#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

The TikTok has two million views — and counting. You might have even seen it already. It opens on a person wearing a tie-dye Thrasher T-shirt, pointing to a text bubble over their head that reads: “Things you didn’t realize could be ADHD.” Over the next 60 seconds, the creator acts out a handful of symptoms, including feeling angry over small things, “anxiety shivers,” having hard time with rejection, making random noises unconsciously, being very competitive, and hyper-focusing on interests.

Entering the comments on this video feels a little like conducting an archaeological excavation. You get the sense that you’re traveling back in time, uncovering the evidence of aftershocks first, before digging down to the remnants of the catalyst itself. At the top of the comments, the creator warns viewers against self-diagnosing. “Y’all… Relating to problems is perfectly fine.. But self diagnosing and going off tellin people you have it.. Not okay.” [sic] Keep reading, and you’ll see more and more people emphatically saying that no one should assume they have ADHD based on the video. It isn’t until several scrolls later that you finally begin to notice people actually doing that, saying things like, “Wait, these random/anxious shivers aren’t normal?” and “I didn’t know I had adhd” and “I… think… I think I have ADHD.” 

Similar conversations — an insistence on not self-diagnosing accompanied by countless responses doing just that — are playing out in the comments of videos about anxiety, trauma, narcissistic personality disorder, autism, and more. Sometimes, the responses are pure identification, user after user claiming “this is me” and asking “everyone doesn’t do this?” (One creator responds, “I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” followed by the pensive sad face emoji.) But often, especially in more popular videos, other voices chime in too, pointing out that the video wasn’t made by a professional, or that the symptoms it lists are vague and easily applied to anyone. Sometimes, like in the ADHD video, the outcry against self-diagnosis can reach such a fever pitch that it’s easy to imagine that TikTok has the entirety of Gen Z convinced that their every habit is the result of one mental illness or another.

How rampant TikTok-related self-diagnosis is — and whether it’s even a bad thing — is up for debate. 

“I think it’s positive,” says Kim Heyes, PhD, a senior lecturer of health and social justice for the Department of Nursing at Manchester Metropolitan University. “In every society — globally — we’ve been told that we have to reduce our mental health stigma, but nobody talks about what mental health looks like. And that’s what I love about these TikToks, and the conversations that are happening on online forums like Reddit.” People talking about how their anxiety or ADHD manifests and how they cope with symptoms increases mental health literacy, which refers to our knowledge of mental health, Dr. Heyes says. In her eyes, that’s a good thing. 

She’s not concerned by the fact that people might begin to believe that they have a certain condition after watching these videos. “If a person finds a TikTok that relates to how they’re feeling, they’re unlikely to stick to TikTok,” Dr. Heyes points out. “They’ll go and have a look at other places online to see if there’s more information out there,” she says. Their research will either cast doubt on their original suspicion, or validate it — and if they continue to believe their self-diagnosis is valid, they’re likely to seek out support from loved ones or a professional.

One red flag she raises is when it comes to medical treatment. “Mental health medication generally has huge side effects, so if it’s not well-controlled, that can be really dangerous,” Dr. Heyes notes. But she believes that few people who diagnose themselves with a condition would wind up getting and taking psychiatric drugs in an attempt to treat their symptoms. 

There are people, however, who think that TikTok self-diagnosis can sometimes be harmful.

“It’s a gray area, really,” says Inna Kanevsky, PhD, a professor of psychology at San Diego Mesa College. Dr. Kanevsky stresses that she’s not a clinical psychologist, and therefore doesn’t diagnose people firsthand. She goes by @dr_inna on TikTok, where she has 843.1K followers and frequently posts stitches, duets, or responses to videos she thinks are spreading misinformation about mental health. “I’m watching this trend and what I’m seeing is concerning me,” she says. 

Dr. Kanevsky acknowledges that certain mental health conditions are indisputably underdiagnosed. “As far as things like ADHD or autism, these were dismissed in people who were assigned female at birth for years, due to the mistaken belief that it was just in boys, and because of not understanding how things manifest differently in women,” she says. “So I’m hesitant to say that you shouldn’t pay attention to what’s on TikTok, and you shouldn’t diagnose yourself, or a therapist must diagnose you.” 

But she takes issue with videos that seem to encourage people to use them diagnostically, like those that ask viewers to “put a finger down” if they identify with certain experiences. “Lots of things that show up in these videos aren’t actual symptoms of these conditions. They may be common for people with these conditions, but they also may happen in other conditions,” Dr. Kanevsky explains. 

“I always say trust, but verify,” says Lesley Cook, PsyD, a clinical psychologist in Richmond, VA, who creates content on TikTok as @lesleypsyd. “There are people who knowingly spread misinformation, and people who may think they’re experts, but who are speaking on topics they don’t fully understand.” This can lead to confusion and a lack of public trust in the medical community. “If someone sees a video that tells them they have ADHD, and they get an assessment and are told they don’t, it can undermine the authority of the field. They may come away thinking, ‘Doctors don’t know what they’re talking about,” she says.

Though social media shouldn’t be anyone’s primary source of medical information, Dr. Cook believes that self-diagnosis can be valid. “If you take the really long lens look at psychology and psychiatry, it originated as a very oppressive symptom toward women, toward people of color, and toward people with disabilities,” she explains. The U.S. health system still favors those with more money, so she supports the idea that people may choose to opt out of that system, as long as they do it in an informed and responsible way. 

