Lifestyle Choices

Keep a Diary

Each day, confide in your diary. This is a way of expressing your feelings. You may not always have friends with you, but your diary can take the place of friends for the time being. Write freely about what most bothers you. Make a list of things you are most grateful for each day. Looking at the good side will help you to have a balanced view of yourself, the world and your future. If you have not made it a habit to keep a diary, start one today. It is therapeutic. (more…)

Express Your Feelings

Depressed feelings need to be expressed. Keeping a tight lid on one’s feelings will, in the long run, intensify the feelings and drive one to deeper levels of depression. If you have a friend or a confidant, speak to him candidly about how you feel. The tendency in depressed people is to withdraw from others and this adds to their sense of isolation. Loneliness is not good for depression. It can worsen depression. So resist the tendency to withdraw into your own world. (more…)

Alcohol

Depression sometimes drives people to drink and sometimes alcohol abuse leads to depression. In any case, drowning your sorrows will not help you overcome depression in the long run. Some seek out their doctors for sleeping tablets. Merely taking sleeping tablets will not relieve one of depressive symptoms. There are many depressed patients with chronic insomnia. Despite being given sleeping tablets, their insomnia does not get better. What they need are antidepressant medications. Long-term, regular use of sleeping tablets may result in dependence and tolerance whereby there is a need to take higher and higher doses to achieve the same effect. Hence the depressed person should not just look to sleeping tablets but should seek psychiatric help and obtain antidepressant medications instead. (more…)

You Are Not Alone

Many teens suffer from depression, therefore you are not alone. There are effective treatments and hence no depression is a hopeless case. You need to be patient with yourself. It takes time for the mind to heal just as it takes time for the body to heal. Wishing that the depression will disappear is not going to work. It will not go away immediately but it will, eventually. Continuing with treatment and therapy will ensure that that day will come even sooner. In the meantime, try to relax yourself, sort out your feelings and thoughts, and allow your mind and emotions to recover. (more…)

If feelings become so painful and overwhelming that you feel like harming yourself or others, you need to get help right away. Speak to a parent, an adult or a doctor. Ring the

SOS or teenage helpline for crisis counselling. In the meantime, the following suggestions can offer some solace until you find someone you can talk to:

Many teens who have attempted suicide (and survived) say that they did it because they had mistakenly felt that there was no other solution to the problem they were experiencing. At the time, they could not see another way out — but in truth, there is always a way out, even if they could not see it there and then. No matter how horrible you are feeling now, these emotions can, and will, pass. (more…)

Facial Hair

I know, life isn’t fair. Some of us are darker and fuzzier in places we wish we weren’t, and during our period a female ‘moustache’ can become darker and more noticeable.

If you have noticeable hairs on your face you have three options:

• Bleaching them monthly. This is fine if the hairs aren’t coarse or too long. Apply a special facial hair bleach to lighten the hair. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Always test a patch of hair on your arm first. Some women’s hair turns red, which can be worse than the natural shade.

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Who Starts the Quarrels?

How do most family quarrels start? This, of course, is hard to say, for usually there is no single cause. Often there is some underlying discontent, particularly on the part of the wife. Marriage has changed her lot completely, while her husband may be carrying on the same work that has occupied his time for years. He may prefer to continue his routine uninterrupted, while she will want plenty of variety. She may then assume that he does not love her. This may be true in some instances, but not in most. In any case she may begin to feel rather neglected. She wants more attention. A brisk family contention may seem a rather rough way to bring this about, but it usually attracts the attention she craves—sometimes much more! Most men will take just so much, then there may be trouble, perhaps even physical violence. The sensible thing to do is prevent such episodes before they reach the place where there seems to be no turning back. (more…)

There are two sorts of crisis: there is the personal one, such as the loss of a job or of a loved one by death or divorce, or the communal one, such as a motorway threat to a village, or a war. But there always seems to be some sort of crisis.

When personal disaster strikes, you probably need sympathy and practical help; but there is a distinct possibility (especially if everyone else is also swimming for the lifeboats) that the only person who is always interested in you, and able to provide you with sustained help is … YOURSELF.

Don’t think ’somebody ought to do something about it’ or `the government should see to it’. Start thinking in terms of self-reliance. What you can do and what you can’t do — that may be all you can count on. Whatever your crisis, force yourself to look cheerful. Shakespeare said: ‘ There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’, and Napoleon added that `the moral is to material as three to one’. I would also say that the quickest face lift is a smile. Go on — try it, just for today SMILE and try to find something good instead of something bad in every new situation. (more…)

First, take a good look at yourself (body, soul and inside skull). Decide what areas could stand a little pleasant improvement. Decide what your life lacks. New friends? Less weight? More fun? Once you’ve decided what you want, stand up, take a deep breath, and S TART.

What you can do inside your home

Make yourself more beautiful: This is basically taking better care of yourself, encouraging healthy narcissism, learning to love and take care of your body, condition your skin and hair. Learn to relax. Take care of yourclothes. (more…)

When, despite all your precautions of good diet, lots of rest, and proper exercise, you do find yourself with a cold or flu, don’t fight it! Listen to Mom and the family doctor, take your medicine, stay in bed, and try to get well. Remember, with a little bed rest and proper treatment, you should be back on your feet again soon.

