All posts by Demi

mental health

Why Yoga is Essential for My Self Care

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Here are some reasons for why I have been incorporating aspects of Yoga into my daily life:

  1. It reduces my anxiety: Concentrating on connecting my breath with movement dramatically reduces my anxiety every time. Even doing a light 20 minute practice improves my mind set.
  2. It helps me focus: Taking in deeper breaths and therefore increasing the oxygen and blood flow to my brain does increase my focus. If I am feeling restless while working from home, I do about 5 minutes of flow (downward facing dog, plank, upwards facing dog, on all fours, child’s pose) to help increase my focus.
  3. It helps me sleep: As it helps reduce my overall stress level, doing some balancing poses and supine poses are good for getting me ready for bed.
  4. It improves my strength and flexibility: This was one of the main reasons why I started to practice in the first place. I wanted to increase my body’s overall strength. Because a strong body harbors a strong mind.
  5. Improves back pain: As I increase my strength and flexibility, I noticed my lower back pain from sitting all day at work and school was significantly improved.

What has been essential for your self care practice?

mental health

Never been more grateful to be able to take care of myself

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Though these quarantine times are anything but easy and filled with uncertainty, I am appreciating the amount of time I can spend truly taking care of myself mentally and physically. I don’t feel the need to drink the problems of my day away, and I can interact with only the people I want to (besides my boss that I have to call every once in a while).

I didn’t always feel this way though, with the beginning of my quarantine days feeling lost, full of drinking, and overeating. And though I can’t say I completely kicked the overeating habit, with the help of therapy over the phone I am starting to cope in a healthy way. And I am starting to feel better mentally than I did before the quarantine started.

My routine is a lot less intense than it normally is, and I feel like I have truly gotten the time to reflect over my daily life and how hectic I made it for no reason. I am starting to realize what is important to me other than productivity and what I actually enjoy doing. I have also been giving my brain a much needed break before I start school in the Fall.

Before quarantine, my work was beginning to be a toxic place for me and it was depleting so much of my energy. I had no idea how much time I needed to recover from it and I am starting to realize how much certain environments do not work for me.

I am also starting to realize how slow I need to move in the morning and evenings. I don’t need to go to 6:45am hot yoga for an hour and a half to get my day going. I’ve learned even 20 minutes of at home yoga gives me the same benefits with less headaches.

There has been so much I’ve learned about myself during these times, and I encourage you to do the same. I mean what else do we have to do?

❤

Beauty

Thoughts on Online Thrifting During Pandemic

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I love thrifting. Whether it is in person or online, I used to spend a lot of my time at my local Goodwill and on Depop prior to the pandemic. In fact, I remember the last thing I bought before everything shut down was a long mint green blazer I could wear to work in the springtime weather.

However, as I am searching on Depop, I was wondering how safe is it to online shop or more specifically online thrift shop during these times. As a scientist, I had to research how long the virus can live on surfaces (which was considerably long amount of time for a virus) and looked up various other articles about risk of contamination during shipping.

And according to the CDC, “[T]here is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures.” That is good news for me and online store businesses. However, when buying online I still pondered the thought Is it ethical?

When I buy from Depop for example, I think about the one person I am buying from and that’s it usually. But since the pandemic, I think about every person that has to put themselves at risk to deliver my product to my door and if it is worth it. I think them having jobs during this time is a necessity but besides the fact that there is no where to go, my online shopping urge has abruptly stopped as I am still thinking about these questions. I have still ordered some necessities online but I can’t get myself to shop for other things anymore..

What are your thoughts?

Beauty

My Morning Routine

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I have been so mentally drained these past few weeks and have been trying my best to have a morning routine that keeps me sane and grounded. Here is what I have been doing that has been working best for me.

I get up and still make a coffee every morning. I do make sure I drink water first thing in the morning as I keep a water bottle by my bed but I still force myself out of bed at around the same time every day to make myself coffee.

Then, I fight the urge to back into the bed and go right outside. I try to get outside and soak up some sunlight first thing in the morning for a walk and listen to music or a podcast. This always calms my nerves and anxiety just getting the fresh air and some very light exercise as I don’t have the motivation to go on a hard run just yet.

