Latest news with #AmIDoingItWrong
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
It Turns Out That Most People Wash Their Bodies Completely Wrong, But This Doctor Is Here To Teach Us The Right Way
For many of us, showering is not just part of our personal hygiene routine — it might be the only few minutes of peace, tranquility and reflection we get to ourselves in the day. And while the particulars of our showers might vary in terms of nature, duration and temperature, one thing remains constant: the quest to get squeaky clean. Related: 25 Life-Changing Habits People Added To Their Everyday Routines To Improve Their Lives For The Better Our shower habits are usually based on how we were raised and our cultural backgrounds. That means some of us are all about the loofahs, others are team washcloth, and some rely on a sponge. But is all that exfoliating actually good for our skin? As we age, after all, so does the largest organ of our body: our glorious, sexy skinbag. Keeping our skin as healthy and supple as possible is paramount. So we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost's 'Am I Doing It Wrong?' podcast — wanted to find out the optimal approach (from a clinical perspective) when we're soaping up in the shower. 'So 100%, it's your hands,' Dr. Divya Shokeen, the founder of Ocean Skin & Vein Institute in Manhattan Beach, California, recently told us when she dropped by our studio to chat about her showering secrets. 'There's no negotiation on that in terms of the medical studies.' Related: Women Are Revealing How Their Lives Have Been Affected By President Trump's Policies, And They're Not Holding Back ANYTHING Shokeen explained that when we use loofahs, sponges or any other implement to soap up, we are disrupting our skin's mantle, the natural film of oils and acids that protect it. We want to keep that mantle intact, she told us, because it shields us against barrier disruption and transepidermal water loss — and it keeps the bad bacteria out. 'Rubbing a washcloth on yourself repeatedly sloughs off a lot of dead skin cells or cells in general that are not ready to slough off,' Shokeen said. 'When that happens, you actually disrupt the top layer, which allows for more dehydration, water loss, and now you're going to have to use more lotion to minimize that.' And while we love a good post-shower lube job, we won't need all that extra lotion if we don't dry out and stress our skin while we're in the tub. Shokeen gave us another good reason to ditch the loofahs, washcloths and sponges. 'Anything that stays in the shower is apt to build mold and yeast and fungus,' she said. 'And then you're putting that on yourself.' We discovered a ton of other showering tips and tricks, including how long a shower should really last, what we should be doing (and not doing) when we wash our hair, and the skin-changing secret that only takes 30 seconds at the end of your cleansing session. For more from Dr. Shokeen, visit the websites for her dermatology practice and her skincare line. Do you need help with something you've been doing wrong? Email us at AmIDoingItWrong@ and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming article originally appeared on HuffPost. Also in Goodful: 19 "Garbage" Modern Trends People Refuse To Partake In Despite Their Popularity Also in Goodful: "This Has Taken Me Years And Years And YEARS To Figure Out": This Woman's Clever Way To Tell If Someone Is Your Real Friend Is Being Called The Most Accurate Thing Ever Also in Goodful: "I Can't Wait For This To Go Out Of Style": People Are Sharing Popular Modern Trends That Are Actually Pretty Toxic
Buzz Feed
22-02-2025
- Health
- Buzz Feed
If You Routinely Take Hot Showers, You Might Want To Stop. This Doctor Explains Why.
For many of us, taking a long hot shower isn't just about getting clean, it's the only time of the day when no one can reach us to ask about that overdue work assignment or what's for dinner or our car's extended warranty. But could our beloved shower time be wreaking havoc on our bodies? That's what we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost's Am I Doing It Wrong? podcast — asked Dr. Divya Shokeen, the founder of Ocean Skin & Vein Institute in Manhattan Beach, California, when she dropped by the studio to talk about all of the ways we might be showering wrong and how to do it better. 'Should you be taking a hot shower? No. Ideally, you should be taking a cold one,' Dr. Shokeen told us. 'I actually went down a huge rabbit hole on PubMed, which is basically a scientific database that goes through all these articles, [and I found studies that show] a cold shower not only invigorates you more, it helps with hair follicles, it helps with hair growth, it helps with skin rejuvenation, with blood vessel dilation — it's awesome for you.' Cold water may also aid in workout recovery, boosting immune system responses, improving circulation and possibly even enhancing mental health. Hot water, on the other hand, can strip skin of its natural protective oils, fats and proteins, which can cause irritation, dryness and worsen eczema symptoms. Since most of us can't bear the thought of an icy shower, Dr. Shokeen recommends that we use warm water — not hot — and keep it short. 'Ideally [a shower should last] five minutes — five to 10 minutes. Anything longer ... disrupts the mantle of your skin, which can cause more harm than good.' Then, just before we've finished showering, she recommends turning down the water temperature. 'If you can tolerate it, [during] the last 30 seconds, make it cold.' Following this chilly '30-second hack' can give us some of the benefits of cold water exposure without forcing us to suffer through an entirely frigid shower. However, some individuals with certain medical conditions, like heart issues, should never take a cold shower of any length, and it's always a good idea to consult a medical professional before you make any health-related change to your daily routine. Dr. Shokeen also noted that the cleansing tools we use in the shower, like loofahs and sponges, can damage our skin. '100% — [only use your hands to clean],' she emphasized. 'There's no negotiation on that in terms of the medical studies, because anything that you're doing with loofahs and sponges, again, it's all about disruption of the mantle ... you actually disrupt the top layer, which allows for more dehydration, and now you're going to have to use more lotion to minimize that.' We also chatted about why she never faces the showerhead, the one part of your body you can probably stop washing and much more.
