazing

— AcneSkinSite (@AcneSkinSite) October 26, 2017

“I don’t think a genetic test is really going to give you the answer to that. It can’t tell you how oily your skin will be at a certain point in your life,” Friedler says. “It’s not going to tell you what to expect in that department.”
To put it another way, products that claim to offer some sort of advantage thanks to genetic science might not be worth the money, simply because genetics are, well, complex.

“While everything ultimately has a ‘genetic’ origin, it’s a very different line,” says Ranella Hirsch, MD, a Boston dermatologist. “[The line is] straight, say, for eye color or a condition like xeroderma pigmentosum (a genetic skin condition). How you wrinkle has a much more indirect connection [to genetics].”

Regardless of your skin type, effective dermatological maintenance makes a difference in aging.

We consulted with a few dermatologists for this story, and they all gave us the same advice: Wear sunscreen. If you skipped over that section of this article, that’s the big takeaway. UV radiation can age the skin, so if you’re spending a decent amount of time in the sunlight, make sure that you’re adequately protected.
Another good tip for staying young: Put your phone away at the end of the night. Melatonin production seems to have a beneficial effect on the skin aging process, per a 2012 paper published in the journal Dermatoendocrinology. And your body naturally produces melatonin, a hormone, at night.

The hormone plays a critical role in healthy sleep, and various factors can influence its production. If you regularly look at your phone at night, your body will produce less melatonin, since your body interprets the electronic light as sunlight.
While genetics play a big role in skin aging, researchers are just starting to understand that effect. Ultimately, if you want to preserve your youthful looks, your best bet is to think about the factors that you can control—for instance, skin moisturization, sleep health, and sun exposure—and leave those miracle, “genetically optimized” products behind.
We’re all the subjects of our genetics, but the good news is that we can control some of the factors that drive aging. Pass the sunscreen.

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