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MSN Health & Fitness has come up with a list of surprising places and people bugs cling to that will have you investing in a 1litre hand sanitizer and get some people even more paranoid than they already are.

The Bed
Made up Bed
Hubby often complains of my tendency to leave the bed unmade, scoffing at my excuse that I’ll be back there in 12 hours anyway. Now I have a valid excuse. Dust mites live in your sheets and feed on your dead skin, contributing to asthma and allergies.

What to do : Don’t make your bed. Dust mites need humidity levels above 50% to survive and a made bed traps the moisture they need. If the sight of an unmade bed gives you the creepy crawlies, mount an air attack. Bundle a humidifier with an oscillating fan for a double moisture eliminator.

The contact-lens case
Contact lens cover
A 2007 Chinese study revealed that 34% of contact lens cases tested were crawling with germs that can cause an inflammatory eye disease that can damage the cornea and lead to blindness.

What to do : Throw away your used solution and thoroughly rinse the case in hot water daily. Replace your lens case at least every 3 months. As multi-purpose solutions lose most of their germ-fighting power after a couple of months, buy a new solution bottle every other month even if you haven’t used it all.

The flight attendant
Flight attendant
The Journal of Environmental Health Research has discovered that you are 100 times more likely to catch a cold on a plane than on the ground. Flight attendants are exposed to hundreds of sniffling and coughing passengers every day and use the same bathroom you use.
What to do : Pack a green-tea pill. People who take a 450mg green tea supplement twice a day for 3 months have a third fewer days of cold symptoms.

The gym equipment
Gym Equipment
A study in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine found that 63% of gym equipments they tested in fitness centres have bacteria that instigates the common cold. They also discovered that weight equipments contain more bacteria than cardio equipments.
What to do : Don’t touch your face between sets and pack an alcohol-based hand sanitizer in your gym bag.

The lemon wedge in your drink
Lemons
70% of lemon wedges floating innocently in café/restaurant glasses contain 25 different microorganisms including E. coli and other fecal bacteria.
What to do : Simple. Ask for your drink without the fruit.



The shopping trolley
Shopping Carts
Yikes! A recent study in the University of Arizona has shown that shopping trolleys contain more bacteria than an average public toilet.
What to do : Apply disinfectant to the handle of the trolley before grabbing hold. It may not be environmentally friendly but make use of those plastic bags in the fruits & vegetables section to pack any unbagged fruits & vegetables.

The restaurant menu
Menu
Cold and flu viruses survive up to 18 hours on hard surfaces. We’ve seen waiters spraying and wiping down the tables but have you ever seen them do the same with the menu?
What to do : Don’t let the menu touch your plate or cutlery and wash your hands after you order.


The Vacuum Cleaner
Vacuum cleaner
Researchers have found that vacuum brushes contain ‘fecal bacteria’, all packing with mold, transferring the germs from contaminated surfaces to uncontaminated ones when vacuuming.
What to do : Bacteria can survive up to 5 days inside a vacuum even after you take out the dirt so spray the brush with a disinfectant after each use. Also disposable bags promote bacterial growth so buy the bag-less types.










The vinyl shower curtain
Shower Curtain
The soap scum that sticks to your vinyl shower curtain not only looks ugly but breeds bacteria that causes infection.
What to do : Replace the vinyl curtain with a fabric shower curtain. It will still attract bacteria but is much easier to clean and scrub down than a vinyl curtain. All you have to do is toss it in the washing machine and use the hottest water the fabric can handle. Experts recommend washing the shower curtain once a month or, if you’re prone to allergies and infections, more frequently.

The weight-lifting gloves
Weightlifting gloves
A Japanese study has found that a certain type of bacteria sticks strongly to polyester which is used in many gloves. You inadvertently wipe the sweat from your face with your gloved hands and the bacteria are in.
What to do : Ditching the gloves not only ditch the germs but, according to Men’s Health Muscle Guy, doing the weights with your bare hands actually strengthen your grip and forearms.
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The Ugly Side of Beauty

November 15th 2007 02:06
Did you know that you are absorbing more than 200 chemical toxins into your body, even before leaving your house? The lotions, creams, sprays, the shiny glittery things – products that are designed to make us feel and look good on the outside - can potentially lead to cancer, infertility, birth defects and chronic disease?

