Think you’re not a breakfast person?  Think again.  If you aren’t hungry when you wake up, you’ve eaten too much the night before.  Our bodies are designed to trigger hunger pangs about every 3-4 hours.  After an entire night of sleep, whether it’s 10 hours, 7 hours, or only 5 hours, your body should be hungry.  If you are eating at night, this is off setting to your body’s natural biorhythm.  If you aren’t eating breakfast because you don’t feel hungry, stop eating at night and before bed to reset your mind, body, and habits.  Perfect way to drop five pounds, too.

The cardinal sin of skincare is sleeping with your makeup on.  No matter how tired you are, wash your face before bed.   Your skin collects pore-clogging oil during the day.  According to a study in the American Journal of Epidemiology, there’s also a link between air pollution and skin bumps…especially if you live in high pollution areas, like Los Angeles, Chicago and Cincinnati.

Get yourself into a good skincare routine.  It really only takes two minutes before bed to cleanse, tone and moisturize.  Don’t have a skincare regime yet?  Try Supernatural Botanicals Skincare System.

Ensure that bedside lamps are the correct height with this little trick: When you’re sitting in bed, the lampshade bottoms should be at eye level so light will shine on your reading material not in your eyes.

If you’re anything like the rest of the working class in America, chances are, you are starved for sleep.  Dropping into bed at 11:30 p.m, only to wake again at 5 a.m. is robbing you of much needed mental functioning.  But, there’s good news.  If you aren’t getting enough sleep Monday through Friday, sleeping in late on Saturday or Sunday can undo the damage.  According to a UPenn study, a full 10 hours of rest one night a week can boost energy and increase your mood.

The position you sleep in may cause wrinkles?  It’s true!  “Resting your face on a pillow the same way every night for several years leads to sleep lines, which can become etched on the skin over time”, says Howard Sobel, M.D., a New York City dermatologist.  Sleeping on your back is your best bet to avoid deep, etched lines on your face.

Your body benefits greatly just by the simple act of deep breathing.  A slow, controlled breath will not only soothe the central nervous system to make  you more relaxed, but also helps your body in these ways:

• Lowers blood pressure
• Relaxes muscles
• Helps weight loss
• Increases energy
• Calms the mind
• Aids sleep
• Fights wrinkles
• Slows heart rate
• Aids in digestion
• Boosts the lymphatic system (which carries toxins away from the cells)

People who get inadequate sleep are more vulnerable to infection than those who are well rested.  In one study, researchers injected healthy volunteers with a cold virus.  Those who slept less than 7 hours a night for the previous week were 3 times more likely to develop symptoms than those who got 8 hours or more.   In another study,  people who got only 4 hours sleep for several nights in a row had a weaker immune response to the flu vaccine than those who slept between 7.5 and 8.5 hours. 

Don’t skimp on your sleep.  It’s only going to de-rail you down the line.   People seem to wear sleeping to little or working too hard as a badge of honor.  It’s not.  It’s a sign of being unbalanced.  In actuality, it’s a sign of not handling your life properly.  So the next time you hear someone bragging about how much they work and how little they sleep, let them know they are setting themselves up for failure.  Buy them a box of tissues, because they’ll be needing it for the cold they are about to get.

Sonia Kashuk, celebrity makeup artist to many stars, including Cindy Crawford, lists her 10 commandments for great skin. 

1. Protect yourself from the sun — use sunscreen and avoid direct sunlight between the hours of 10 and 2.
2. Don’t — I repeat — don’tsmoke. Your skin is a large organ and it needs a lot of circulation. Smoking impairs that dramatically. That’s why smokers’ skin looks dull and gray. Instead of having oxy-generated blood delivered to the surface of the skin, they’re getting poisons and oxidants.
3. Get adequate rest and nutrition.
4. Protect yourself from stress — both emotional and environmental stress.
5. Wash your face twice a day and put on the proper treatment product. I’m amazed when women tell me they don’t wash their face in the morning. A lot of icky stuff collects overnight — dead skin cells, dirt, and dust!
6. Don’t neglect certain areas of the skin. Elbows, heels, neck, and decolletage need moisturizing, and your scalp and the tops of your feet need sun protection.
7. Touch your face less and wash your hands more! Don’t get too surgical on yourself. It’s very tempting to pick, poke, squeeze, and scratch in front of the mirror. But the more you traumatize the skin, the greater your risk of scarring. Apply treatment products and let them work.
8. Keep your makeup clean. Replace the sponges in your compact on a regular basis. Now and then, toss the whole works and start fresh — the average shelf life for cosmetics is 6 to 12 months. Don’t buy products so expensive that you’ll be heartbroken if you have to throw them away.
9. Exercise moderation. More is not always better. Moisturizer, for example, is the most overused product in America. We’ve been bamboozled by cosmetic companies into thinking every square inch of our body has to be slathered. And it’s simply not true. Exfoliators are another thing to be careful with. Used too often, they overacidify and irritate your skin.
10. Beware of counter girls. If it were up to them, you’d be in the bathroom for two and a half hours each morning — putting 80 layers on your face. Keep your regimen simple. And when you do add a new product, do it gradually so your skin has time to adjust. Each skincare or makeup product has an average of 20 to 40 ingredients — you’re introducing 20 to 40 potential allergens to your face every time you try something new.

Want happiness?  Try music.  Music activates parts of the brain that can trigger happiness, releasing endorphins similar to the ways that sex and food do.  Music can also relax the body, sometimes into sleep, as it stimulates the brain’s release of melatonin.

A study of older adults who listened to their choice of music during outpatient eye surgery showed that they had significantly lower heart rates and blood pressure, and their hearts did not work as hard as those who underwent surgery without music. A second study of patients undergoing colonoscopy showed that listening to their selection of music reduced their anxiety levels and lessened the dosage required for sedation.

Case in point, listen to this song and try not to start immediately salsa dancing.  It’s absolutely impossible to listen to this song and not start instantly dancing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO0R_QTnKzA

Sun damage, stress, and lack of sleep can contribute to uneven skin tone.  Take care of your skin with a super-high SPF sun block every day.