I typically try to walk for about 30 minutes which is usually how long my podcasts last for and then I head back inside to try and make some breakfast.

I eat whatever I am feeling like as I don’t have to rush to get into the office, and as I am eating I usually check my work emails and such.

After I eat is when I usually stretch, do yoga, and meditate. Usually I do yoga for over an hour but lately I have been doing about 20 minutes of a yoga sequence and meditating for about 5 minutes at the end of the session.

Then to wrap up my morning I usually do a fun activity which can be anything from painting, dancing around to my favorite music, or having a bath… yes I said what I said. I got a Japanese soaking tub and it has been working wonders for my mood to soak in some salts. It has been a pretty fun activity for me to do in the middle of the day and boosts my mood to begin the second leg of the day.

And that’s it! What have your mornings been looking like lately?

Beauty

Black Sustainable Beauty Gurus To Follow Right Now

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With most sustainable beauty bloggers and gurus being white women, it is refreshing to see black sustainable beauty gurus out here making a difference. Here are my top picks for blogs and accounts to follow to get more ideas about promoting your own wellness while incorporating sustainability into your life.

Juices + Berries

Juices + Berries is an amazing blog by Jordan focusing around natural hair and self care. She has everything from a sustainable natural hair mask to self care tips for black women. I love this blog and her Instagram as she always encouraging others to live their best life. I really love how she is not shy talking about any topic in wellness including sexual health and wellness and gut health.

Carron Coleman

Taken from Instagram

Carron Coleman‘s blog is about her natural living lifestyle while promoting a non-toxic approach to your products. She is an amazing advocate for “clean beauty” and creates content specifically for black women. She also doesn’t shy away from difficult topics such as her fibroids, found commonly among black women.

Kaya Journey

Kaya Journey’s YouTube channel is full of green beauty tutorials. She is an avid plant lover as she has videos on repotting houseplants and how to grow your houseplants. She has beauty tutorials and unboxings as well on her channel. She hasn’t posted in a bit but I am hoping she will get the much needed boost soon to keep creating amazing content!

mental health

Happy Earth Week: Here’s what you can do

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During these strange times it is still important to remember that it is Earth Week with Earth day coming up on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020. And though we can’t physically go out and do the things we normally do, here are some things you can do from your home for this Earth week.

Attend a digital strike

At least for New York, there are plans of a digital strike occurring to demand that our leaders support a Green New Deal, funding for front line communities, and a just transition to 100% renewable energy. More information found here.

Creatively Compost

There are many ways to compost even in a small studio apartment like mine. You can look up composting centers and facilities nearby if you don’t have your own to bring it when it is full!

Have a plant based meal for a day or once per week

I completely understand that everyone can’t go plant based overnight but even substituting one meal a day or even during your week and just being mindful lowers your carbon footprint.

Reduce your own plastic waste

Do a plastic audit of yourself and limit your own plastic waste. Though unavoidable, there are several items to replace common plastic items such as using beeswax wrap instead of plastic wrap, buying in bulk to avoid plastic packaging, and using reusable pens.

What are you doing for Earth Week?

Beauty

My Grocery Store Skin Care Routine

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With all the malls being closed and me running out of skincare products, I had to learn what products worked for me at my local grocery store. Here is what I have been lovinggg from my local Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s:

  • Acure’s Rose Oil
  • Pacifica Sheet Mask
  • Trader Joe’s All in one cleanser
  • Trader Joe’s Body Oil

First, I use Trader Joe’s All in One Cleanser in the shower to thoroughly clean my face. It is light and gets foamy to clean my pores. Then, I use Pacifica’s Super Green Detox Sheet Mask while I am drying my body and applying the Trader Joe’s Body Oil. This sheet mask really feels like it does work and leaves my face noticeably glowing afterwards. The body oil is also light weight and leaves me feeling soft.

After I am done moisturizing my body and let the sheet mask sit for at least 15 minutes, I rub in the excess product into my face and apply Acure’s Rose Argan Oil. This has been my favorite product during the quarantine thus far and I am able to use it as a stand alone moisturizer for my eczema prone skin. It really is a high performing moisturizer.

And that’s it, a very simple skincare routine for the quarantine days. What has been your favorite products?