Holistic Beauty from the Inside Out (5 page)

After your endorphin-boosting workout, you will feel a mild sense of euphoria and walk through your day with a greater spring in your step. You will likely sleep better that night too.

ENHANCE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

Keep up your connections with your loved ones and close friends, and make sure that you don’t de-prioritize them in the face of ever-mounting deadlines and pressures at work and in life. Schedule automatic weekly or monthly lunch dates with friends who make you feel good and rejuvenate you. Plan Skype or phone appointments with family and friends who are too far away to see regularly. Spend quality time with your family, without the television in the room! Make time every day to play a board game, go outside for a walk, or dance around the house to your favorite music with your nearest and dearest. These are the moments of life that feed the soul.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE

This one seems simple, but it seems to be the first thing that gets thrown off the to-do list in our busy lives. Do something creative that you enjoy every day. Have you always wanted to write a novel or play the guitar? Do you enjoy knitting or scrapbooking? Commit yourself to engaging in this activity for just ten minutes every day. Everyone can commit to ten minutes, even if you do it just before going to sleep, just after waking up, while waiting for the dryer to finish a load, or during a quick break at work. If you feel inspired, or find yourself with more time, go onward. But, make sure that you meet your ten minutes, even in the busy times. Life is meant to be lived passionately, and those ten minutes just might fill you with the vigor you’ve been missing!

FUR-RIOUSLY HAPPY

If all else fails, and you are not happy and you know it, consider adopting a pet. Pets can provide a lot of positive psychological and physical benefits for their owners. First of all, pets themselves are a great social support, and they can help you to meet fellow humans who can provide social support as well. Dog owners socialize at canine playgrounds; lizard owners have their fun too, undoubtedly.

Scientific studies have found that pet owners enjoy increased well-being, such as greater self-esteem, greater conscientiousness, less fearful attachment, and more exercise. Pets are unconditionally supportive, and their ability to improve their owners’ self esteem is beyond any comparison. But perhaps most important, pets are actually able to stave off negativity caused by social rejection.
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Chapter One Quick Tips

1. Don’t sacrifice your long-term health
   for a minute of a joy when you look at your newly puffy lips, newly smooth skin, or temporarily wrinkle-free forehead. A reflection in the mirror is gone within seconds, but the poison inside of you may take months to take its toll.
   
2. Be kind to yourself
   . Love your legs, arms, eyes, and ears, as well as the rest of your body. You do not criticize the way people’s children look (I hope!). Then why be critical about the way your
   own
   body looks? Our life throws tons of outside critics our way; let’s become our body’s major supporter. Give your inner critic a
   hard
   boot. Remember: happy people live longer.
   
3. Be thankful.
   Women are champions of unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their looks. A bad day at work, problems within a relationship, or even a misdirected word can lead to grumpy feelings about your nose, thighs, or belly. Say “thank you” to your body for serving you so faithfully. No matter what your physical or mental condition, things almost certainly could be worse. Cultivate a sense of appreciation for any of the five senses that still operate effectively: taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell. The smell of a perfume, the sight of a flower, the crunch of freshly baked bread, the touch of a snowflake, and the taste of an excellent cup of coffee can bring a smile to anyone’s face, so enjoy these pleasures while you can. You don’t need pouty lips or shimmery blond hair to enjoy life at its fullest.
   
4. Get rid of mental junk food
   such as thoughts that were processed beyond recognition. Do not plaster yourself with truisms and negative thought patterns. They only clutter your mind and never give you anything good in return. Try eliminating all the junk and focusing on positive, wholesome thoughts, and kind acts toward yourself. Nourish your soul with positive “food” in forms of positive thinking, meditation, and relaxation, and your skin and hair will follow the lead toward a prettier future.
   
5. Nurture your mind with positive experiences
   rather than rewarding buys. Every day devote at least ten minutes to something you love, be it reading, painting, jumping on a trampoline, cycling, or gardening. By ditching junk habits such as spending a night in front of a television, you will find more than enough time to spend with your loved ones—including one-on-one time with another person you should love—yourself.
   

TWO

Relax to Be Beautiful

M
any of us are working long hours, juggling careers with family life, struggling in a bad economy, and waking up before the sun rises to hide our fears and worries under a heavy concealer, a blow-dry, and some shimmering blush. No wonder many of us are surviving on a steady supply of caffeine, nicotine, and adrenaline, and remain barely able to cope. Un-fortunately, we often allow such stresses to accompany us for years.

We now know that living with chronic stress has serious con-sequences for our health and wellbeing, contributing to every-thing from bad moods to heart disease. Stress has become the main cause of long-term sickness and absence from work, over-taking acute illnesses such as cancer.
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stress is also the number one enemy of your beauty. The damage begins in our brain, when chronic stress causes the hypothalamus, a tiny gland often called by doctors as the “brain’s brain,” to decline in function. As the hypothalamus declines, it triggers dysfunction of the rest of the endocrine system, which causes damage to the body and the mind.
Immunity declines. Fat accumulates around the waistline. Eye muscles lose their tone. Skin loses elasticity and flexibility, and hair starts falling out.

Aside from its direct destructive effect on our immune and endocrine systems, chronic stress creates a new set of beauty related worries for us. If you have a tendency toward acne, stress will keep those nasty blemishes popping up, despite all your efforts to keep your skin clear.