Buzz Feed
17-02-2025
- Health
- Buzz Feed
A Urologist Shared The Single Question He Asks Every Patient, And It Can Reveal A Lot About Your Health
Dr. Yaniv Larish sees dozens of patients each week at Fifth Avenue Urology in New York City. A urologist and surgeon, he treats all kinds of conditions, from complex kidney stones to incontinence to urologic cancers. But no matter why someone ends up in his exam room, he asks the same question at every initial consultation: 'Is your bladder being nice to you?' That's what he recently told us — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, the hosts of HuffPost's Am I Doing It Wrong? podcast — when he dropped by our studio to talk about all of the ways we might be peeing wrong and how to do it better. 'They go, 'What do you mean?'' Larish said of his patients. 'It's meant to be an open question, right? This is your moment to tell me about your bladder. So, is it nice or not nice?' It turns out that 'nice' and 'not nice' can apply to a lot of different things — like how often we're peeing, what we feel while we're peeing, and what we might be seeing when we look into the toilet after we've finished — and can involve more organs than just the bladder. As for how many times a day you should be peeing, 'there's no magic number,' he told us. 'There's no 'normal.' It doesn't work that way, because if you are stranded in the Sahara desert under the baking sun and 120-degrees heat, your kidneys are going to do everything possible to hold on to every drop of water that they can,' he said. 'On the other extreme, if you're, say, a college-going frat guy or gal, and you're pounding those beers on a Saturday night ... you're going to make a lot more. So I think that the question is not 'how often are you peeing?' It's more 'are you hydrated enough or overly hydrated,' and what is the point at which everything is sort of normal?' One thing Larish is certain about is what a typical healthy person should experience when they're urinating. 'Most people associate peeing with pushing, and in reality, peeing has to do with relaxation. ... The most important thing is you should be relaxed,' he told us. 'And you will know [that everything is working correctly] if it's coming out easily, if it all comes out in one shot very quickly and then stops. We don't want to see hesitation before it comes out. We don't want to see a prolonged standing time where you're just sort of there. ... And at the end, we don't want to be dribbling after or having the urge to pee two seconds after we peed. So it's not so much 'am I doing it wrong?' It's more 'is there an issue?' And if you're not just peeing all in one shot in a relaxed way, then there's probably an issue that can be dealt with.' We also might become aware of an issue based on what our pee looks like or what we see in the bowl. 'The presence of blood in the urine is abnormal — always,' Larish told us. 'It needs to be investigated ... regardless of whether you see your urine being red in color. When we find a young person with blood in the urine and concentrated urine, it's a pretty good predictor of having a [kidney] stone. If you're an older person and you have blood in the urine, and you have a smoking history, that may be a good clue that there's something more nefarious going on, that maybe there's a cancer somewhere.' Other things to watch out for are the presence of any sort of mucus, which Larish said is 'concerning,' and gravel or sand at the bottom of the toilet. 'If you then see little sand particulate in your toilet, that's a pretty big red flag' for the beginning of a kidney stone, he said. Another unexpected sign that there might be something wrong? If you're passing gas every time you urinate. 'The bladder needs to contract on its own — it's a muscle on its own, not connected to anything else,' Larish noted. 'So if you're farting, that means that you're using abdominal musculature, right? You're increasing the entire intra-abdominal pressure in order to squeeze on the bladder. So I tell people, if you find yourself farting in order to initiate a pee or in order to get the last third of your urine out, there's something going on that needs to be evaluated.' Ultimately, Larish's advice for keeping all things urologic as 'nice' as possible boils down to just a few tips. '[You] should be thinking about nothing when [you're] peeing,' he said. 'It should be blank Zen. That's the golden rule. I think you want to be hydrated, but not overly hydrated. Everything has to be in moderation. Not overdoing it with supplements, if they're not necessary. Being tuned in to your body is probably the most important part. If you see that something has changed, like, 'I haven't woken up at night in 20 years to pee, and in the last three weeks, I'm waking up three times a night to pee, and it's really disruptive,' yeah, that's a big difference in baseline. That's abnormal, so something is happening. And if you have changes to your body that you're attuned to, then getting an expert opinion and figuring out if there's an issue is a reasonable thing to do.' We also chatted about why some people are pee-shy (and how to help overcome this feeling), whether urine is truly sterile, whether you should drink it if you're marooned on a desert island, and much more.
