Yup, coffee and concealer - as a mom with little kiddos these are two things that I basically can't live without every morning. Someday I'll be able to get a normal night sleep again, but until then, these two things are my daily saving grace.
So how do these two things fit into my clean and healthy lifestyle? Well coffee is one of those things that has just as many pieces of research and information that demonize it as those that glorify it. For me, I know that I'm overly dependent on caffeine and have decided for a short time in my life I'm OK with that. It is not impacting my sleep, and I'm not jittery - and on the rare occasions where I get almost enough sleep I find that I can function without the coffee! I brew most of my coffee that I consume at home, for a few reasons: 1) Cost - coffee (esp. good coffee) is expensive, and it's much more economical to buy your own and brew at home 2) Control - I can control the amount of coffee and therefore the amount of caffiene I'm getting in each cup by adding more or less coffee to water as a ratio 3)Quality - I can pick the type of coffee that I use, and know exactly what it is, my go-to right now I order via Amazon subscribe and save, an organic coffee from Canada called Kicking Horse that I've been hooked on ever since trying a sample that I got years ago at the Philly screening of the Banff Mountain Film Festival.
What do you put in your coffee? I used to be a purist and drink it black, and since have gone back and forth as I continue to evolve my relationship with dairy. Right now, in an ideal world, I add heavy cream from a local farm. Other times I'll blend with some grassfed butter, which gives it a great froth! I also have been adding collagen peptides, which mix in nicely and don't impact the flavor of my coffee experience. I was a bullet-proof coffee drinker for quite some time a few years ago. I added grassfed butter and coconut oil to my coffee that doubled as my breakfast and allowed me to do a version of intermittent fasting where I didn't eat real food until lunchtime or later depending on the day. I think I'll get back to that someday, but right now that's an additional stress on my body, and with the other things going on I think it's too much - that's another blog post ;)
Now onto the attempting to look more awake part of my daily routine - I started using the rejuvenating eye cream from Beautycounter and it actually has caffeine in it, so it's like a cup of coffee for my eyes every morning to help me look more awake and reduce some of the puffiness from not getting enough sleep.
I also use concealer under my eyes now, I've always been a concealer user, but it was usually for blemishes (a constant struggle for me) so using it under my eyes has been new. I learned how to apply it better, sweeping it under my eyes and then using my ring finger to pat it in, instead of rub, has made a big difference in the amount that I use and the coverage that I get!
What are your go-tos on a daily basis? Are you struggling with never getting enough sleep - and have you identified the root cause of that? I'll do another post on sleep hygine, even though my sleep is not the best since it's still disrupted, I make sure that my environment is supporting the best sleep I can get. Some things I do (and you can too!) are: sleep in a DARK room and cover any light sources (especially blue light), turn my phone on airplane mode at night, keep it cool, avoid blue light stimuli before bed (TV, phone, etc.) and use the night shift mode on my phone and F.lux on my computer for when I am using it before bed, drink tea with Natural Calm.