Skinny-Teatox

By: Sarah Gerbig (Follow on Instagram)

Life is stressful. Exams are coming up, final papers are due, you're always late for work, your rents want you to take an advanced course next semester, you need to volunteer more, your college applications are due, and your best friends are begging you to join the yearbook committee even though you're already on the volleyball team and the cheerleading squad.....

We live insanely stressful lives and we hate to admit it, but it's killing us.

Stress is our bodies way of reacting to life. Certain stresses are good for you and essential for living, but others are dragging you down and take a toll on your health. Bad stress can actually lead to severe headaches, upset stomach, sleeping problems, elevated blood pressure and chest pains. Ouch! Even worse, if left unrelieved, stress can lead to serious health issues such as depression, eating disorders, heart disease and stroke.

Stress may feel overwhelming at times, but there are many strategies to help you overcome it.

Here are 12 great ways to reduce stress:

1. Let it go! Start off by identifying your stressors a.k.a figure out what is causing you to sometimes lose-your-cool. Once you can narrow it down, identify the unnecessary stresses in your life and get rid of them. Take a page out of the Elsa's handbook and let it go!

2. Learn to say NO. You may feel obligated to make everyone happy by doing like a million things at once, but the truth is, you really don't. You are soooo much more important than the satisfaction of others. Just do you!

By: Bethany Barich (Follow on Instagram & Twitter)

We’ve all been there. You begin to start a diet, you're actually staying on track with it, and then all of a sudden temptation strikes. You’re craving junk food, sweets, sugar, and all that’s not the healthiest for you. You cave in and cheat.

These top 10 tips will help you from cheating on your diet again:

1. Toss the temptations

First and foremost, get rid of triggers! If you have any type of food in your cupboards or refrigerator, remove them immediately! Getting rid of these triggers will help curb the craving for them later on. To help kill the craving you may get, try replacing all the unhealthy temptations will healthy options – for example, replace frozen raspberries or blackberries for ice cream.

2. Brush your teeth

You know the taste you get when you eat right after you’ve brushed? It’s not good, so use that to help control cravings! Late night snacks are a major temptation for people who diet, so after dinner brush your teeth to avoid any unhealthy snacking later on! If you feel you could be tempted at work, take some travel size products with you to keep those cravings under control.

By: Bethany Barich (Follow on Instagram & Twitter)

If there’s one food I know I’d never be able to survive without it is bagels. Actually, make it two things – bagels and bread in general. There’s nothing better, at least for me, than having a slice of toast with peanut butter on it. It isn’t that way with a lot of people, though. Some of society has put down bread – saying it’s bad for you and causes weight gain. What causes weight gain is eating big, unhealthy meals and not burning those calories off.

I’m here to tell you that bread isn’t bad and that there are a lot of healthy breads out there and a lot of great ways to eat it.

By: Bethany Barich (Follow on Instagram & Twitter)

If there’s one thing I know I struggle with it’s snacking without the guilt. Luckily there’s NatureBox. What is it? It’s dedicated to making sure that snacking is something that can be a part of a well-balanced lifestyle! They deliver right to your door each month. You get five snacks of your choice and the best part? It’s only $19.95 per month after your first free trial!

Before going into detail about some of my personal favorite snacks, let me tell you about how these amazing snacks are guilt free food. First off, there are vegan, gluten, diary and soy free products. They have 55+ non-GMO products and they offer products without nuts. Their products offer no high fructose corn syrup, no artificial colors, no artificial sweeteners or flavors too!

Now onto the yummy part – the top snacks! Each picked offers something different and can be eaten on their own or possibly mixed into other meals.

By: Bethany Barich (Follow on Instagram & Twitter)

Yoga is one of the most relaxing and beneficial forms of exercising today, but sadly, going to a yoga studio regularly can begin to wear on the bank account. Luckily, there’s an app for that! Multiple ones to be exact, but the question is, are they worth it? Sometimes you’ll find an app that’s more than $.99 and it ends up being the worst thing ever.

Let’s take a look at some of the best yoga apps out there right now that won’t break your bank and are worth the purchase! If you prefer to do yoga by watching YouTube videos - check out the top 5 yoga channels on YouTube.

Here are the Top 5 Yoga Apps for iPhone:

1. Simply Yoga

The first app, Simply Yoga, offers both a free version of the app and a full version with more options. The perk to going with the free version is that it’s a nice detailed way of getting into yoga. The free version offers three different workouts for beginners all based on time – 20, 40 and 60 minutes. The instructor is detailed on how to get from pose to pose. The differences between the free version and the full version, is that the full version allows you to access an entire new level of workouts all in the same minute span as the other. Along with that, you can also do custom routines and are given more poses to work with.