1. Give up smoking. Smoking has ravishing effects upon the skin’s beauty. Premature wrinkles, an unhealthy color of the skin and its dehydration are only a few damages that smoking causes, not to mention about cancer.

2. Do not expose yourself too much in the sun. The sun can be damaging for the skin if you stay too long for tanning. The unpleasant effects of tanning are not visible during the first years of lying in the sun. Wrinkles caused by excessive tanning appear only when it is too late to do something about them. Also, skin cancer is more and more frequent between young people and this is caused too by the devastating effects of the sun.

3. Sleep more. It has been proven that those who sleep more have a healthier aspect of the skin, are kept safe from obesity and diabetes and are even more cheerful and optimistic, just like teenagers are. So, try to sleep for at least 8 hours a night and you will assure a few more years of beauty for your skin.

4. Eat less sugar. Studies have shown that eating too much sugar and sweet products that are based on sugar can lead to serious heart conditions and obesity. Try to replace this addictive aliment with fruits and fresh vegetables.

5. The polluted air. Pollution can cause asthma, can trigger a certain sensibility to allergies and can make your skin loose its elasticity in time. Unfortunately, you can’t do much about this problem as you can’t just leave your job, sell your house and move to a cleaner city.

6. Watch your diet. Keep a balance between the healthy foods you eat and the unhealthy ones like saturated fats. I know it is not easy to remove the bad aliments entirely from the diet, but you should keep in mind that you can always replace some of those saturated fats with sea food, olive oil, avocado and coconut. Drink plenty of water daily so that they maintain your body hydrated and your skin young. Keep away from too much alcohol and replace pure alcohol with small quantities of red wine. This will keep your heart and blood vessels going on the right track.

When you are 20

This age is generally great! No wrinkles, no dark circles under the eyes, the skin is firm, maybe one or two zips that continue bothering you before your period comes. The only considerable body problem would be cellulite. Some girls get it when they are 14 or 15, due to hormonal changes that occur at that age, while others get it when they are a little bit over 20. At this age cellulite is mostly caused by an excessive retention of water in the body. Do not panic, as at this age cellulite is only in its early stages and can be defeated with a little bit of effort. By using constantly for a few months special gels that fight cellulite you can rest assure that your body will maintain its lovely shapes. Massage these products on the skin and avoid pinching as you can hurt some of the superficial blood vessels. Diet is also important: try not to consume too many fatty foods, and sodas. Pay attention to the way you dress, make sure your jeans are not too thin and that your belts and socks are not too tight as they can interfere with the process of blood irrigation of the tissues, leading to cellulite too. Also remember this: water is great for the skin so drink plenty of it every day.

When you are 30

At this age women have to deal with marks left behind by pregnancy. Stretch marks are not easy to deal with especially if you are genetically programmed to develop them. Taking care of your body before getting pregnant, during the pregnancy and after delivering the baby by applying special body lotions can help a little bit too. Aliments that increase the skin’s elasticity should be consumed more at this age: fruits, vegetables, yoghurt, minerals and proteins, eggs and especially fish. At the age of 30 wrinkles step forward taking the shape of fine lines on the forehead. You can start now applying daily creams that contain coenzyme q10 as they help your skin delay the wrinkle appearance process.

At the age of 40

As the level of estrogen starts to decrease now and the metabolism does not work so fast as it used to do when you were 20 you have to pay attention at your abdomen as fat might begin to deposit there. Every morning you should apply on the abdomen a body lotion based on coffee or sea algae extracts. Eat three times a week fish as it contains omega 3 acids which are great for reducing the fat from the blood. This way you not only maintain a perfect abdomen but also keep away atherosclerosis which is a deposit of fat on the walls of arteries.

When you are 50

At this age menopause normally installs, and your breast seem to loose their shape. Due to the lack of estrogens even the skin suffers and you are more exposed as ever to wrinkles. In order to maintain a great tonus of your breasts and arms you can do easy weight lifting every morning. Another great method for taking care of the breasts aspect is to apply once a week ice packages over the breasts. Leave them there for no more than 4 minutes. Also, apply special lotions and creams that nurture the breast’s skin and make sure you are well hydrated during the summer days.

Depending on the substance that causes the burn and on the time the skin remains in contact with the aggressive agent, skin burns can be minor, limited to the superficial skin layers or more complicated involving painful blisters or even nerve destructions.

The way we treat a skin burn is quite important as the first aid measures we apply influence greatly the following healing process of the wound.

