Livin’ la vida loca

You'll want to switch up your skincare routine at night — and not just because you don't need SPF while you sleep! According to Dr. Magovern, your nighttime routine is the perfect time to make sure your skin is getting as many nutrients and active ingredients as possible, since your skin regenerates and repairs itself while you snooze. You'll still follow the basic steps — cleanse, treat, and moisturize — but at night, the routine will look a little bit different.

1. Cleanse

Dr. Magovern still recommends going for a gentle cleanser, but at night, you can use a cleanser that helps take off your makeup, like an oil-based face wash. If you want to go the extra mile, you can even try "double cleansing" by using a water-based face wash after an oil cleanser to clean any lingering dirt and oil out of your pores.

2. Tone

If you'd like to use a toner, apply it the same way you would in the morning. This will go before you start applying serums and treatments.

3. Serums and Treatments

Dr. Magovern is a big fan of using alpha hydroxy acid to help brighten skin by sloughing off dead skin cells. It helps build your collagen and improves radiance. If you're looking to include retinol in your skincare routine, Dr. Magovern says its best to apply during your nighttime ritual. Retinol is a form of vitamin A that helps decrease visible wrinkles, bright spots and pore size.

"Everyone can use a retinol," says Magovern. You can start using retinol as early as your 20s, but it becomes especially important as you age. "In your 40s and 50s is definitely where retinol should come in if it if it hasn't already."

4. Eye Cream

Dr. Magovern likes to tell her patients to try training the skin around their eyes to handle more active ingredients (like retinol) to reap their benefits. "You don't have to use a lot, but if you start training your skin to tolerate more active products around the eye, you'll see more change," she says. You can pat a bit of your serum or treatment around your eye area, then follow up by using your favorite eye cream.

5. Acne Spot Treatment

If you have a pimple that you'd like to see go away sooner rather than later, this is a great time to apply acne spot treatments. But instead of focusing on pimples when they pop up, Magovern advises you to keep up with your skincare routine as a preventative measure. "If you just treat the spot, then you're going to get an acne breakout right next door to it if your skin is clogged. You're getting breakouts because oil is building up in your skin. So you have to keep the pores clean on your whole face. "

6. Moisturize

Moisturizing is really important at night, as it creates a barrier that seals in active ingredients and hydration. This way, when you wake up, your skin is glowy and plump —and ready to start the day.

7. Face Oil

Face oils are a great way to lock in moisture while you sleep. "A lot of people think that if they have like acne or oily skin, their skin will break out with the oils but it's actually not true," says Magovern. "A lot of them can actually really help hydrate and soften the skin." Particularly if you're using active ingredients like retinol and alpha hydroxy acids, face oils are a great way to add an extra boost of moisture.

Your Daytime Skincare Routine

1. Cleanse

Cleansing is the first step of any good skincare routine. The type of cleanser you use matters more than you think it does gentle face washes are the way to go, particularly if you plan on using more active ingredients down the line. "Too many people cleanse too much or too often or with a cleanser that's too harsh, and it will actually break down your skin barrier," warns Dr. Magovern.

2. Tone

Toner is an optional step, but if you have a toner you like, you should absolutely use it. Dr. Magovern says that toner can be a great way to balance your skin's pH. If you have acne-prone skin, look for a toner with ingredients like salicylic acid to calm breakouts. If you have dry or sensitive skin, opt for a hydrating toner to soothe.

3. Vitamin C Serum

When it comes to serums, Dr. Magovern recommends using a vitamin C serum during the day. "I feel like everybody should use vitamin C, no matter what your age, even starting in your 20s," says Dr. Magovern. "It helps reverse a lot of the damage that we get from the sun and pollution." When using a vitamin C serum, look for one that contains a stable form of vitamin C, so that the molecule will actually be able to soak into your skin.

4. Eye Cream

Eye creams fall into the "treat" category. Dab on eye cream using your ring finger (your weakest finger) so you don't unintentionally cause damage to your eye area.

5. Moisturizer

After you've treated your skin, it's time to moisturize. Moisturizer keeps your skin hydrated and helps strengthen your skin barrier. For daytime use, opt for a lighter moisturizer that will soak in quickly and won't cause pilling under makeup.

6. Sunscreen

This is the most important step in your skincare routine. "If you don't wear sunscreen, it's like you might as well not do any of those other steps," says Dr. Magovern. "The sun is the number one reason why people's skin will age prematurely." Heads up: Protecting your skin from the sun is important even if you're spending your days indoors, as UV rays can still come in through the windows.

If you’ve ever experienced the bittersweet sensation of being caught in a miserable music feedback loop for example listening to some of Celine Dion’s more heartbreaking ballads then you might just breathe a sigh of relief because you might be more normal than you maybe first worried about.