The best cold-fighting diet is fruits, fruit juices, lots of tea with lemon and honey, and light meals like soups, plain chicken, or fish. Avoid rich foods such as milk, cream, and chocolate, which will only thicken the phlegm in your throat, making you feel worse. (more…)

To some extent the angry liberationists are right. We as women have been raised to believe that we are dependent, selfless, sweet and passive creatures. The cultural roles handed down to us from generation to generation demand the needs of others. By learning to conform to these feminine roles, although we may not be consciously aware of it we suppress natural qualities within us that don’t fit into the notion we have of “feminine”—such things as physical strength, independence, pride, and anger. For in our culture these qualities are traditionally labeled “male,” although, in truth, both male and female qualities exist in all of us and need to work together if we are to use our potential and are to express our wholeness and individuality as a human being of whatever sex. (more…)

So in personal terms, for the sake of mental and physical health and beauty it is important that every woman develop an awareness of her own personal relationship to stress and come to terms with it. This is all part of what is known as “stress management.” There are many different methods of going about it. If you are familiar with them you can choose which ones work best for you and you will be able to live with your own stress, an inevitable part of every human life, and enjoy it instead of allowing it to turn to distress and make you miserable, ill, and old before your time. (more…)

Like good breathing, yoga can also make you beautiful. And I don’t mean by simply trimming a flabby thigh or flattening a neglected stomach. Of course, it will do these things too. But what I mean is more fundamental. The meaning of the word yoga is “union,” or in modern terms, “integration.” Practicing yoga regularly can bring a sense of calmness, poise, and detachment that eliminates the negative effects of stress and clears away tensions that stifle the full expression of your individuality— intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It can also help bring together these four parts of a woman so she functions as a whole. (more…)

Where behaviorist techniques can help change the outer things that affect your appetite and eating patterns, creative imagery can help your inner attitudes. And attitudes are important. For how you see yourself, how you think of yourself, and how you think of food, day after day, has a great deal to say about what you become—fat or thin, in control or out of control, truly responsible for yourself or at the mercy of others and circumstances.

In recent years, many useful techniques of meditation, often coupled with guided fantasy or creative imagery, have been developed. They can be helpful to the dieter in three ways. First, all of them demand the use of some form of deep relaxation practiced twice a day. (more…)

Step Four: Take a Look at How Fast You Eat

Overweight people tend to eat much faster than their slimmer friends. When you eat too fast you bring about two negative effects, both of which should be eliminated from any weight-loss diet. First, eating fast makes you unaware of both the taste of what you are eating and also how much of it is going down. You eat a lot simply because you have no real idea of how much you are taking in. This, and the fact that you will not be able to digest fully the starches you eat unless you chew them thoroughly, make it important that you slow down. (more…)

Your unconscious mind is tremendously powerful. It is a source of energy and creativity which—provided you can get in touch with it and turn it toward your desired ends—will work wonders for you. The use of creative imagery specifically geared to slimming can help you harness your own power. Following the principles of creative imagery, here are a few imaginary trips you can take to help you slim. Some will bring insight and increased self-awareness, others will help you get accustomed to yourself as a healthy, lean woman, still others can help you shed old, no longer useful thought patterns that have been hampering you. (more…)

Varicose veins are the most serious enemies of leg beauty. But they are not the accident of nature that many women believe. The problem is virtually unknown amongst native populations living on a diet of natural unrefined foods. But studies show that as soon as our highly refined Western diet of convenience foods arrives in a country, varicose veins start to appear. The hidden constipation that results from living on the average Western diet lacking in natural fiber from whole grains and raw vegetables is one of the prime causes of varicose veins, for uneliminated wastes in the intestines put constant pressure on the blood vessels supplying blood to and from the legs. Long-term overweight is another factor in the development of varicose veins. (more…)

The only way to lose weight is to change your eating habits permanently so you follow a life regimen of eating moderate quantities of good, wholesome food, which provides a full complement of nutrition for lasting health and beauty. This means reeducating both your palate (to expect different tasting, lighter foods) and your appetite so that you lose weight gradually. This way you also do not have any of the diet shock that leads to going off a regimen and defeats its purpose. Two pounds a week weight loss should be your goal, not more. Then you can keep it off. (more…)

Bathing should be a pleasant ritual that should treat your mind as well as your body. There are a number of useful prebath techniques and tools. They are important because they can prepare your skin and body for taking the plunge and ensure you get more benefit from bathing.

A Loofah

A dry, rough-textured sea gourd that you soften by wetting it, the loofah is rubbed against the skin to slough off dead cells and to increase circulation. You can buy loofahs in their natural state (about fifteen inches long) or sewn into gloves and bands of terry cloth to be used as scrubbers. (more…)

1. Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Learn from it and put it behind you. If, at any stage, you find you are slipping and the programme is not working, go back to the things that did work - sharpen up your focus again and look at the basics; exercise, nutrition and monitoring.
2. Spend plenty of time on your successes. Make something out of them. Find ways to reward yourself for doing it right and getting to your short- term goals. Try to set the goals so that they are at least achievable - there is great power in feeling that you have actually over-achieved.

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