Health Living Tips

A professional skin care regime is one of the most important parts of maintaining your skin’s health. Your skin is not a smooth surface like a sheet of glass. On the contrary, your skin is more like a riverbed, full of little lumps, bumps, crevasses and holes. You can give these dermatological names such as fine lines, pores, sebaceous glands, etc., but at the end of the day the fact remains your skin is far from a flat, smooth surface.

Because of this and because your skin is a living, breathing part of your body and fulfils several major functions including temperature regulation, immune defence, protection from the external environment, etc., you will need to look after it if you wish to have it work at its optimal level and hope to have good, healthy skin into your late 70′s and beyond.

What about the type of products I should use for my skin care regime?

You should always choose natural skin care products as many commercially mass-produced skin care products utilise potentially toxic chemicals and highly modified ‘natural’ ingredients.

Wildcrafted Herbal Products hand makes a range of holistically-natural skin care products suitable for your particular skin type. These products are based on traditional naturopathic principles and utilize herbal extracts and essential oils to produce lasting effects.

Their products are designed to benefit your skin’s health for the long term and include only the best ingredients suitable for your specific skin type.

Daily Skin Care Regime

Cleansing your skin

Cleansing your skin is one of the most important steps if you want to maintain a healthy, vibrant and youthful looking skin.

As well as providing the basis for an advanced skin care regime, effective cleansing can actually improve the quality of our skin, enhancing its radiance and keeping it looking younger for longer.

Thorough cleansing is one of the most important steps of a complete skin care regime. Cleansing of your skin should be done morning and night to ensure the removal of surface impurities, make-up, and stale skin oils. When regularly performed cleansing will enhance the skin’s ability to breathe and maintain its other important functions.

One of the best ways to do this is to make cleansing your skin part of your daily skin care regime.

This is how you do it:

First, moisten your face with lukewarm water. Then apply a small amount of facial cleanser. Gently spread the product over your skin, using light, circular movements. At this stage, spend an extra minute massaging the product into your face to boost your skin’s circulation and help decongestion.

Secondly, be sure to be gentle, your skin is a delicate organ and needs to be treated with care and respect.

Lastly, rinse off the cleanser, using lukewarm water and pat your face dry.

If you are still using ordinary soap, STOP. You are seriously compromising the health of your skin. Throw it away and start using a quality cleanser.

Toning your skin

Toning is the second step in your daily skin care regime. These days, women often leave this step out and yet it is just as important as the cleansing of your skin or the moisturizing. It is a must include step. The one or two minutes it takes are worth every second if you desire to have healthy, vibrant skin with a minimum of lines and wrinkles. Don’t leave this step out.

You have just spent time cleaning your skin, ridding it of stale oils, makeup, dead skin cells and other impurities, now you have to tone your skin.

A quality cleanser may contain such ingredients as clay. This helps to remove dead skin cells and other impurities, but may not rinse off totally. This is why you need to use a quality toner.

Firstly, it removes every last bit of the cleanser such as the fine clay particles and other residues from the cleansing process.

Secondly it will close the skin’s pores to protect it from further loss of moisture, which invariably happens when cleansing your face.

Thirdly it provides nutrients and restores the pH balance of your skin.

Now that is worth spending a minute or two, isn’t it?

Moisturising your skin

This is the third part of your daily skin care regime and should also be done morning and night using a day crème in the morning and a night crème before retiring.

A quality moisturiser protects your facial skin from environmental damage, provides nutrients for the skin and prevents loss of moisture, thereby slowing down the aging process.

In addition, a moisturiser should help to maintain the acid mantle of your skin, which is part of your immune system and if the pH of your skin becomes too acidic or alkaline, the acid mantel is compromised.

Weekly Regime

To complete your skin care regime, you should set aside a few minutes once a week, preferably at the weekend to deeply cleanse and nourish your skin. Your weekly treats should include, the use of a Facial Mask and Exfoliation.

These treatments encourage cellular repair, step up collagen production and help strengthen, tone and firm up your skin.

Facial Clay Mask:

Using a clay mask will help to draw toxins from your skin, whilst moisturising and nourishing the skin at the same time. There are different clays that will work for specific skin types and choosing the right products containing the clay that is most suitable to your skin type is important. There are 3 basic clays: Green, Yellow and Red.