Paige Layle, known as @paigelayle on TikTok, where she has 2.4 million followers, also supports self-diagnosis — but, like Dr. Cook, not necessarily from TikTok alone. Layle was diagnosed with autism soon after her 15th birthday, after a suicide attempt led her to a child psychiatrist. Five years later, she has amassed her following largely from posting about neurodiversity. “I began speaking about autism because of people being ignorant on TikTok and using the word autism as a synonym for stupid. I posted a video addressing [this], and it was the first one that got more than 100 likes. It actually got more than 100,000 likes. That’s when I kinda saw that  people may want or need this information and I can give it to them,” Layle explains. 

She doesn’t post “put your finger down”-style videos; her work is focused on providing education, raising awareness, and fostering community. In her eyes, “Self-diagnosis is and has to be valid. There are a million reasons why people cannot get a clinical diagnosis,” she explains, adding, “My number one thing is use multiple credible sources to assist you, not just me.” Layle points people who think they may be autistic to a YouTube video she recently posted “about your next steps which includes self-diagnosing tips if that’s what you have access to, but also tips on talking to your doctor to get assessed.” (Dr. Kanevsky also offers tips for people who can’t afford mental health care on her TikTok.)

One reason it’s helpful to see a professional for diagnosis is to get a safe and effective treatment plan. Both Dr. Kanevsky and Dr. Cook say false information about treatments for various mental health conditions circulate on platforms like TikTok, alongside incorrect information about symptoms. “People give dietary advice that isn’t validated and doesn’t help those conditions. They recommend supplements that are not okay to take without medical supervision,” Dr. Kanevsky says. “You might not be finding solutions that actually can help you.” Dr. Cook says she’s even seen people encouraging those with ADHD to replace their stimulant medication with L-tyrosine, a supplement. “That’s troubling,” she says.

While Dr. Cook says that not everyone needs a clinical diagnosis, not having one can limit people’s — especially young people’s — access to certain helpful resources and accommodations, like those provided by schools. Layle wishes self-diagnosis were enough to secure accommodations for those who need them. “It comes down to a scarcity mindset of resources so we need to prioritize who gets help, when in reality if someone would benefit from an accommodation, they should receive it regardless of if they have a $3000 piece of paper,” she says. But for now, notes Dr. Kanevsky, “If they aren’t seeking out a professional consideration, then they deprive themselves of these opportunities as well.” 

The bottom line seems to be this: It’s fine to watch TikToks about mental health conditions and identify. It’s fine to post these videos. Talking openly about mental health helps reduce stigma around certain conditions, and provides a community to people who need one. But these videos are providing a very incomplete picture — especially when you consider that anyone can post to TikTok, and that the platform’s algorithm is designed to show you videos that are very similar to the ones you’re already interacting with, limiting the opposing viewpoints you see. 

So if you begin to wonder if you have a condition based on what you’re seeing on TikTok or other platforms, treat that suspicion as a starting point. Make sure the people you’re listening to — even on TikTok — are licensed professionals, ideally ones who specialize in the field you’re looking into, Dr. Cook suggests. Read about the condition in a variety of medically sound resources (like the DSM-5). And if you can, visit a mental health professional. As Dr. Cook says, “The people who watch my content deserve more than a one-minute video. They deserve to be the focus of someone’s assessment and care.”

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

The College Mental Health Crisis Is Being Ignored

Black Therapists Reflect On The Past Year

How To Cope With A Mental Health Relapse

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

Period poop is one of those things no one talks about much, but so many people experience. My anecdotal experience confirms it: Mention “period poop” to a group of people who menstruate and you’ll hear a variety of stories, complaints, jokes, and questions. But now, for the first time, science has backed up my hunch that period poop is a super-common phenomenon, albeit an underreported one. A full 37% of people report experiencing diarrhea during their period, according to recently released findings from a study of 6,141 participants by Apple, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the NIEHS. 

Research around period symptoms, especially lesser-known ones like diarrhea, is woefully lacking. If you search PubMed, a site that aggregates scientific research articles, for the word “menstruation,” you’ll get about 8,000 hits between 2001 and 2018. Search that same time frame for the terms “cardiovascular,” “prostate cancer,” or “erectile dysfunction,” and you’ll see 900,000, 120,000, and 16,000 results, respectively, notes a Harvard University researcher involved in the study. We actually don’t know much about what’s a typical period symptom and what’s a red flag, which can make it harder for people to get help for issues that are interfering with their lives. 

It might seem a little silly, but it’s super-important to know how common period poop and other symptoms are. “I think we’ve all experienced, at times, physicians maybe not immediately getting on board with what you may be saying. This study gives us another tool in our toolbox to be able to say, ‘This is real, so let’s have a conversation about it,’” says Sumbul Desai, MD, Apple’s VP of Health. “The more evidence that we have as physicians to make decisions about clinical conditions and clinical actions, I think the better. And so, the more we can contribute evidence to this space, the better it’s going to be for everybody.”

That’s the impetus of the Apple Women’s Health Study. It’s intended to stretch on for 10 years; researchers will analyze data gathered from Apple’s Cycle Tracking app in an attempt to better understand the menstrual cycle. (Participants explicitly opted into the study, and can choose what data they want to share, from cycle tracking to fitness and sleep tracking.) The diarrhea stat was released as part of an early snapshot of the first set of findings from the study. 

It’s a two-fold benefit: Data like this may empower people to talk to their doctor about their period symptoms, and it also may help clinicians treat those symptoms more seriously, which in turn will help people find relief more quickly. If you know how common period poop is, you’ll be more likely to mention it to your doctor during a check-up. And if your doctor understands that it’s common, they’ll be more likely to know what causes it and how it can be treated.

For what it’s worth, here’s why period poop happens: During your period, the body produces compounds called prostaglandins, which cause uterine contractions. Your digestive organs are near the uterus, so those contractions can make you “go” more often. In an article in The New York Times, Jen Gunter, MD, OB/GYN, said that taking a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug such as ibuprofen shortly before your period is about to start, can reduce diarrhea; the meds block prostaglandin production.

