How to Take Care of your Health During Winter Periods

Protecting your health in the wintertime isn’t as hard as it sounds, here are some tips for preventing typical problems during the coldest time of the year.

Immune System

Prevention is really the key to not getting sick. Older folks, children and those with depressed immune systems may want to consider getting a flu shot, which can protect you from getting the flu. You can also improve your immune system by eating right and taking the proper vitamins and minerals for your age and body type. Even a multivitamin is better than nothing, but consider supplementing with Vitamin C and Zinc, both proven to boost the immune system.

Skin

Your skin can often take a beating during the winter months. Inside your home or workplace, you’ll be subjected to dry heat from electric, gas, oil or wood fire heating elements. Also, you may take longer and certainly hotter baths or showers. Outside your home you’ll be subjected to dry, windy, wet or cold weather. Moving inside and outside from dry heat to dry cold can wreak havoc on your skin, making it dry, itchy, red, flaky and irritated. The skin on your face is especially susceptible to this problem. Use moisturizers and moisturizing lotions daily to keep your skin healthy and hydrated. You can also use a humidifier to add some much needed moisture back to the air in your home or workplace. Don’t forget to protect your skin from the glare of the sun or ravages of the wind by covering up all parts of your body by wearing gloves, a scarf, ear muffs and a hat when you go out. Remember to cleanse your face everyday with a gentle soap and lukewarm water. You may also wish to add a bath oil product to your baths to moisturize the skin on your entire body. The skin on your hands will also be very susceptible to drying and irritation, remedy this by applying a hand cream after each time you wash your hands.

Lips

Your lips are one of the hardest hit areas of your body during cold weather, especially during very dry and cold weather. Your lips may be chapped, dry and peel much more easily. Keep a moisturizing, protecting lip balm with you and apply it daily or as needed to keep your lips moist and supple and to avoid painful cracking.

Eyes

While in some areas of the country, the sun may not shine nearly as much as during the rest of the year, it’s still important to take care of your eyes during cold weather. Use sunglasses when needed, as the sun during the wintertime can shine UV rays that are even stronger than during the summer. Also, use eye drops as needed to prevent and relieve dry eyes due to the dry heat that may be present indoors. When snow is on the ground and/or the sun is shining, this is the most important time to protect your eyes from the sun’s wintertime UV rays with a good pair of sunglasses or goggles.

Fitness

When exercising, shoveling snow or working outside in cold weather, take extra care to avoid overexertion. Overexertion during cold weather can put an extra strain on your heart. When you need to exercise, consider instead working out in your home or at a gym. It’s very important to keep up your fitness routine throughout the year, including winter.

Treatment Tips for Acne Sufferers

Get plenty of fresh air and sunshine. Not only will your skin appreciate the vitamin D, your body and mind will enjoy the oxygen and stress reducer of just being outside in the fresh air. Remember to use sun protection or tanning lotion if you're out for any period of time.

Even "good" stress can trigger internal chemical responses that result in acne, so plan ahead to deal with extra stress when planning a wedding, graduation, move, new job, job transfer, new baby, etc. Get help around the house, take time off, exercise have fun or whatever you need to do. But be proactive.

When you control stress, you help control the stress hormone cortisol - reducing its release as you reduce stress, reduces the effects of acne. Activity and exercise help improve blood flow
and circulation and are natural healing aids for your skin enabling improved waste management, via your skin pores.

Both blackheads and whiteheads are filled with trapped sebum and bacteria. So prevention and treatment advice for how to handle them is important.

Drink plenty of water daily. A recommendation is three to four tall glasses of mineral or filtered water. If you don't drink enough, it can lead to dehydration, which leads to dead skin cells not naturally falling off or sloughing properly. This results in blocked pores which ultimately turns into acne.

Acne has nothing to do with dirt, so don't over-wash or over-scrub your face or the rest of your body. Too much washing and scrubbing can result in dry skin. Dry skin means your skin creates more oil. which leads to extra dead skin cells and blocked pores which trigger acne flare-ups.

Add more fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts to your regular diet.
Add salads, dried fruit and nut snacks, juices and other healthy
treats to your daily diet plan

Decrease your intake of caffeine, sugar and refined carbohydrates. Some studies show caffeine can increases levels of stress hormones inside your body, provoking or worsening acne conditions.

Sugar and refined carbohydrates, such as that in white bread, rice, flour, pasta, etc., can result in an insulin surge, resulting in an excess of hormones stimulating the skin to discharge lots of sebum.

Decrease your dietary intake of red meat and dairy products. Since they are more difficult to digest, it's thought their acid-forming properties are linked to our bodies health. It's thought when the body puts effort into the digestion of high levels of animal protein, waste products are not completely processed as quickly as they should be, i.e. they shed slowly, blocking pores which causes acne.