Exfoliation

Think of Exfoliation from this perspective. Exfoliation removes dead skin cells, soothes the skin and improves its tone. Dead skin cells are the very top layer of your skin. Applying moisturiser to dead skin cells does not make sense, does it? So exfoliation, removes the dead skin cells, promotes blood circulation and helps to invigorate and prepare the skin to more easily absorb any moisturising product you apply.

Exfoliation also helps speed up the rate of cell turn over. Another word for exfoliation is scrubbing. Using a facial scrub at least once a week, makes your skin more receptive to creams and treatments. However care must be taken not to over exfoliate.

The aim is to remove any dead cells from the skins surface without disturbing the healthy cells beneath.

In conclusion, to follow a skin care regime is like taking out an insurance policy on the health and vitality of your skin. Can you afford not to follow a complete, daily skin care regime?

No general screening test is more efficient, effective and affordable than a comprehensive blood chemistry panel. It allows the healthcare provider to establish a baseline of biomarkers to track the patient’s health and nutritional needs. Getting a blood test is essential to understanding your current health and your nutritional needs.

What is Blood Nutrition?

Blood NutritionTM, is an innovative, science-guided look at nutritional strengths and weaknesses through an individual’s blood test. This new scientific approach can offer a clear plan for your optimum health. As a result, a new generation of healthcare professionals is emerging with the tools and keys that can reveal the more subtle imbalances and assist in correcting them.

Blood NutritionTM is a comprehensive approach to health. To address the true cause of symptoms, one should look for their origin from a science-generated perspective by considering:

• Physiological distress or disease conditions

• Nutritional distress or imbalances

• Mental/emotional distress

Any of these factors may be the source or a contributing factor for the symptoms of imbalance. The cornerstone of an effective health strategy is a nutritional and lifestyle plan that is based on your biochemistry. Success here is dependent on the establishment of an accurate nutritional profile guided by scientific approaches such as a comprehensive blood test.

Blood Nutrition and Science

This advanced scientific approach identifies nutritionally significant information through the careful analysis of the various blood values. Certain indicators can reveal electrolyte, mineral and other nutritional imbalances. Once addressed, one can optimize the metabolic processes and help maintain the healthy performance of the body. A balanced nutritional state is essential for achieving and maintaining health.

Nutritional analysis of your Blood Test may indicate the need for:

• Key nutrients such as vitamin A, B6, B12, D

• Fluid and electrolyte balance

• Minerals such as magnesium, calcium and iron

• Tissue hydration

• Antioxidants

• Enzymes

• Nutritional support of key organs

• Nutritional support of metabolic pathways

• The need for lifestyle changes

Nutritional Imbalances

If you have nutritional imbalances, you may be experiencing the following:

• Mental/emotional symptoms including mood swings and anxiety

• Structural/musculoskeletal symptoms such as pain or stiffness

• Digestive issues such as bloating, indigestion and elimination problems

• Optical symptoms such as difficulty in night vision or blurry vision

• Symptoms such as weight gain, fatigue, insomnia, food cravings

• Cardiovascular health issues

• Dry skin, brittle nails, hair dryness or loss

• Others

Are you suffering from the effects of nutritional deficiencies or imbalances? Nutrients such as amino acids, enzymes, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and electrolytes are the building blocks of the body. They provide energy, support metabolism and are needed for many biochemical reactions to sustain health. Key nutrients may become deficient for various reasons. These may include:

• Disease processes, which may block metabolism

• Poor dietary habits

• Physical, mental and emotional stress

One of the most scientific ways to identify nutritional imbalances is to have your blood test evaluated by a nutritionally trained doctor or healthcare practitioner who is experienced in Blood NutritionTM assessment. A comprehensive blood test is affordable and results are normally received within a few days.

When key nutrients become deficient, many metabolic processes are affected. The body may initially try to compensate for such imbalances. However, if they are prolonged, they may contribute to hormonal issues, metabolic disorders, increase in toxic load, oxidative stress, organ weaknesses and many other health issues. Many symptoms such as tiredness, fatigue and irritability may be effectively addressed with proper nutritional considerations.