1. Keep the burned area under cold water for 10 to 15 minutes. Cold water acts like a barrier against the extension of the burning. Plus, it diminishes the pain and the sensation of heat.

2. Do NOT apply butter or cooking oil over the wound. This will only cover up the area and maintain the sensation of heat, plus it will contribute to germ development inside the wound.

3. Apply a special calming lotion for burns before bandaging the affected area. You can find this type of lotion in any drug store. Buy it and keep it in your first aid kit from home.

4. You should apply a bandage over the burned area if the wound looks opened, but only a sterile bandage so that no germs get in contact with the burn. Do not apply the bandage very tight so that you let the skin relax a little bit underneath the bandage.

5. Some burnings are accompanied by blisters. Resist the temptation of breaking them and wait for them to dry up and heal in their own time. In case they accidentally break you must wash that area with soap and water and then apply an antibiotic cream over it. Cover up with a clean bandage.

6. In case you have a deep burn, and your clothes are practically glued to the wound, do not try to remove them on your own. Go to the emergency room and ask for specialized help.

1. As you might have known, specialists recommend us to sleep at least 8 hours a night. But at least I have never understood why we should do that. The explanations come from Loughborough’s University Sleep Research Centre: it seems that for each hour we loose from those eight of sleeping, one point from of IQ gets lost too. So, it is not the end of the world if you sleep seven ours one night, but imagine the disastrous effects of not sleeping enough time a whole week!

2. More sleep leads to less weight gain. This is certified by some other studies too. So, if you want to maintain your weight or even loose some pounds then go to sleep when you feel tired and try not to loose nights in vane.

3. The sleep is the beauty’s ally. I guess you knew this one. During the hours we sleep our body recharges with energy and the cells, especially the skin cells seem to rejuvenate. This is due to the fact that the reparatory process of the skin is more intense during the sleep. So, if you want a fair skin, without precocious wrinkles and under eye circles you should stick to your sleeping program.

4. The immune system is affected by sleep too. You might have noticed that when you have fever (which is mostly a natural response to an infection in the body), or you have a cold, you want to sleep more and if you do that you recover faster. If you do not get enough sleep your body will get cracks into the immune system and you will expose yourself to all kinds of infections like colds and flu.

5. The lack of sleep can transform you from a cheerful person into an irritable, nervous, impatient person. This will not only affect you, but will affect your family and friends too. Not to mention your work performances. You don’t want to become unbearable, do you?

6. Sleep is a great stress manager. Not only does your body relax and recharge during the sleeping hours, but also your stress hormones drop to a minimum level. Plus, if you wake up refreshed you will have more energy and ideas for solving out the daily problems.

7. Memory and sleep. Haven’t you noticed when you were in school and you read only once a lesson before bed time that you would have known it by heart in the morning? This is due to memory consolidation that takes place only while sleeping. So, if you want your child to learn easier you must put him to bed before midnight so that he can get enough sleep till the next day.

Here are 5 aliments that I am sure not all of you knew they have a positive effect upon the cardiovascular system.

1. Salmon. As this type of fish is rich in omega 3 acids, it reduces the level of bad cholesterol, and has a positive action upon the heart muscle. A thing you might not have known about this aliment is the fact that it is highly recommended for those people who resort to diets.

2. Carrots. As some studies say, by consuming a carrot every day you will reduce the risks of developing diabetes. Researchers explain this thing by declaring that carrots contain an important quantity of antioxidants.

3. Almonds. A study performed in Canada has concluded that by consuming 30 grams a day of this precious aliment the level of LDL cholesterol (this is the bad cholesterol) will be decreased with 13% and even with 20% in some people. They also contain a lot of vitamin E, which is an excellent antioxidant, this way protecting the heart against atherosclerosis. If you are not used with eating almonds you should know that they contain some calories, so be careful if you are overweight. You can eat almonds with yoghurt or white cheese for breakfast.

4. Beetroot. As this aliment contains a lot of potassium, you can consider yourself well protected against hypertension if you eat this aliment regularly. Doctors say that hypertension is caused in a lot of cases by the high level of sodium in our organism that retains water in the body and this way increases the blood pressure. If potassium lacks for the body than the level of sodium seems to increase and hypertension appears.

5. Garlic. As tiny as it is, this aliment has great power upon preventing atherosclerosis as it decreases the level of bad cholesterol. For a maximum effect of this aliment doctors recommend it to be consumed in two or three times a day. You can consume garlic by adding it to the cooked foods that support it: meat, stock, salads and even pasta or pizza.