Further down the road, the data coming out of the Apple Women’s Health Study may also help physicians better understand symptoms that are correlated with conditions like PCOS and endometriosis. Women with endo, for instance, often aren’t diagnosed for 10 years or more, in part because doctors write off the red flags as standard period issues. 

The researchers involved in the study are excited to see what other information they glean from their research. And though the recently released findings are very early, they expect this year to offer some extremely interesting insights. “Women across the globe have been experiencing unprecedented stressors in their lives: physical, economic, mental, you name it,” notes Michelle Williams, ScD, Dean of the Faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in reference to the pandemic. “The real value of a longitudinal study like what we are undertaking is that we’re able to characterize that moment in time in these biological and behavioral ways. So it’s fortuitous, that over the arc of time, we’ll be able to do snapshot analyses and look collectively across times like now, and hopefully, three or four or five years from now when those same environmental stressors are not quite at the same level, and see how our biology has changed.”

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

How To Have Period Sex

Talking Shop With Cherie Hoeger, Founder of Saalt

Pantone's Period Color Really Misses The Mark

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

Heather Bartos, MD, OB/GYN, received no salary for most of last year. She was still working all week: delivering babies in nearby hospitals, performing routine exams, logging into telehealth appointments. But because she has her own private practice, soon after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, she had to make a choice between reducing her employees’ work hours or going without pay herself; she chose the latter. 

“When people think ‘doctor,’ they think ‘someone who makes a ton of money,’ ” says Dr. Bartos, who’s based in Frisco, TX. “But no. I’ve taken a huge financial hit this year. A lot of doctor’s offices have shut down. A lot of friends of mine have either had a reduction in work hours, or they were furloughed, or laid off. It seems so stupid — we need healthcare workers right now. But it’s a tough time to be a medical professional.” 

In April 2020, the amount Americans spent on health services (excluding medications) dropped nearly 32%, reports the Health Systems Tracker. That number bounced back up; by October 2020, health spending was down less than 2% when compared to the previous year. Still, medical professionals felt the strain. In a July 2020 survey of 3,513 physicians, 8% indicated they’d closed their practice in the last four months, 72% said they’d experienced a reduction in income, and 43% said they’d reduced their staff, reports The Physicians Foundation. 

Doctors, dentists, and other health care workers faced several financial roadblocks. First, fewer patients booked appointments. Although early in the pandemic, most headlines were focused on overflowing hospitals, many medical professionals were having the opposite problem. “There’s the front line, but then there’s also what I call the middle line, which is the doctor’s offices, and we certainly saw patient volume go down,” Dr. Bartos explains. If people could delay a procedure, they did. In some cases, states ordered delays of certain non-urgent office visits. As a result, dermatology, OB/GYN, physical therapy, dental, and other practices took a huge financial hit, Dr. Bartos says. 

Max Meinerz, DDS, a dentist who owns three practices in Wisconsin, says his offices saw a 10% to 40% reduction in patient volume. He says many people felt unsafe coming into the office during the pandemic, but the loss of health insurance following layoffs or furloughs may have played a role, too. “For our practices with less-affluent patients who may have lost their jobs during the COVID pandemic, we’ve seen a 30% to 40% decrease in patient flow with a 20% to 30% decrease in revenue,” Dr. Meinerz says. Visits among patients who remained employed or were higher income dropped just 10% to 20%, he says, adding that many higher-income people are actually spending more money on elective dental procedures, such as Invisalign and teeth whitening. But, in general, fewer patients has meant a reduction in income for the practice. 

Additionally, medical costs have increased during the pandemic. In order to see patients safely, health care providers needed to use extra personal protective equipment (PPE), which can be expensive. “We have to buy all of our own equipment. That’s not a cost that can be pushed onto anybody else, so we absorbed it,” Dr. Bartos explains. She adds that when PPE became scarce, her practice didn’t receive the same help sourcing the life-saving equipment as hospitals. “I would send a nurse to Costco at 7:00 a.m. to try to get Clorox wipes or anything else that we could get,” she says. They were also “baking” their N95 masks in order to get more than one use out of them. Items like hand sanitizer were in such short supply that patients would steal bottles from her office. At one point, Dr. Bartos found herself mixing her own disinfectant. “I used Everclear, distilled water, and essential oil so it didn’t smell like a booze lounge in [the office],” she says.

Increased PPE costs — as well as strict regulations around in-person visits and the risk medical professionals took on in order to see patients during a pandemic — made care more expensive to provide. “We had higher overhead, lower patient volume, then had all these extra screening measures we had to put in… Just from a payroll standpoint and an organizational standpoint, it’s a whole area I never thought I was going to have to do in medicine,” Dr. Bartos says. And Dr. Meinerz points out that insurance third-party payers have been “unable or unwilling to meaningfully reimagine the reimbursement paid to their providers.”

A particular area of concern has been telehealth reimbursements. Many medical professionals began seeing patients virtually during the pandemic. There’s been a push for Medicaid and other insurance companies to reimburse these visits at comparable rates to in-office appointments. Sometimes they are: Dr. Bartos says that so far, she’s been able to bill insurance the same rate for in-office and virtual appointments. But she doesn’t know if that will remain true going forward, and other physicians have struggled to get paid in full. Leada Malek, DPT, a board-certified sports physical therapist based in San Francisco, CA, says she’s heard of insurance companies only paying for 25 minutes of an hour-long telehealth session. 