While music has often been linked to patterns and changes in the way that our brains process, it can make us way more productive, given the right kind of track, for example, and how it affects our behavior, it can also be found to work on helping us process unconscious thoughts and emotions.

Research from various studies has found that our preference for moody, sad songs isn’t just down to the likelihood of listening to them when you’re on the outs. Sad music can in fact act as a mood stabilizer, an emotional support and even a catharsis inducer, through the power of its generally mellow mood and often reflective, emotionally-invested and soul-searching lyrics.

You probably feel better for feeling worse

For example, Taruffi & Koelsch (2014), a Berlin-based research team, found that conversely to popular opinion, positive feeling (i.e. happiness, calmness, and peace) was correlated with listening to typically sad music. The research team asked 772 participants across the globe to describe why they liked the songs they liked to listen to when in times of sadness or low mood, such as following the break-up of a relationship. Taruffi told The Huffington Post: “The most frequent emotion evoked was nostalgia, which is a bittersweet emotion — it’s more complex and it’s partly positive,” Taruffi said. “This helps explain why sad music is appealing and pleasurable for people.”

The research team summarised that: “This is the first comprehensive survey of music-evoked sadness, revealing that listening to sad music can lead to beneficial emotional effects such as regulation of negative emotion and mood as well as consolation. Such beneficial emotional effects constitute the prime motivations for engaging with sad music in everyday life.” In short, listening to negative and sad music makes us feel better because we can use as an emotional outlet. There’s a reason why people are encouraged to listen to sad music when they’re sad; the music connects with the mood of the listener and allows them to express their emotions in a healthy way. Better than that, sad music also encourages empathy, as listeners not only connect with their own emotions, but with that of the musician, and through that, other people who have gone through the same situation, increasing empathy. The research additionally found that happy music for people in a positive mood had similar benefits, but were significantly smaller when compared to the sad music group of the study.

Getting over yourself

Sad music also provides us with catharsis a painful but necessary and overall positive emotional purification – that is essential to healthy emotional behavior. For years, science has provided evidence that crying can be a great way to provide catharsis and a positive mood boost, and sad music can facilitate the kind of emotional journey that allows you to let it all go and feel better as a result.

Finally, sad music can develop strong emotional connections with us even when we’re not feeling particularly sad. Elizabeth Margulis, author of On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind, said: “A sense of shared subjectivity with the music can arise. In descriptions of their most intense experiences of music, people often talk about a sense that the boundary between the music and themselves has dissolved.” In short, we form attachments to songs we connect to on a personal and subjective level, and so we are much more likely to listen to them repeatedly or in a great number over a shorter period of time. You might be in a good place and feeling happy, and yet find yourself listening to the new Adele song a fair amount; this doesn’t mean you’re secretly melancholic it might just mean that you’re working on your empathy muscles or maybe just enjoying a song that really speaks to your heart. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Movie review Ratatouille

Rats are one of the most disgusting animal to some of us. Rats are usually found in dirty places, mostly in the dustbin, drainage, and back of the restaurants. But Ratatouille movie just changed the whole perception about rats. Literally a rat will cook in one of the famous restaurant!!! How ridiculous it is. In the beginning of the movie, they portrait the usual rats stealing foods from house except Remy, the earnest little rat who is its hero, is such a lovable, determined, gifted rodent that I want to know happens to him next, now that he has conquered the summit of French cuisine and that’s what I love about this movie.

One day when Remy and his family was chased from a cottage house, Remy somehow escaped but he got separated from his family. Linguini found poor Remy and saved him. Little did he know that Remy a rat is about to change his life. Later, Linguini brought Remy to his house and to his restaurant. Little by little Remy thought Linguini how to cook and serve the customer. Remy burrows into Linguini's hair, is concealed by his toque, can see through its transparent sides and controls Linguini by pulling on his hair as if each tuft were a joystick. Together, they astonish Paris with their genius.

All of this begins as a dubious premise and ends as a triumph of animation, comedy, imagination and, yes, humanity. What is most lovable about Remy is his modesty and shyness, even for a rat. He has body language so expressive than many humans would trade for it. Many animated characters seem to communicate with semaphores, but Remy has a repertory of tiny French hand gestures, shrugs and physical expressiveness. Does any other nationality have more ways of moving a finger and an eyebrow less than an inch while signaling something as complex as, "I would do anything for you, monsieur, but as you see, I have only two hands, and these times we live in do not permit me the luxury of fulfilling such requests."

What is a gut feeling?

Gut feeling is something we all have experienced but something we can't seem to apprehend. Gut feeling is an intuition or an instinct. Something you feel without a logical rationale. For instance, you hesitate to go to a party because you just feel something is not right. You stop at a traffic light even when its still yellow and a minute later you find a car speeding from another end. There are many kind of gut feeling and often, we ignore them because we are just unsure of it.

