Displaying items by tag: DERMASCOPE

Seven Simple Tips to Grow Active, Healthy Kids

by Carol Torgan, Ph.D.

Kids cannot stare at a screen and their hands are not available to text or play video games when they are building a snowman, splashing in a stream, scaling a rock wall, digging in a garden, or climbing trees.

1. Lead by example: You are a role model for your kids. If they see you plop on the couch and watch TV they will be inclined to recline as well.

2. Think outside the box: Give a child an expensive gift and they promptly rip it open and… start playing with the gift paper and box. Skip expensive toys and break out glass jars to catch and release insects. Use gift boxes and shoe boxes to display and stow keepsake shells, rocks, dried leaves and other found treasures. It is often said the best toys are 10 percent creation and 90 percent imagination.

3. Watch and Listen: What do your children enjoy doing outside? What activities do they talk about doing? (Ask them). Encourage those activities and build on them.

4. Share: What are your favorite childhood memories of outside play? Share them with your family and then go on a night hike, build a tree house, or run through the sprinklers to create new family memories.

5. Sculpt: By providing your children with opportunities to move and create, you are sculpting their brains. Play fosters new neural connections and prunes existing ones. As kids sculpt snow and sand, they sculpt their futures.

6. Meet: Safety is one of the major reasons parents are hesitant to let their children play outside. Organize a play-date that really is about play.

7. Create opportunities: Do not over schedule your children or yourself. Leave open little windows of time – even if only for 10 minutes – just to goof off and move around and explore outside. Any outdoor activity is much, much better than sitting inside staring at a screen.

8. Resolve: Make a resolution to join the National Wildlife Federation’s Be Out There Movement and take the pledge to get your kids outside.

Copyright© www.nwf.org

LED Light and Green Tea Cream Smooth Facial Wrinkles

Scientists in Germany are reporting a major improvement in their potential new treatment for facial wrinkles that could emerge as an alternative to Botox and cosmetic surgery. The non-invasive technique combines high-intensity light from light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and a lotion made of green tea extract. It works 10 times faster than a similar anti-wrinkle treatment that uses LEDs alone.

American Chemical Society (2009, September 9). LED Light And Green Tea Cream Smooth Facial Wrinkles. ScienceDaily. Retrieved

Using eyeliner as eye shadow is easier than you think!

by Linda Eisner

Whether it is on the eyelid crease, the entire eye, or under the brow, using eyeliner as eye shadow is simple to apply and offers the wearer long lasting waterproof color that can be layered. There are an infinite number of simple ways to use eyeliner as eye shadow.
For all applications, it is recommended to dust translucent powder over the entire eyelid. The powder will help to spread, blend, and set the color. Using the side of the pencil, gently shade in the area you want as shadow. Apply the pencil a bit darker than you want the final color to be. Then take any sized concealer brush and blend the color. Small brushes are preferable because they are easy to control. Use short, light strokes blending the edges up away from the majority of the color. This technique will spread the color to look like powder shadow but will have the benefit of a long lasting waterproof shadow. Plus depending on how light or dramatic you want the shadow, you can blend several colors using this technique. Use them as a base to hold powder shadow too. The powder color will look more dramatic and will adhere to the pencil base beautifully. Be creative and use the pencils as both liner and shadow together. Once all the color is applied, dust again with translucent powder to set the color.

Baby acne…

Baby acne is very common. It can be present at birth, but more often it shows up after a couple of weeks, usually on the cheeks and sometimes on the forehead, chin, and even the back.

These small whiteheads might be surrounded by reddish skin. They can become more pronounced when your baby is hot or fussy or if his skin is irritated by saliva, spit-up milk, or fabric that is a little rough or that has been washed in strong detergent.

If your baby had tiny bumps on his face at birth that disappeared within a few weeks, these are called milia and they are unrelated to acne. If the irritation looks more rashy or scaly than pimply or it appears elsewhere on his body, your baby may have another condition, such as cradle cap or eczema.

What could be causing my baby’s acne?
As with adolescent acne, there is no clear answer. For some time, experts have pointed to the hormones babies receive from their mother at the end of pregnancy as a cause of baby acne. But researchers continue to study other factors and have yet to agree on one culprit. If you take certain medications while nursing, for example, or if your baby takes certain medications, they might trigger baby acne.

How long will it last?
Baby acne usually clears up within a few weeks, but it can linger for months. If it doesn’t clear up within three months or you are concerned about it, talk with your baby’s doctor. Copyright© Baby Center LLC

How to Feel Better When You are Stressed

by: Dr. Mercola

Here are some tips on how to make yourself feel better when you are stressed:

1. Calm down: Before anything else, calm yourself down. Do not panic. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.

2. Feed your mind with positive thoughts: When you are depressed, it is easy to fall into a vicious cycle of negative thoughts. It is important that you break this cycle. To do that, feed your mind with positive thoughts. You may read spiritual texts, motivational books, or inspiring quotes. You may also listen to positive tapes.

3. Remember good things: Direct your mind to the positive. Remember the good things in your life. Remember the good people around you.

4. Look at the big picture: An event that seems bad might not seem that bad if you look at the big picture. Put the event in context.

5. Believe that everything will be all right: What you believe has a big effect on you. If you believe that things will go wrong, that would usually be the case. On the other hand, if you believe that everything will be all right, you will have a winning attitude.

6. Exercise: When you are depressed, take time to exercise. Exercise relieves the symptoms of depression and anxiety.

7. Forgive: Sometimes one reason you feel bad is because you do not forgive. Perhaps you had made mistakes in the past and you blamed yourself for it. You need to forgive yourself. Or perhaps someone mistreated you. You need to forgive them.

8. Take action: Things will not get better if you just sit and do nothing. Instead of thinking about how bad things are, think of what you can do to solve the problem and take action.

9. Say something positive: Negative words have a devastating effect on your confidence and motivation. So whenever you are about to say something negative, stop yourself and take a deep breath. Reframe what you are going to say and make it positive.

10. Think about other people: One of the best ways to make yourself feel better is simply by taking the focus away from yourself. Start thinking about other people and how you can help them. When you do that, your problems will no longer seem so hard.

Skin Fact

Fingers and toes wrinkle in the bathtub due to the outermost layer of the skin swelling when it absorbs water. It is tightly attached to the skin underneath, so it compensates for the increased area by wrinkling. Most biologists suggest that the tough outer layer of skin made up of dead keratin cells is responsible.

Yeast Shows Good Moisturizing Potentional

Glycolipids produced in abundance by a number of yeast strains exhibit good moisturizing properties and can help damaged skin cells recover, according to a recent study by Japanese scientists.