Government assistance programs like the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which reimburses employers who pay for employees’ COVID-19 sick leave via tax credits, and the Paycheck Protection Program, which has paid loans meant to help small businesses fulfill payroll costs, are helpful, but not perfect solutions. ”FFCRA is a tax credit, and corporate taxes aren’t due until October of 2022. So there’s no money coming back from these kinds of things for 18 months,” Dr. Bartos explains. Adds Dr. Meinerz: “The revenue metrics used to determine PPP eligibility say nothing of the increased cost of care and associated drop in profitability that comes with higher overhead.” 

Many offices had to close or drastically cut back on staff. Malek worked in an out-patient private practice for four years before the pandemic hit. One reason she loved her job was because it was secure; physical therapy is known for being a stable field. That changed during the pandemic. “While we are essential health care workers and we were still able to work during the peak of the pandemic, in March we went on full lockdown and the practice had to close its doors,” Malek explains. She was furloughed — temporarily, but with no clear end date in sight — and began receiving unemployment benefits.

“I applied to nine different jobs because my work wasn’t going to take me back anytime soon. A year ago, if I’d applied to nine jobs, I would have had nine interviews. This year, I got one — for a lateral move that wouldn’t benefit my career at all,” Malek says. Meanwhile, she had friends working on the front lines of the pandemic. She was so desperate to feel helpful that she purchased liability insurance and opened her own online practice. “I started offering virtual sessions free to front line and essential workers,” she says. Those sessions were so popular that she opened her own virtual practice: “Within three months, I had a full schedule.” 

Recently, Malek also took on a part-time job in a physical clinic. With the combined salary from that work and her virtual practice, she’s making about 75% to 80% of what she was before the pandemic. 

Like many other health care professionals, Malek plans to continue offering telehealth appointments even after the pandemic. Initially, she was licensed as a physical therapist in California, which meant that she could only legally work with patients who were also in California. In order to expand her patient pool, she ended up getting licensed in Colorado as well. Physical therapy licensing fees vary by state, but can cost $300 or more.

But, some medical professionals have resorted to ethically dubious practices in order to make money where they can. Malek says she’s seen physical therapists frame their services as “wellness” offerings rather than physical therapy, which allows them to practice across state lines without getting additional licenses — even though what they’re practicing is PT. 

Dr. Bartos says she heard of a dentist who charged patients $25 per visit to cover PPE costs. “I don’t know that that’s legal when you have insurance, because you’re not really allowed to charge over things. But I think people were just desperate,” she says. 

Dr. Bartos says many smaller OB/GYN, dental, and medical offices — including her own — also provide cosmetic procedures such as Botox or fillers to boost their income. Though many states prohibited nonessential procedures like these at certain points during the pandemic, she knows physicians who surreptitiously continued to provide them. “We turned patients [asking for cosmetic procedures] away sometimes. I’m a business woman, but I’m also morally a physician. I have to kind of take into account the right thing to do. But I think a lot of doctors struggled with that,” she says. 

Malek, Dr. Bartos, and Dr. Meinerz believe their industries will bounce back as more people get vaccinated and feel more comfortable returning for in-person health care visits. In the meantime, they’re doing their best to remain patient and stay afloat. As Dr. Meinerz says, “We are in healthcare because we love helping people and will continue to do so — even though things are hard right now.” 

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

How To Set Money Boundaries With Loved Ones

Your Money Horoscope For 2021 Is Here

Top 2020 Money Diarists — Where Are They Now?

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

We can always rely on Gwyneth Paltrow — actor, business-person, candlemaker — to be on the cutting edge of the latest trends. She was the first person to do yoga, for instance. (According to her.) She popularized the term “conscious uncoupling.” And now, she’s revealed that she was wearing face masks way before they became so, you know, trendy due to the devastating pandemic.

In an interview with The New York Times, the Goop founder was asked about a selfie she posted way back in February 2020. In it, she was wearing a mask — a $75 one by the company Airinum. (No, it’s not currently on sale on Goop.com, if you’re wondering, but the site does offer a selection of face coverings that range from $22.95 to $75.) Back then, the Times interviewer pointed out, wearing masks wasn’t yet “the norm.”

That’s right. In fact, until April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were telling people not to wear a mask unless they felt ill or had certain high-risk jobs. In part, that was because there were personal protective equipment shortages, and the health agency wanted to preserve items like face masks for the people who needed them the most, including frontline health-care workers.

In response to the interviewer’s statement, Paltrow replied, “This is a familiar pattern in my life. I do something early, everyone is like, ‘What is she doing? She’s insane.’ And then it’s adopted by the culture.”

Paltrow’s reference to face masking as a trend that she popularized, rather than something we’re all doing to try to curb the rapid spread of a virus that’s upended our lives and killed nearly half a million people in the U.S. alone, is a surprising way to frame it, to say the least. From reading her quote, you’d think she was talking about being ahead of the curve on wide-legged jeans.

I don’t doubt that in February 2020, a few people may have looked at her sideways for donning a face mask. But that’s because we knew so little about the novel coronavirus and how it was being transmitted, not because we hadn’t yet caught on to how cool and hip face masks were.

And, for what it’s worth: The type of face mask she’s wearing in the selfie has exhalation vents, which the CDC has now put on their “not recommended” list, since the holes can allow your respiratory droplets to escape and infect others. Though there are stoppers that can be placed to block the release valves in this particular mask, it’s still worth noting that it might not be the best choice for everyone looking to stop the spread of COVID.

Paltrow goes on to say that she only wore the ahead-of-its-time mask on a plane, en route to France, but that she wasn’t masked up at an event she attended, and, as we recently learned, she ended up contracting COVID-19. She further establishes herself as being ahead of the COVID curve by saying she was, “one of the first people that I had heard of to have it.”