Well, it can at time get tricky but the purest intuitions are always right rather than the ones lingering in your thoughts and mind. Even emotions may be partially correct. And in most situation, people regret for not trusting that gut feeling. Even I experienced the same thing and till now, it bothers me. If only I had trusted my intuition back then, I wouldn't be feeling so wrong.

Last year, was a terrible year. As if the Covid-19 wasn't enough, my grandma wasn't in the best condition either. She was diagnosed with cancer. At first they just said it was a small dot. Unfortunately, it spread throughout the body. So last year we were continuously traveling to and from the hospital. We didn't had proper sleep or even proper meal because at that time, shops were not allowed to operate after 8pm. At times we weren't allowed into the hospital because only one person is allowed per visit and we can't stay there either.

Since November 2019, we had to go through this but we just had hope that things would be fine. At one point, the doctor said there's nothing much can be done because of age factor. So we took her home to my aunts house and everyday we would visit. From talking normally , she suddenly stopped talking and there was no movements. Seeing all this, my heart just sank like anything because I share a very close relationship with my grandma.

One fine Friday, we went to visit as usual. My aunts, uncles and siblings were also there. Everything was as per normal. It was 11pm then and my parents said its time we head home and come visit the next day. I started feeling something wasn't right. My instinct told me to just stay one night but I ignored it. Even after I left the place and came home, something was bothering me. I couldn't sleep but eventually I slept out of tiredness. The next day, we started our day with breakfast and wanted to prepare something for lunch before we visited my grandma. Suddenly, we got a call at 12pm, saying there's no respond from my grandma. The ambulance had arrived and checked for pulse three times but it was in vain. We left home and rushed but by the time we reached, it was too late.

At that point, it all made sense. My gut feeling. I should have trusted them. I should have stayed back that night. I could have been by her side while she breath last. But because I chose to ignore it, that feeling of regret just overtook me. Its been almost 6 months she had left us but till now, sometimes I question myself why hadn't I trusted that gut feeling. And this isn't my first experience with that gut feeling.

We tend to not trust our gut because sometimes it leads us down a path that it is full of insecurities, fearful and new things and uncomfortable situations. Humans are not made for moving out of their comfort zones. Our minds are programmed to do anything that keeps them alive and is as easy as possible. Our brain tries to keep us safe no matter what.

And then there is society. This group of people that tend to put pressure on you, no matter what you do. 30, single and you don’t want kids? How dare you! A successful CEO and you wear pink? What the actual eff! You still play snake on your Nokia 3210 and never even came close to a Chanel bag? Holy eff, get out of here! Society can be a bitch sometimes. Your mind knows this, too and keeps you all fluffy and safe within your and society’s comfort zone.

Whenever you need to take a decision, do not think about it but listen to that inner voice, that inner feeling, you gut. Don't hesitate to follow your gut instinct. Don't make a list of the pros and cons. Don't sleep on it. Don't bother about what others will say. Listen to your inner self because it knows you and only you alone can feel that.

Now, you might ask 'how do we re-programme our mind to trust out gut feeling'? This is a process that requires trust, even though the outcome of the decision is not something you'd hope for.

As time passes, you will automatically be keen to your inner voice. You won't hesitate and you will eventually learn to trust yourself and whatever that gut feeling of yours say. It might take some time because its not a skill to master. It is something beyond the control of mankind. But with effort, it will definitely be worth it.

According to Judith Orloff, a Los Angeles psychiatric who teaches medical students on how to use their intuition when working with patients, most gut feelings are accompanied by physical sensation. Like for positive instincts are accompanied by:

A sense of warmth
Ability to breath easily
Sharp hearing and clarity of vision
A wave of goosebumps or a slight fluttering feel
A sense of relaxation

And negative instincts are accompanied by:

Icy cold hands or feet
Clenching pain in the gut or chest
Nausea
A sense of being on 'high alert'
Fatigue or loss of energy
Headache
Short of breath
Rapid heartbeat

These are some physical symptoms you may experience when you have a gut feeling. However, once you get used to it, you will notice changes in your habit of making decision. You will began trusting and listening to that gut feeling of yours and I guarantee, your life will change for the better. Sometimes you get this feeling over petty issues but its yourself feeling it and there is absolutely no wrong it trusting those instincts to make a decision. But remember that gut feeling is natural and not something you overthink through your mind or emotion. Sometimes you might make wrong decision about certain feeling but as mentioned earlier, you have to trust the process and trust yourself. Eventually, you will be attentive to your inner voice.

1. Cleanse

2. Tone

3. Serums and Treatments

4. Eye Cream

5. Acne Spot Treatment

6. Moisturize

7. Face Oil

2. Tone

3. Vitamin C Serum

4. Eye Cream

5. Moisturizer

6. Sunscreen

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