Women that are at their first pregnancy want to know how they should proceed with certain things, they want to make things right for them and the baby, and so they ask their mothers, their friends and the gynecologist about almost everything. But this takes time and not all of them get to run from one person to another for asking details about child birth and nurturing. So, I thought that an article about the advantages and disadvantages of natural birth and cesarean would be helpful to a lot of them.

Doctors recommend natural birth in most of the women. They consider that if the woman’s body is strong enough and does not suffer of cardiac affections or eye problems (like extreme myopia) and the baby is well positioned for the expulsion, than the natural way of child delivery is preferred to cesarean. Complications are less frequent than during a surgery, and as studies have shown the baby will adapt better to the outside world due to the efforts he pays too when passing out. As natural birth involves a lot of pain, many women seem to give up this idea and focus more on the c-section form the beginning.

As cesarean is less painful thanks to anesthetics a lot of women seem to rush for this procedure, but they forget that this still remains a surgical intervention which involves a cut in your lower abdomen and womb. Post surgical infections are more frequent than local infections that can occur after a natural birth, and the body recovers a lot more difficult after the c-section. Another disadvantage of the cesarean would be the possibility that you don’t get to bond very well with your newborn. Connections between mother and baby are made much easier after a natural birth, and you should keep this in mind too before deciding upon having a c-section done.

It is true that a lot of doctors recommend natural birth due to its low cost in comparison to the c-section, besides physical advantages and disadvantages.

Talk to your gynecologist, see what he has to say about cesarean and natural delivery, tell him about your fears and frustrations and I’m sure you will hear a professional opinion as well as the advice of a human that understands what you are going through and can help you in taking a proper decision.

When it comes to daily products that we use we first think about deodorants. Deodorants are great if you are not much of a sweating person. This is due to the fact that they only cover up sweat with their lovely scent, but they don’t do anything against stopping it. Also, they neutralize the unpleasant smell of sweat as they contain antiseptic agents who are great for destroying the bacteria that develop within the sweat (the reason why transpiration smells bad is due to this bacteria that develop in time if you don not take a shower as soon as you start sweating). Deodorants are preferred by many people as they allow the body to sweat, which is a natural mechanism for cooling down the human organism.

If you sweat a lot and your blouses and T-shirts are always wet under your arms, you should focus more on using an antiperspirant product instead on relying on a deodorant. Antiperspirants work by blocking up the sweating channels from within the skin. This way wetness is reduced or even stopped for twelve to twenty four hours. You might think that this product is not healthy at all as it does not let your body sweat any more as it normally does. The thing is that you will not sweat in your armpit area where you applied the antiperspirant, but your body will be forced to find other opened sweating channels on your body to release sweat when needed.

One of the disadvantages with using antiperspirants would be the fact that they contain aluminum. As you might have read in newspapers and magazines, aluminum has found to be involved in triggering Alzheimer disease. Another thing that can happen if antiperspirants are used for too long is the appearance of one or more nodules underneath your arm, cause by the blockage and infection of one or more of the sweat channels. This problem can be solved only by surgical means.

The bad thing with deodorants would be the fact that they contain parabens, compounds that seem to play an important part into triggering breast cancer.

A great solution for keeping sweat smell away from you and not using deodorants or antiperspirant would be using cornstarch and baking soda. Place these ingredients in a bowl, and blend them as good as you can. Use a small quantity of the obtained powder to cover up a damp washcloth. Pat your armpits with that. Don’t rinse.

Normally the dry skin is the one who gets to suffer a lot due to the cold weather. Most often you can see during the chilly season that the skin around the nose and mouth is flaking or chapping. This is because cold weather usually ‘steals’ more moisture from the skin, leaving it dry and exposed to injuries. And this is why the oily skin is not that sensible during the cold season as the dry skin is.

The preparation for the dry skin should begin with a purification process of the skin. Normally a soft peeling would solve the problem with the dead cells. The next step to follow is intense moisturizing. You should not continue using the same light body lotion and creams you used during the summer. Replace them with rich formula creams. For the lips you should use as frequent as you can a soothing lip balm. As prevention is always easier than healing you should apply daily on your skin moisturizing body lotions, especially after taking your shower. Facial creams that contain vitamin A, C and E are the most indicated to use when the weather gets cold.