As if undermining our healthy looks were not enough, stress makes us its ally in its war against beauty. When we are stressed out and anxious, we make poor choices that directly affect the condition of our skin and hair. We replace water with tea and coffee setting up for puffiness, dry skin, and dark eye circles. We reach for the glass of wine or a cigarette, load up on “comfort” foods which are usually fatty, sweet, and filled to the brim with empty calories. How do we stop worrying and learn to be beautiful?

STRESS HORMONES SPEED UP AGING

When we live with chronic stress, our skin is the first to suffer. Some people living under constant pressure can develop hives (urticaria), itch (pruritus), skin flushing, and sweating, even hair loss (alopecia). Chronic stress can also lead to acne, psoriasis, eczema, and premature skin aging.

When you suffer from chronic stress, your adrenal glands (two small triangular glands that sit atop of the kidneys) become overworked. Adrenals produce vital stress-regulating hormones, mainly cortisol and adrenaline. In a situation of a psychological stress, the increased levels of cortisol inhibit the release of free radical scavenging enzyme called superoxide dismutase.
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This weakens your body’s natural defenses and leaves your skin vulnerable to environmental pollutants. In fact, chronic stress is one of the chief contributors to an increased population of free radicals in your body, which causes premature aging. Low levels of superoxide
lead to chronic inflammation that brings a host of visible skin problems including acne, eczema, rashes, and early wrinkles.

Stress also depletes your skin of oxygen. As the kidneys produce more adrenaline, blood is directed away from your skin and is sent to your muscles to deal with emergency situations. Your skin receives fewer nutrients and oxygen resulting in a dull, pale, sallow complexion.

Stress also undermines digestion. Now, your body cannot absorb all the nutrients from the foods you eat while undigested impurities accumulate faster than your body can get rid of them. Dead skin cells take longer to turn over, skin cell production is diminished, and collagen and elastin production slows. Result? Dark eye circles and eye puffiness, blemishes, sagging skin, dilated pores, and rough, uneven skin texture. That’s hardly a pretty picture.

As if that weren’t enough, muscles tend to get stiff and tense as a reaction to stress. Aside from slowing down the circulation in the skin, stiff facial muscles form folds and creases, which deepen with time. Have you ever noticed how smooth and calm your face becomes during a vacation when you are less exposed to the mental toxins of daily life?

NUTRITIOUS NIRVANA

Diet and exercise are the most powerful and completely natural means to diminish our daily stress load. Our brains and nervous systems do not function well on a steady influx of fast food, sugar, white flour, and processed meat. They need real nourishment.

Of all the diets that are helpful to relieve stress, the Mediterranean diet is best. A recent study found that a typical Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of depression by nearly one third. Spanish researchers found that people who regularly eat a lot of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and oily fish are 30 percent less likely to suffer from anxiety and depression than those whose diet is not a Med-style.
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This type of a diet also calls for reduced consumption
of meats and whole-fat dairy. Scientists from the University of Navarra found that the Mediterranean diet, with its high content of essential fatty acids from fish and olive oil plus antioxidants and bio-available vitamins in fresh produce, reduces inflammatory and metabolic processes that trigger depression.
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Chapter Four
of this book will provide a detailed look at what a healthy, stress-busting diet might look like. However, it is important to note a couple things about
how
you eat here, as it relates to stress.

What, how, and when we eat also affects our brain chemistry. “The wrong foods can affect our moods and emotions. On the flip side, our emotions can affect our gut health which then is reflected on our skin,” says yoga teacher Devinder Kaur. “If we experience a lot of fear, especially fear of criticism, we end up creating tension in our gut, which then affects our ability to eliminate. When there is chronic constipation, our skin, which mirrors our gut, will reflect this problem.” Staying regular by eating slowly and consciously while sitting down, including lots of fiber in your diet, and drinking lots of water is therefore a big part of health!

Missing a meal can turn some people into monsters. Luckily, the best foods for positive thinking also help rejuvenate your skin and hair. Think oily fish, whole grains, cheese, avocado, nuts, and all the fruits and vegetables you fancy. To avoid a midday slump and maintain a positive mood, don’t skip meals so that your blood sugar levels remain even. Pair proteins with minimally processed whole grains—this will supply your body with slow releasing carbohydrates that will keep your blood sugar levels stable. If your moods falls below zero, keep your mind clear with a fruit rather than sweets or coffee.

To keep your emotions in balance, our brain needs B vitamins and magnesium from unrefined grains such as brown rice, wheat germ, and nuts and seeds (especially almonds, walnuts, and sunflower seeds). If you eat meat, that’s a good source of B vitamins too, but choose organic and free-range meats to minimize your exposure to toxic chemicals found in conventionally produced meat.

Vitamins of the B group are perhaps the most reliable stress busters in the vitamin realm. They support mechanisms that help our bodies cope with physical and mental stress, promote better body chemistry, and even restore vital neurotransmitter functions. For example, vitamin B3 (niacin) works for fatigue, anxiety, and even depression—but only in large doses. Still, if you take only 100 mg daily (best if you consult with your medical practitioner, just to be sure), you will notice positive effects such as clear thinking and better control of your emotions. Another B vitamin, pyridoxine (B6), is simply a godsend to women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and water retention before their periods.

Minerals needed to promote stress relief include zinc, magnesium, potassium, and manganese. Low zinc levels have been associated with low mood and unstable emotions. Magnesium is often called a “mineral antidepressant” and is best taken at bedtime. Manganese, ideally taken as a part of a well-formulated multivitamin from a reputable brand, helps the synthesis of dopamine, a mood-balancing neurotransmitter that also helps calm down and soothe the nerves.