Of course, Paltrow has had some stumbles in the trend-setting department. The Times interviewer asked GP about the yoni egg misstep, during which her company made claims that inserting a jade “egg” into one’s vagina could help balance hormone levels, among other things. “That was stuff that happened a number of years ago [Ed. note: in 2017/2018] when we were still a little company curating and buying third-party brands that were making claims around their products. We’ve come a really long way from being that small start-up,” she says.

That’s why we should totally trust Paltrow and her lifestyle brand now, as they teach us all about the next big trend: vibrators. Have you ever heard of them? No, not the dusty old vibe you currently hide away in its place of shame in a locked drawer. GP has created an “intellectual” vibe, one that doubles as nightstand decor. Unfortunately, it’s already sold out on her site, so you may have to settle for the $3,490 gold dildo she’s selling instead.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

16 Face Masks Better Suited To Wear When You Fly

The Vaccine Rollout Is Failing Incarcerated People

Are Your Sex Toys Putting Your Privacy At Risk?

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

Breathing — you’d think I would have learned how to do it intuitively by now. Apparently not, because I’ve whenever I have to speak for an extended period of time on Zoom, I wind up mildly but unmistakably gasping for breath, as though I’ve just walked up two flights of stairs. And it’s not just me. Once you start listening for it, you hear it everywhere: the panting, the pause mid-sentence as people take an extra breath, the strain in someone’s voice as they try to squeeze out a few more words despite feeling winded. 

It drives me nuts. I worry that having to catch my breath during a presentation makes me sound nervous. I mean, I am mildly nervous, in general, about 60% of the time. But I take measures to hide that. For my own stupid lungs to turn on me in such an audible way is infuriating. 

I blame Zoom, because I don’t remember this happening to me Before Zoom (BZ). But why? If anything, Zoom should make it easier to breathe while speaking. I’m always wearing sweatpants, after all, with no bra constricting my rib cage. 

But apparently my mind is to blame, not my body. According to Eleni Kelakos, a public speaking coach, running out of breath while presenting to a group is a surefire sign of stage fright. “Being assaulted by fear and performance anxiety is something that happens when we step into the spotlight and feel the pressure of those eyeballs on us,” she told me. “When I was a young actress, the first time I got in front of a camera was terrifying — that single eyeball, looking at you.”  

Assaulted by fear? That felt dramatic (maybe it’s her theatrical background). While, yes, I sometimes feel mildly nerve-y before unmuting myself on a work Zoom, I’ve also run out of breath while giving a very low-stakes presentation to a small group of coworkers who are nothing but kind to me. I’m just speaking, speaking — and then, inexplicably, panting. 

But Kelakos was insistent. “It sneaks up on you!” she said amiably, when I told her I rarely feel unusually anxious before I begin running out of breath. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t typically think much about public speaking, she said, Zoom can be intimidating. “It’s a platform that removes the actual people from our presence — we don’t hear them breathing, we don’t get any feedback, and that can be off-putting,” she explained.

That rang true to me. In person, I feel pretty comfortable sitting in silence to gather my thoughts while speaking. But on Zoom, even the shortest pause seems to last forever. When I express that to Kelakos, she basically said, “That’s what I’ve been telling you.” Because we’re so divorced from the people we’re presenting to, the silence is loud — and we get self-conscious, she said. 

It’s not just that you literally hear nothing when you pause during a Zoom presentation. It’s that what you’re missing is all the little noises that usually clue you into how you’re being received: quiet “hms” or laughter in response to something you said; the shuffling of papers or tapping of keys as people take notes; the rustling of clothing as someone shifts forward and catches your eye. Without that, you’re left wondering what everyone’s thinking, says Mary Alvord, PhD, a licensed psychologist and the founder of Resilience Across Borders. “And that’s what social anxiety is about: How am I being judged?”

So the reason I run out of breath while speaking on Zoom is, basically, anxiety. During any silence, I start wondering, Do I sound stupid right now? Is everyone bored? To drown out those thoughts, I speak too quickly and avoid pausing to even inhale. Maybe my subconscious is trying to make me pass out. Honestly, I get it.

Obviously the answer here is to speak more slowly. But, as I told Kelakos, I always worry that I’ll overshoot the mark and speak so slowly that people will think there’s something wrong with my WiFi. At this, she laughed loudly (I caught myself wondering if everything Kelakos does is some kind of public speaking strategy; I also began to get worried that she’s judging me for my phone presence), then suggested I record myself speaking slowly and play it back to reassure myself that I sound okay. 

According to Dr. Alvord, an especially important time to modulate your pace to avoid running out of breath is when you first begin presenting. “I’ve noticed that people tend to start off by speaking really quickly, which is sort of this anxious response,” she said. As they loosen up, they naturally slow down.

Kelakos and Dr. Alvord also both insist that it’s important to be as calm as humanly possible before logging into Zoom in the first place. Shake out your hands, hips, and shoulders to loosen up your body, or visualize your “happy place” using all of your senses to get yourself into a zen state. 

It’s helpful to personalize your audience, too. My technique while presenting is to stare at myself the entire time, but apparently that’s not the way to go. “You have to remember that you’re talking to actual people,” Kelakos said. To that end, she tapes a printed-out picture of eyeballs next to her computer’s camera, so she’ll have something human-like to look into while speaking. She’ll also ask participants to unmute themselves so she can get some auditory feedback while she presents (anarchy!). When she’s talking, she’ll very intentionally “let lines land,” and will pause as if she’s waiting for someone to chime in. 

If you do start to feel short on air, Kelakos suggested an acronym: FBI, which stands for: Feet, Breath, Intention. “Find the floor with your feet; take a sip of water or exhale, both of which help you regain control of your breath; then return to your intention: What am I here to do?” she explained. I love an acronym, and can attest to the fact that remembering why I’m presenting ( to serve my audience, rather than to look good) always calms me down.