Red meat and dairy products may contain high levels of hormones that may generate higher levels in humans thus causing acne.

Use natural products on your skin. Avoid unnecessary chemicals in skin/body products that may be harmful.

Use non-pore clogging or noncomedogenic products like make-ups and tanning lotions.
Look for any combination of these terms on labels: natural ingredients, antibacterial, antiseptic, anti fungal, anti parasitic, antiviral and / or antimicrobial agent.

Taking these basic steps can help you control your acne.

http://www.acne-and-you.com

How to Brush Your Skin to Relieve Acne

Brushing your skin with a brush or cloth is an excellent way to improve the appearance of your skin. If you have acne, this brushing will help to eliminate toxins through the skin and reduce the toxins that accumulate in your acne.

Brushing your skin while dry and just before taking a shower is a way to stimulate the flow of liquid through lymphatic system and increase the circulating of blood. It also has other benefits:

* Removes and brushes away dry dead cells that can clog your skin
* Opens pores to allow you to excrete more toxins safely
* Activates the nerves near the top of your skin, making your skin work better
* It stimulates the tiny blood vessels near your skin and brings more nutrients and acid neutralizing minerals to your skin
* Improves your overall health since the skin must eliminate close to 2 pounds of waste through your pores.

If you practice dry or wet brushing your skin, you will see improved beauty and health in your skin.

You can also scrub your skin during your shower and this is the way I like to do it.

There are two different types of brushes that are designed for dry skin brushing.

* A natural bristle brush
* Loofah with a long handle
When you start bushing for the first time, do it softly and gentle until your skin gets use to the rough feeling. If you have not been brushing and scrubbing your skin, then you may have some side effects caused by stirring up toxins. Because skin brushing promotes release of toxins through the skin, you want to make sure you are not constipated, otherwise you will start to release to many toxins through the skin.

A word of caution: Brush only once a day and do not brush too hard. Excessive brushing over stimulates the skin and can produce unwanted side effects.

But, here is how to dry brush your skin before you take a shower,

* Start with gentle light touch circular motions at your face. If you have severe acne do this gently massage with a clean hot face towel and do not brush your face.
* Always brush only in the direction of your heart. From the feet upward, brush up toward the heart. At the neck, brush downward toward the heart.

After you finish brushing, about 5 minutes, take a shower to remove the dead and old skin.

What I do is use a loofah in the shower with soap and brush my skin as described above. It is a gentler way to brush your skin and you wash away the skin derby at the same time. Brushing your body decreases the amount of toxins that reach your face and can help you get rid of or prevent acne.

More acne hints and information on Rudy Silva's acne e-book can be found at http://www.acne-remedies.for--you.info

How To Get Rid of Blackheads

This tip is for all the men who want to get rid of blackheads. Blackheads are caused by partially blocked pores. The "black" appearance of them is not caused by dirt, but by the oxidising effect of air on the sebum (oil) in a blocked pore and the melanin pigment from the dead skin cells.

Step 1 You will need
* A bowl of very hot water
* exfoliator
* toner
* face cream for reducing enlarged pores
* soap for oily or neutral skin

Step 2 Daily exfoliator
In the morning, wash your face using a daily exfoliator and some warm water. Apply in a circular motion, emphasising the common problem areas. In men these are normally the nose and upper cheeks. When you're done, rinse your face with warm water.

Step 3 Apply cream
Apply a face cream especially designed to reduce enlarged pores. This will be specified on the packaging. Apply using upward strokes. You can also tap the skin to improve circulation.

Step 4 Apply toner
Dampen a cosmetic pad by running it under warm water, then squeezing the water out of the pad. Apply toner to the pad and run lightly over your nose and upper cheeks. Toner will close the pores after exfoliating.

Step 5 At night
Before you go to bed, wash your face with soap and warm water. Use a soap designed for oily or neutral skin. This will be clearly marked on the packaging. Finally run over your face with some toner before heading off for that all-important beauty sleep.

Step 6 A steam bath
If, despite these preventative measures you find yourself faced with a rogue blackhead, fill a bowl with hot, steaming water. Drape a towel over your head and lean over the bowl. Stay in the steam for 10 minutes. This will open the pores and soften the content of the blackhead.

Step 7 Extricate the blighter
Wrap a tissue around each of your index fingers, and apply gentle pressure on each side of the blackhead. Try to tease out the blackhead. Don't squeeze too hard, and if the blighter's stubborn back off - the last thing you want is to cause scarring. Never use your fingernails as they carry dirt and can cause further infection.

Step 8 Call in the professionals
For a flawless complexion, consider a regular facial once every 4 weeks or so.