Easy tips generate energy, banish aches, help you sleep, make your period less hellish… and give you a sexy skip to your step. Not just for ladies but also for guys.

• To get revved up, lie on your back with your legs staight up. Bringing a fresh hit of oxygen to your brain to revive you.

• Maintain a bright white smile by avoiding sodas and iced teas made with citric, malic, and tartaric acids, since these additives erode enamel.

• Coat your lips with gloss that contains an SPF of at least 15. gloss slick sheen acts like a magnifying glass for UV rays, intensifying the damage they can do. 

• Avoid computer-induced eye strain with this exercise. Every few hours, look away from your monitor and slowly roll your eyes up and down. Repeat three times, then roll your eyes three times side to side.

• Sweeten your breath by munching on apples, carrots, or cucumbers. Like a toothbrush, these abrasive foods scrape away foul-smelling bacteria.

• Become more gregarious by placing flowers next to your bed or your desk. Lilies, roses, and other fragrant stems affect brain chemistry and can make you feel out going.

• When staying at a guys place for the first time, gargle with toothpaste or use your finger as a toothbrush rather than brushing with his. Toothbrush bristles can transmit diseases, including HPV, hepatitis A, B, and C, syphilis, and herpes.

• Check your finger nails every month to gain insight into your health. Brittleness can indicate an iron or protien deficiency, yellow nails suggest low circulation, and pale nail beds point to anemia.

• If you’re prone to pimples, fill your plate with salmon, walnuts, edamame, and canola oil, four foods packed with fatty acids that fight inflammation and keep skin glands from becoming overstimulated.

• If you’re too wired to sleep, try a few belly breaths. Place one hand on your stomach, and inhale for six seconds. Hold for three counts, then exhale slowly. Repeat six ti eight times. This simple move slows your heart rate and reduces levels of stress hormones.

• Boost your metabolism by eating almonds. They contain compound that helps you torch calories.

• Keep hair healthy by generally sporting loose styles. Always twisting strands into tight ponytails, braids, or extensions might trigger traction alopecia, an irreversable form of hair loss caused by breakage.

• When you shave, use one razor for your armpits and legs, and another for your bikini area. Doctors are inreasingly seeing staph infections along a woman’s private parts, which may be because germs that live harmlessly in your pits or on your legs get transferred via a razor to your pubes, where they become dangerous and can enter your bloodstream.

• Wine contains a disease-fighting antioxidant called resveratrol, and wines with the highest amount of it are grown in cool, rainy regions, such as muscadine from France and the fruit wines from Baguio, Philippines. Choose one of these and you’ll reap more health benifits than if you sipped wine from warm, drier regions.

• Avoid painful calf cramps by drinking a few extra glasses of water a day. Dehydration is a common cause of the cramping.

• When your feet are hurting after a night in your four-inch stilettos, reduce muscle tension quickly by sitting in a chair and crossing your legs, then writing the alphabet with each foot in the lowercase then uppercase letters.

• Keep the volume on your iPod at about the same noise level as normal conversation. Because the earbuds deliver sound into your ear, the decibel level intensified, potentially damaging your hearing over time.

• Feel happier and calm your stressful day by singing and listening to your favorite tune. Doing so boosts levels of the bonding hormone oxytocin.

• Fit into your skinny jeans by eating potassium-rich foods, such as bananas and avocados. Potassium helps flush out excess fluids from your body.

• Irregular or no-show periods may mean that you need to ease your packed schedule. Working too much and sleeping too little throws off your cycle.

]]> http://myblueheart.org/filipina/healthy-is-sexy.html/feed 0 http://myblueheart.org/filipina/abstinence-the-sexy-way.html http://myblueheart.org/filipina/abstinence-the-sexy-way.html#comments Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:20:01 +0000 Blue Rose http://myblueheart.org/?p=1172 More »]]> The Candie’s Foundation claims that its mission is “to educate America’s youth about the devastating consequences of teenage pregnancy.” So why, then, is it pushing abstinence, and “sexy” abstinence, at that, as an ideal solution?

The foundation is currently pushing their new t-shirt design, created in partnership with Seventeen, which reads: “I’m Sexy Enough To Keep You Waiting.” A number of other designs were considered, shown on the website in this charming graphic, with girls in flirty tees surrounding text that reads: “Be Sexy! It Doesn’t Mean You Have To Have Sex!”

No, it doesn’t. But as Lisa at Sociological Images points out, why aren’t there any boys wearing these t-shirts? Why is it only girls who are expected to “be sexy!” but remain chaste? Why are we pushing this ridiculous “I’m so sexy,” bullshit slogan as a means to really address the issues behind teen pregnancy rates? Why aren’t there any references to condoms, or safe sex, or birth control pills? It seems a bit disturbing that the foundation’s main method of reaching young girls is to tell them to “be sexy” but remind them that having sex might lead to “devastating consequences.” Mixed messages much?

I suppose this fits in with the company’s current split between its retail spokesperson, Britney Spears, and its recent foundation spokesperson, Bristol Palin: they push a sexy image on consumers, and hope that teens will buy into their sexy brand, but then expect young women to push their sexuality aside (or apologize for it) and abstain, or else face “the consequences.” Are there consequences of having sex? Yes. But it seems as if pregnancy is the only one this foundation wants to address, and abstinence is their main method of doing so, all while reminding girls that they can still “be sexy!” It’s disappointing and frustrating, and just feeds into the bizarre culture that wants young women to exude sexuality, as long as they don’t dare to actually claim some sort of control over their own.

If the Candie’s Foundation really wants to fight teen pregnancy, perhaps they should tone down the “sexy” angle and focus on the actual sex. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to note that teen pregnancy isn’t a female issue alone: turning it into the sole responsibility of young women, who have too many mixed messages thrown at them as it is, simply makes it easier for the world to expect them to remain both sexy and sexless, an unfair notion that will only lead to more confusion. It’s education, openness, and honesty that’s the key, not pushing girls away from their own sexuality while slapping the word “sexy” across their chests.

Source: Jezebel.com