But also, it’s fine to remember that Zoom is weird. Kids stumble into view, people use virtual backgrounds that make them look like disembodied heads, the lighting is never quite right, you can’t tell if you’ve frozen or everyone else has frozen. If the worst thing that happens during your presentation is that you rush through it and wind up sounding like you just ran around the block, oh well. At least you get to wear sweatpants. 

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

18 Romantic Hairstyles For Valentine's Day 2020

Mary-Kate Olsen Had A Bizarre Zoom Divorce

These New Target Hair Accessories Are Selling Out

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

Currently, about 1.3 million Americans are receiving a COVID-19 vaccination every day, and President Joe Biden recently stated he hopes to raise that number to 1.5 million soon, with the goal of meeting his pledge to vaccinate 100 million people within his first 100 days in office. 
 
Though during the summer of 2020 only around half of Americans said they’d were likely or certain to get vaccinated against the virus — which has killed over 440,000 of people in the U.S. — that number has grown to up to 73%, reports The New York Times. As more people get vaccinated, public trust in the vaccines is growing.
 
Many of us are still waiting to make our appointments for the first dose, though, and are wondering what it'll be like to actually get vaccinated. Where will we go? What will it feel like? Will the side effects be bad?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released information that can help answer some of these questions — but it's even better to hear about what getting vaccinated is like from people who have actually received their first (and in some cases, second) dose. Here, six women share their experiences, from making an appointment to dealing with the after-effects.

These interviews have been condensed for clarity and length. 

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

How Johnson & Johnson's Single-Shot Vaccine Works

I Was The First Person To Get The COVID-19 Vaccine

Medical Racism, The COVID Vaccine, & A Way Forward

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

The idea of setting a New Year’s resolution for 2021 strikes me as… exhausting. After a year that thoroughly upended so many people’s lives, most “typical” resolutions — to exercise more often, to get organized, to travel more, to budget better, to quit Juuling — seem somehow inappropriate. We’re all just trying to survive. Please don’t talk to me about my personal goals.

In the aftermath of the past 12 months, setting such goals feels futile. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that planning ahead is for suckers. If we were among the luckier ones, the disruption of 2020 looked like canceled trips, postponed weddings, and lost days spent in interminable lockdown. For others, that disruption took the shape of life-threatening illness, financial insecurity, racial violence, and death.  With life’s uncertainty thrown into sharp relief, why would I spend a second planning for a “better me” in 2021?

And yet… I have to square my contempt at the thought of making resolutions with the fact that I fulfilled more self-improvement goals in the past nine months than I had in the previous nine years. The most common resolutions people set for 2020 were to exercise more, save money, eat healthier. Check, check, check: With more pandemic-mandated time on my hands and fewer places, or reasons, to shed my disposable income, I did it all. I completed a 30-day yoga challenge. I grew my savings account. I started cooking 95% of my meals at home. I replaced at least some of my coffee intake with tea. I spent more phone-down quality time with my family. I quit my secret-until-this-moment Juul habit (yes, I am a wellness editor with an on-off vaping habit. Sorry, mom). I set a personal record for the number of pushups I could do. I meditated more days than not. I read a ton.

The punchline is, none of these self-improvement goals changed my life in the way I’d imagined they would.

When my savings account hit a certain amount, I felt more secure — for three days. Then I was stressing about the next financial milestone I thought I desperately needed to meet. I enjoy cooking at home, but it doesn’t make me feel any more adult or accomplished than I did when I was ordering in. After my 30-day yoga challenge (and adding the “om” emoji into my Instagram bio), I never took to the mat again.

These experiences made me wonder why we set self-help goals in the first place. With the world in turmoil, does any external change really have the power to make us feel “better” or even different? Or are resolutions just another example of the old adage: Wherever you go, there you are?

When I posed that question to Ruth Shim, MD, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Davis, she paused for a long time. “That’s a hard question,” she finally said. “I guess it depends on what the goal is and what your values are. Generally, behavioral change is much more challenging and complicated than setting a resolution and trying to keep it. True behavioral change is what people see therapists and go to rehab for. I don’t know if setting a goal for transforming yourself is effective.”

I’m not the first person to question the point of self-improvement goals. The journalist Marianne Power wrote a whole book about it: Help Me!, which tracked her year spent following the advice of self-help books. “I thought that if I tried hard enough to fix all my flaws, I would then be happy. Life would be sunshine and roses. I would be living a kind of Instagram life. I now feel stupid that I believed in that, but I did,” Power told me via email.

The book is worth reading, but the gist of Power’s message is: Self-help journeys can teach us a ton, but if your actual goal is to become perfect, none of the advice you take is going to work. “No matter how many marathons we run or self-help books we read, we will always be flawed, beautiful humans who get embarrassed and scared and ashamed and unsure,” Power said.

I didn’t consciously realize that I hoped finally kicking my embarrassing Juul habit would make me not just healthier but more perfect. But when I try to reckon with the fact that being 10ish months off the nic stick feels kind of like a letdown, I have to admit: Some part of me clearly thought that quitting would let me feel unashamed, confident, even a little superior — the opposite of how I felt when I was sneakily vaping. And it didn’t. Instead, my insecurities found another hook to hang on. Now I feel embarrassed by my obscene sweet tooth, my oftentimes-short temper, my preference for “chick lit” over the classics.

Those little manifestations of self-doubt might have turned into goals for another year — eat only dark chocolate for dessert, join a book club — had it not been for 2020. Over the past year, we’ve grappled with a global pandemic, an uprising against racial injustice and increasingly violent examples of police brutality, a tumultuous election that demonstrated just how deeply divided this country appears to be. 2020 has threatened the lives of Black people, trans people, low-income people, and many other vulnerable groups, who are facing COVID-related illness and death, violent racism and discrimination, job loss and the resulting housing insecurity, among other issues. When set against this backdrop, how could I possibly convince myself that cutting back on candy matters? 

