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Stress-busting Tips from Eva Ritvo MD, co-author of The Beauty Prescription: The Complete Formula for Looking and Feeling Beautiful

Nothing saps beauty like chronic stress. It depletes our inner beauty and our outer beauty. It deteriorates our health and poisons our environment. Women can utilize many techniques to cope with daily stress and create a more beautiful self.

• Exercise! Find something you love and do it almost everyday! The endorphins will make you feel fabulous and you will be battling the aging process in the best way we know how.

• Focus on the half full part of life. This will brighten your mood and then everything goes better. An optimistic attitude helps keep you young and willing to take chances. Good things happen when you try!

• Feel and express gratitude. There is nothing more beautiful than being able to spot and point out the beauty all around us.

• Look in the mirror and remind yourself “you are 20 percent more beautiful” than you think. If you feel beautiful, you look beautiful and others will respond favorably.

• Smile! Remember that the world will treat you better if you look happy, so put on a smile and get out there. Emotions are contagious, so make sure yours are positive so others will want to be around you.

• Find a beauty buddy. Women need to spend time together to love and support one another. These relationships make us more beautiful inside and out.

• Get a “faith lift”. Learn to have faith that good things will happen and hang in there for the rough patches. See yourself as young and beautiful. Then take the steps needed to get there.

• Remember the basics. Get plenty of rest. Women need more sleep than men, so don’t deprive yourself if you want to stay young and beautiful.

• Eat properly. Aging is brought on by the chemical found in food so eat as healthy as you can.

• Learn to manage stress by meditating, doing yoga, practicing deep breathing techniques or whatever works for you. When we are stressed out, our bodies release chemicals that accelerate aging. All these techniques have been shown to decrease cortisol and improve health and longevity.

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• Avoid drugs, smoking and alcohol. They are sure fire beauty sappers and will cause aging prematurely.

Eva Ritvo MD is a co-author of The Beauty Prescription: The Complete Formula for Looking and Feeling Beautiful (McCraw Hill). Visit Eva’s website for more inner beauty tips and outer beauty tips.

www.TheBeautyPrescription.com