During the cold season external treatment for the skin is not enough, so we need to act internally too by adopting the right diet for this season. Try to avoid consuming any aliments that can lead to a dehydration of the skin. Coffee, black tea, and carbonated drinks are all enemies of your skin during the cold season. Pure water is the best solution if you want to maintain a healthy, lush skin. Drink a liter of water a day and you should not have to deal with dehydration.

Inside your house or at the workplace you should consider placing some humidifiers in order to moisture the air.

Outside, wear adequate clothes that offer skin protection against the wind and cold. For the hands protection wear quality leather gloves and for the delicate area of the decolletage you should wear a cashmere shawl.

In a lot of cases pain during intercourse appears if lubricating is missing or is insufficient for a good going of the sexual act. The problem can be solved if both partners take some precaution measures. The woman should learn how to relax better and the man should prolong the prelude. Also using sex lubricants bought from drug stores can be of help.

Normally, one or two episodes of painful intercourse can be overlooked, but if the problem persists then medical help should be seeked. You can start by going to your GP, but unfortunately not all of them are specialized in treating intercourse problems. If your GP is one of them, you can go to a gynecologist or to your local family planning clinic.

Sometimes painful intercourse is just a symptom given by another affection that you might suffer of and you are not treating it yet.

1. Vulvitis. This is an inflammation of the vaginal opening (the vulva). It can be triggered by a lot of causes, but most frequent by all kinds of chemicals women use for their hygiene, including bubble baths.

2. Ovarian affections. Cysts are most likely to trigger deep pain, but also if the penis touches an unusually positioned ovary pain can install. An ECO can easily show if there are cysts on the ovaries, and treatment can be fast implemented, solving both the pain and the internal affection.

3. Vaginismus. This affection has a psychological cause and it is triggered by the fear of pain. Most frequent vaginismus is encountered in girls that have just begun their sexual life and can outrun the feeling that they will be in pain again. Due to this fear, the muscles of the vagina are contracted in a spasm.

4. Vaginal infections, cervical inflammations and some sexual transmitted diseases can lead to pain during intercourse. When the pain is felt deep inside then the uterus might suffer of some affection like endometriosis or fibroids.

5. Menopause. As the level of female sex hormones decrease during menopause, the vaginal mucous membrane looses its lubricating properties, becomes more dry and this is why pain occurs during sex. Normally a sex lubricant and HRT pills can solve the problem.

I have given you this small definition so that you can see what constipation really means. A lot of people panic if they don’t have a stool every day and complain about suffering of constipation. The elimination of the bowels is done in a particular way for every human organism. Some people go out daily, others go only once at a two days interval. And this depends also on their lifestyle and eating habits. But is definitely not constipation, as the definition says.

Knowing what the causes of constipation are will most likely lead you to finding a treatment for it. Most frequent constipation occurs due to bad habits people have and due to an irregular lifestyle they adopt.

1. The lack of water in the organism will lead to a dry, hard stool that is difficult to eliminate from the body. It is not enough drinking a cup of tea in the morning and eating a soup in the afternoon and then at dinner drinking another glass of juice or mineral water. Doctors recommend that we drink daily 2 liters of water. Pay attention to coffee intake as coffee is known to dehydrate the human body. Always keep a bottle of water in your purse and drink it whenever you feel thirsty, especially in the summer time.
2. Eat more fibers. As fibers are not digested by our organism, they will contribute to the movement of the bowel, acting like a cleansing agent for the colon. More fibers added to your diet means an ease to the defecation process.

3. Do not restrain yourself from hard foods thinking they are the cause of your constipation. Hard foods usually contain fibers, so try not to neglect them from your diet.

4. Pregnancy is another cause for constipation. During those nine months of pregnancy certain hormones are being secreted more than usual in the woman’s body. They are responsible for the installation of constipation. The solution would be drinking plenty of water, so that the stool does not get too dry and hard.

5. The lack of exercising. People who sit all day long on a chair and then go home in their car (not on foot) and then sit in another chair are most likely to develop constipation. The lack of exercising will make your bowel movements decrease, your intestines will become lazier and this is not good news for you. Try to take a walk for 20 minutes daily, or exercise in the morning for 15 minutes, as your body needs physical activity desperately.

6. Pay attention to your daily medication. You should look on the prospect or consult with your regular doctor about the pills you take as some of them might be the cause of your constipation.

Constipation is a real problem to people, but as long as they make small changes in their diet and lifestyle there should not be any impediment in getting rid of this affection.