“We were forced to slow down and take new stock of everything in our lives,” Dr. Shim says. “A lot of people have struggled to make sense of things that seemed to make sense before. People are focused on what they need to be whole and to survive in the most difficult of times.” 

If you’d asked Marisa Renee Lee in 2019 what her goals for 2020 were, the 37-year-old co-founder of Supportal and the author of the upcoming book Grief Is Love would have said becoming a mom. After a long fertility journey, she was expecting. But she lost the pregnancy, which instantly changed all of her 2020 plans. Instead, she spent the year healing from health complications related to the loss — all while the global pandemic kept her away from loved ones. Then in October, Lee’s 35-year-old cousin contracted COVID-19 and died. “I shut down for about a week,” Lee tells me. “For my aunt, that’s the third child she’s lost in total in her lifetime. Not only did she lose my mom [who died 12 years ago] and her mom, but now she’s also lost three of her kids. For me, those stories of people like her who have been through so much puts everything in perspective.” 

Lee was already helping people grapple with grief pre-pandemic, and she says that in many ways, the events of this year only reinforced for her the importance of this calling. But it also made it impossible for her to carry out her work in her typical ways: She couldn’t travel, attend events, or see people socially. After this experience, Lee says she believes it’s more urgent than ever to find ways to make healing more accessible to everyone. “There is something about dealing with a difficult thing that makes you more sensitive to others who are dealing with difficult things,” she says. She believes that’s one reason why the news of George Floyd’s killing ignited such a huge reaction. “Everyone was in a place where they could see the pain Black people experience regularly. I don’t know how much we would have paid attention to George Floyd; or whether I personally would have spoken out as much as I have about these issues, some other year,” she says. 

When I ask Lee about her goals for 2021, she’s silent for a beat, then laughs and tells me to ask her again next week. “It’s such a fucking weird time,” she says.

Personal goals aren’t necessarily pointless — but it’s worth interrogating those we most commonly associate with resolutions, which tend to be about attaining some kind of elusive, always-out-of-reach perfection: sleep more, work harder, eat differently. These goals drive us to beat ourselves up when we fall short and too often create a disappointing sense of “what next?” when we achieve them. This past year, however, had a way of shifting our perspective in order to allow us to tap into our core values again — finding excitement in life, feeling close to our loved ones, feeling grounded in ourselves, being of service to our communities, Dr. Shim points out. We’ve had dozens of opportunities to ask ourselves: What matters most to me in life? When we’re faced with that question, the way we think about what in our lives needs adjusting and what counts as self-betterment fundamentally changes.

Carly Watters, a 33-year-old literary agent who lives in Ontario, told me her resolution for 2020 had been to deliver a healthy baby, take a short maternity leave, then focus on growing her business. The first part went as planned, except her healthy baby was born the same week COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. “I had to adjust every expectation I had for 2020,” she said. With daycares closed, she and her husband were both forced to parent two kids while working full-time. She also grappled with stress-induced postpartum depression. “I’ve gone through being angry and being sad and being overwhelmed,” Watters says, but then adds: “The shining light has really been getting this extra time as a family of four that we never would have had otherwise.” 

Judith Martinez, the 28-year-old CEO of InHerShoes, a women’s community, says she went into 2020 looking for clarity, especially around the idea of where she’d find “home” in the coming year. “If you looked at my journal and my vision board, home looked like moving to Seattle with one of my best friends in June of 2020,” Martinez said. “When COVID hit in March not only did that vision of Seattle completely disappear, but I found myself in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by the same four walls I grew up in.” 

Her plans changed, and so did her understanding of the world. “Everything was on pause and life literally turned upside down for so many of us. There were times when it felt silly and even selfish to think about my own goals and resolutions. Between the national awakening for racial justice, a historic election year, and a global pandemic — I felt like a lot of my clarity actually came from seeing things in a new light. This year had me realize why they were my goals or resolutions to begin with.” 

The internal reorganization ultimately forced her to let go of that idea of home she was so sure was waiting for her in Seattle. She grieved that dream, for a while. Then, “My view of the city was quickly replaced by grandma’s herb garden,” she says.

Personally, I only vaguely remember what my goals for 2020 were. To learn a lot at my then-new job. To exercise more, probably. I know I didn’t make a conscious resolution to spend more time with my family, to educate myself more deeply on the issues that matter to me so I can make truly informed choices, to create a home base that feels comfortable, uncluttered, and restorative. But those are all things that have taken on a new level of importance to me over the past year, because all the terrifying, unsettling, uncomfortable stuff that happened clarified what really matters to me like never before. I’ve been afraid for my family’s health, for society’s health, for my own mental health. Only when these things were threatened did I understand how undeniably important they were to me. And then, I changed my life in ways that allowed me to connect with and support those core values, without ever consciously setting a goal to do so. 

Dr. Shim says she’d advocate for one 2021 resolution, which can be applied to any area of your life: “I’m trying to do better.” The word “trying” is key — it encompasses the dozens of false starts and setbacks that most people encounter on the path to self-betterment. We’re running a race with no finish line; the goal is simply to move forward and, if you can, find a little enjoyment in each mile.

Or we can let go of the idea of resolutions altogether, and trust that we’ll be intuitively driven to make the changes that are right for us when it’s time to do so — whether that happens to fall on January 1 or not. 