Not Just a Pretty Face
Stacy Malkan, a self-confessed former make-up diva, is a staunch advocate of eliminating harmful chemicals from personal care and cosmetic products, launching the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and writing Not Just a Pretty Face : The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry. Here, she exposes how the US Food & Drug Administration seems to be protecting the $35 billion beauty industry by letting their products hit the shelves without prior approval from the FDA and why only 10 harmful products had been banned from the US shelves while the EU has banned more than 1100. Pretty worrying considering that 70% of the products available for purchase contain phthalates which are connected to infertility and birth defects and that baby soaps contain 1,4 dioxane, a cancer causing chemical. So it’s not just the beauty junkies at risk, it’s everyone who has ever picked up a personal care product – from men liberally spraying deodorant to newborn babes via breast milk laden with pollutants from mothers who have used these products.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has also shed light on the fact that 61% of lipsticks tested contained lead, with Loreal as the top offender with 6 of their lipsticks in the top 11 most lead-contaminated. However, unlike Mattel who recalled all their lead-paint toys, Loreal only reiterates that there are other items that contain more lead than theirs and that they remain staunchly proud of their lead-laced products.

While Malkan and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics have experienced resistance from mostly large beauty conglomerates like Loreal, they have made some headway and remain hopeful. Recently, they have convinced more than 600 companies (albeit mainly smaller ones) to sign an agreement, binding these companies to meet and/or exceed the EU standard for safety of personal care products and even persuaded nail polish giant OPI to remove the toxic chemicals from their nail polishes.

To find out more information about the book and Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, click this LINK. And if you’re curious to find out what exactly what toxic chemicals your favourite beauty product is carrying and to look for safer, alternative products, check this out.

Makes you think twice before buying that ultra-shine lipstick, huh?
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A nanny once told me that one surefire way to get rid of pimples is to rinse your face with your own periods. But before you scoff at this, check out some of the more bizarre beauty treatments that have piqued people’s curiosity enough to queue up outside certain day spas :

Woman Bathing

Nightingale Facial
Nothing like bird faeces slathered all over your face to make your skin look more translucent and flawless. This is Diamond Hawaii Resort & Spa’s signature facial and the geishas were the first to discover the benefits of nightingale excrement for the skin. Perhaps in ten years’ time, someone will discover the benefits of dog crap that will have us scurrying toward our pets with a plastic bag everytime they hunch over and we can say goodbye to swearing viciously everytime we step on one when we have a picnic…

Butt treatment
We get our faces scrubbed and exfoliated but someone had the bright idea that we should also look after our second set of cheeks down south. I call this the Buttial where your backside is cleansed, exfoliated, applied a mask to, waxed (if required), massaged and moisturised so your ass can look polished and feel oh-so smooth. Perfect for summer when you want to gallivant around on the beach with a g-string.

Cupping
Remember when sticking needles into your body drew some raised eyebrows and elicited the ‘WTF?’ Well, cupping is another form of acupuncture that’s supposed to encourage blood flow and ease muscle aches and pains. Small glass cups are lit and immediately applied to the skin. Even though clients will earn deep purple bruises that will last about a week, the process is painless. And if it’s good enough for Gwyneth Paltrow, it’s good enough for the rest of us.

Beer Spa
Here’s something that would encourage more men into day spas – in Czech Republic, Austria and Germany anyway. How’s soaking into a huge bubbling tub of warm beer sound? Landhotel Moorhof in Austria would have us believe that the yeast in beer contains vitamins that give you a better complexion while relieving the stress from your muscles. And don’t worry, before you can sit there and contemplate on whether you should dunk your head in the tub and gulp as much of beer as you can, you’re given a few pints of beer – to drink.

Ramen Noodle Spa
Immersing yourself in a tub of ramen noodles and pork broth, as you would in Yunessa Spa, Japan, supposedly boosts your overall metabolism while cleansing your skin. Just add a sprinkle of sliced green onions and a teaspoon of soy sauce and you can feel like the pork in a soup.

Snake massage
Would you pay $80 to have six snakes slithering all over your back? NO! A salon in Northern Israel now has a waiting list of clients who want the experience of having these reptiles writhing all over their bodies to soothe aching muscles and stiff joints. While Ada Barak who performs this treatment is always at hand to ensure the non-venomous snakes don’t go into certain…er…delicate areas, that’s hardly enough to convince me that this treatment is meant to be relaxing. What’s next? A crocodile rolling on your back as another form of remedial massage? No thanks.