A blood test is one of the most efficient tests you can get to determine the quality of your overall health. Once you have received your test results, working with a specialist who is experienced in Blood NutritionTM will enable you to achieve the optimum health that is essential to a long life full of vitality.

Did you know that over 180,000 people search for information on acne everyday, out of which 77,000 want to know more about acne medicine ? And that there are over 22 million sites talking about acne, and acne medicine, treatment and products ? This tells me a few things. One, there are many people out there suffering from acne, and they are interested in knowing what kind of acne medicine is available to help them cure their problem. Equally, there are millions of available acne treatments and products out there. Obviously, no one acne medicine is suitable for any one person then.

First, a quick review on what acne is. It is what the layperson calls “pimples” or “zits”. There are different forms of acne, and all can occur at the same time, though one stage does not necessarily progress to the next. There are comedones, or blackheads and whiteheads, as they are usually called. Then there are acne spots caused by bacteria, leading to inflammation, resulting in a red possibly painful swelling called a papule. If the papule does not subside spontaneously, a pustule may form. This heals by discharging pus. A severe enough reaction may cause a lot of deep damage, leaving behind scars.

Acne medicine has different purposes. There is acne medicine to prevent acne. There is medicine to prevent infection of the acne. And there is medicine to prevent scarring from the acne. Finally, there is medicine to minimise the effects of acne scarring, should scars form.

Acne medicine can be divided into those that are applied to the skin – called topical acne medicine, and those that are taken orally – called systemic medicine.

Topical treatments come in the form of creams and lotions. There are two main types of topical acne medicine . The keratolytics , which act by peeling off the top horny outer layer of the skin, so helping to dislodge the comedones ( blackheads and whiteheads), and the antiseptics, which attempt to get rid of harmful bacterial action. Examples of keratolytic acne medicine include benzyl peroxide, Retin A, and sulphur. Examples of antispetic acne medicine include iodine ( eg Betadine), chlorhexidine, zinc salts, which are frequently incorporated into acne creams and lotions, azelaic acid.

One of the main problems with topical acne medicine is that they can be rather harsh. They can cause skin irritation and inflammation. Some, like retin A cannot be used during pregnancy. Sulphur containing acne medicines can be extremely smelly, like rotton eggs !

I can still remember the days when acne used to rule my life. I was so desperate for a cure I must have tried every over-the-counter acne medicine there was available. And there were plenty. That was the time when nobody thought acne was a serious problem. Everyone got it. Nobody had died from it. So it never occured to me that maybe I would need help.

It started with a few small spots. So I tried the standard sulphur-based acne medicine. I would apply it just over the offending spots and wait patiently till they went away. But they gradually got worse, with the number of red spots extending to different areas of my face. Soon it covered large areas of my face. I followed the instructions for how to use the acne medicine. I would cover my face with it faithfully every night, and went to bed smelling of sulphur. Even my pillows would smell of it. But I would hope and pray the medicine would do its wonderful work, and my acne would be gone. I always awoke the next day disappointed. I would wash my face, apply on a fresh layer of acne medicine and go about my day. I finally gave up when someone pointed out to me they always knew when I was coming, because the smell of the acne medicine announced my arrival !

I decided to try the benzyl peroxide-based acne medicine next. At least these did not smell of sulphur. The instructions seemed easy enough to follow. Just apply the acne medicine twice a day after washing the face and the acne would be gone within three to five days. It was again with great hope that I applied the new acne medicine. The first night, nothing happened. By the second night, my face was beginning to get a little itchy. By the third night, the side effects of the acne medicine were causing me to have a rather dry and red face. By the fourth night, my poor face was positively uncomfortable. By the fifth night, I gave up. The acne was still there. This acne medicine had not worked either.

Things just got from bad to worse. The small little red spots progressed to big spots. Big spots joined with other spots to form entire continents. There was hardly a clear space on my face. My confidence dipped to an all-time low. Acne ruled my life. It was the first thing I saw when I awoke, and the last thing I saw when I went to bed. Well meaning friends and relatives constantly commented on it and had lots of advice of what type of acne medicine would work best. I had tried everything.

Generally topical acne medicines work well for those with mild acne. A good number can be simply bought over-the-counter without the need of a doctor’s prescription. And for many, this may be the only treatment required for acne.