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

I Dated Virtually All Year. Here's What I Learned

How Our Co-Workers Became Our Best Friends In 2020

Jupiter In Aquarius Is Great News For 2021

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

Tiger King. Dalgona coffee. Zoom calls we actually enjoyed. The early days of the pandemic feel like 100 years ago. Do you remember all the masturbation jokes? My favorite was this viral tweet: “Your quarantine number is the number of times you’ve masturbated minus the number of times you’ve cried.” The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene even tweeted, “Masturbation will not spread COVID-19.” For one weird second, there was even a rumor that masturbating could boost your immune system.

Most of the masturbation talk was us just fooling around (with ourselves) because we were stuck inside, bored, and blissfully unaware of the horrors that were yet to come. But the “masturbating might boost your immune system!” truthers were actually serious. They were basing their declarations on a study that came out back in 2004 (remember her?). A group of researchers from Germany asked 11 men to “masturbate until orgasm,” then drew their blood to measure their levels of natural killer T cells (a marker of immunity) five and 45 minutes post-O. The results? Levels were higher after the men had masturbated. “These findings demonstrate that components of the innate immune system are activated by sexual arousal and orgasm,” the researchers concluded.

Too bad 2020 kept getting more and more depressing, and we all lost our libidos, right? But don’t worry — there’s no evidence that masturbating more would have actually helped any. First: That study was in literally 11 people (11 men, at that), a number so small as to be meaningless. Even if a larger study confirmed that masturbating increases natural killer T cell levels, that alone doesn’t say much. “There hasn’t been a study with specific findings that masturbation boosts the immune system in a way that helps fight off infection,” Erica Smith, a sexuality educator, points out.

“However, don’t be deterred!” Smith quickly adds. She says there are more than enough other reasons to masturbate, then lists seven: stress relief, endorphin release⁣, menstrual cramp relief, increased connection to and knowledge of one’s own body⁣, greater sexual self esteem, better sleep, and pleasure — oh yeah, that.

Now, if you’re really invested in the idea that you could masturbate away colds, you might have stumbled across this study in the journal Psychological Reports, which showed that people who had sex one to three times a week had higher levels of an antibody (IgA, which plays a crucial role in the immune system) than those who had more or less frequent coitus.

But the partner might be key to the immune benefits, not the orgasm. “Sexually active people may be exposed to many more infectious agents than sexually non-active people,” said Clifford Lowell, an immunologist at the University of California at San Francisco who was not involved in the study, according to Eurekalert. “The immune system would respond to these foreign antigens by producing and releasing more IgA.”

Interestingly, when asked why people who have sex more often than one to three times per week had lower IgA levels, one of the study authors speculated that they “may be in obsessive or poor relationships that are causing them a lot of anxiety,” which in turn suppresses IgA levels. Kind of judgmental, no?

All told, I certainly hope no one stops masturbating just because it’s probably not a replacement for vitamin C and zinc. It really is so enjoyable, and healthy, in many ways. Plus, as that NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene tweet pointed out, masturbation doesn’t carry the same risk of spreading COVID-19 that sex does, since it’s a social distancing-friendly activity. Smith says it best: “You may not be able to ‘beat’ a virus this way — pun intended — but you sure won’t be hurting anyone if you try.⁣”

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

13 Quiet Vibrators So You Can Masturbate In Peace

Let’s Talk About Masturbating In Quarantine

It's Okay To Masturbate, Even If You're Coupled Up

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

On Wednesday, Olivia Culpo underwent surgery for her endometriosis, a condition that affects up to one in 10 women in their reproductive years. The influencer opened up about the surgery and her experience in an honest and compassionate Instagram post yesterday afternoon. 

“Endometriosis is a condition where tissue from the uterine lining decides to grow in other random parts of your body, causing pain. This can interfere with fertility and overall health and honestly — happiness,” Culpo wrote, calling the condition excruciatingly painful. “I have been in agony for years around my period and I was misdiagnosed countless times by doctors,”

Culpo added that before being diagnosed, she was often told by doctors that her ultrasounds looked normal and to just take Tylenol. “I think you just need to rest more, periods are always uncomfortable for people,” Culpo quoted one doctor saying before adding, “Painful periods are not normal!!!”

It takes adults with the painful condition an average of 6.7 years to be accurately diagnosed, according to the medical journal Current Obstetrics and Gynecology Reports. Emma Roberts recently spoke out about having gone undiagnosed for years, despite struggling with “debilitating cramps and periods,” in an interview in Cosmopolitan. 

Unfortunately, many women with endometriosis can relate to the experience of having their symptoms brushed off by doctors. As Culpo points out, the condition can be difficult to diagnose because doctors are unable to see it on ultrasounds; diagnosis often requires surgery. But studies have also shown that doctors often don’t take women’s pain as seriously as men’s, which may also explain why it takes people so long to be diagnosed.

Culpo first opened up about having the condition this past August in an Instagram story. “There’s a surgery you can get for it but I don’t want to get,” she said at the time.

In her more recent post, Culpo thanked the medical staff at the healthcare organization Atrium Health, calling them “literal angels.” The first two pictures show Culpo in her hospital bed, and the third shows her stomach with three, heart-shaped pieces of gauze taped to her midsection.

Culpo ended her caption with a shout-out to other people with endometriosis. “I understand the depression, and overall loneliness that can occur with a condition that is so painful yet so hard to be interpreted by other people outside of the body. It’s hard when chronic pain is not validated and you don’t get an answer or understanding,” Culpo wrote. “To my Endo warriors, I will continue to spread more awareness around endometriosis so that your symptoms can be validated. You are not alone and you are so strong!!!!”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Olivia Culpo (@oliviaculpo)

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Olivia Culpo Reveals Endometriosis Diagnosis

Abby Finkenauer Just Doubled Endometriosis Funding

Padma Lakshmi On Endometriosis Awareness

DMTBeautySpot

via https://www.DMTBeautySpot.com

Mirel Zaman, Khareem Sudlow