*image from www.wikipedia.com
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Coping with Stress

August 14th 2007 01:05
Some say a little bit of stress in your life is good for you, it gives an otherwise ho-hum life a much needed excitement. On the other hand, everyone knows prolonged stress is extremely bad for your mental and physical health. The negative effects are endless – migraines, insomnia, heart attack, lowering of the immune system, triggering unhealthy behaviour like smoking, overeating, drug-taking and can make you appear older than you actually are.

John McEnroe
McEnroe - famous stresshead
Unfortunately, stress is all too much a part of our daily routine but some people cope with their stress better than most. I, for one, was born a stresshead - high strung, impatient people usually are. I used to stress about everything, including stupid things like running out of milk in the midst of making coffee or merging into the next lane on a freeway. I imagined myself a steam train gathering full speed – I felt the heat rising from my shoulders, spreading through the back of my neck, covering my ears with a buzzing sound and filling the rest of my head that I think my eyes are going to pop out and I have the urge to lash out physically, by either yelling out a string of expletives or slamming my fist into something, or both. And having a human-sized dummy made up of bubble wrap in your room to punch every time I was stressed only fuelled my violent tendencies.

Then I started working for a boss who reminded me of a pitbull. He looked like one, walked like one and had a manner of barking at his employees with a trail of spittle dangling from the corner of his mouth. In my nine months there, he had probably yelled at me five times but the countless hours I spent at night tossing and turning, wondering how to escape his wrath the next day finally led to my nervous breakdown.

I’ll always be high-strung and impatient but in recent years, I came up with some techniques that have helped me cope with stressful situations much more effectively – and without losing dignity.

1. When I’m about to head into a stressful situation (ie work, confronting someone about something), I take a few minutes to stand, sit or walk out in the sun, soaking up the rays and taking in huge deep breaths. Everytime I do this, I feel recharged and think that all is right with the world.

2. Keeping my surroundings neat and tidy. When I’m stressed, seeing clutter in my surroundings usually make my blood pressure go up. This is definitely true everytime I stress over what to wear and I see a pile of wrinkled clothes on the floor in my wardrobe and I just want to scream.

Happy Dogs
3. Keeping a photo of my smiling dogs in my surroundings. This helped me when I accidentally deleted an entire database of records at work.

4.They say you should silently count to ten in a stressful situation. Unfortunately, this has not helped me at all, but I find drinking in gulps of cold water have swallowed the string of swear words bunching up at the back of my throat.

5. Looking for split ends in my hair and cutting them. Somehow, it gives me a feeling of accomplishment everytime I see a pile of small black Ys on a white piece of paper.

6. Listening to classical music and imagining myself standing in Michelangelo’s square in Florence.

7. Slipping into a hot bubble bath with scented candles all around, doing a crossword puzzle and sipping Riccadonna.

8. Getting Facials & Massages

9. Walking – especially just before the sun sets – and listening to 80s music on my ipod.

Crying baby
10. Having a good cry. Many people would probably argue against this but it works for me. I remember training this girl, the worst I had ever trained (when a person doesn’t know the difference between ‘save’ and ‘save as’ on a word document, you know you’re in trouble). One thing that helped me cope was shutting myself off in a toilet cubicle and having a good solid cry for ten minutes. But at work, I would recommend doing your crying in private and not letting them know what you’re crying about, otherwise you’ll be touted a whinger.

For more info on stress, check out this site.


So how do you cope with stress?
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#3 Hiding "Lady Lumps'


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#4 Annihilating Morning Breath

Chewing Gum

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#5Slimming 'Pooh' Tea

Slimming Tea

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#7 Shaving….down under

Shaving Brazilian Wax
A Brazilian shave, anyone?

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#9 Detox your body - Drink 8 to 10 litres of water a day

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China Slim Tea

June 4th 2007 05:18
China Slim Tea (aka 'Pooh Tea')This has probably been the most effective way for me to lose weight in a matter of days – as well as the most disgusting and the most dangerous.

For around AUD$5, you can buy a box of these slim teas in any Asian shop. They look harmless enough – 18 bags of black tea sitting in the box, promising you weight loss in a matter of days.

[ Click here to read more ]
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