Category: Science

Winter Skin

Experts weigh-in on how to keep your skin fresh in the freezing cold. Hot baths deemed ok, while microdermabrasion gets placed on worst-idea-ever list. *This article originally appeared in the Montreal Gazette.

Here I am at my desk, fearing this keyboard will zap me again. These vicious shocks make my hair stand on end, then collapse over my face like a static-cling blanket. And the worst winter dryness problem is my skin. As I type this, my hands are cracking and my elbows sting with every brush of the armrest.

Fortunately, my face is like an oasis of moisture. I took preventive measures with monthly facials, which seem to have done the trick. The rest of me, however, has quite a ways to go. Beauty in the winter is no simple affair. Like many Montrealers, I’d love to be traipsing around at my best, but I’m not exactly sure how to go about it. As such, I’ve been speaking to experts about the in’s and out’s of winter beauty. Here’s what they had to say.

THE SKIN

“The main reason for what’s called ‘winter itch’ or ‘winter skin’ is lack of humidity,” said Wayne Carey, dermatologist at the Carey Wang Centre for Dermatology and Dermatologic Surgery in Westmount Square. “It’s a unique problem in winter climates, where relative humidity decreases as you go farther north.”

Since water in your skin naturally equalizes with the moisture in the air, dehydrated skin is usually just a temporary problem. Take a jaunt down to Florida, Carey points out, and your skin should glow again in almost a day.
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Your mind on brain games

“Bird Safari: Featured in the visual-training program InSight, this game asks players to recall a specific bird — flashed on the screen for only an instant – out of a flock. InSight costs $395 U.S. online through Posit Science.”

*This article appeared, in full or in part, in the Montreal Gazette, the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen, GlobalNational Television, the Windsor Star, the Edmonton Journal, and more.

Before I begin listing the latest computer games and expert tips on how best to improve your brain fitness, like push-ups for normal aging and forgetful minds, here are some thoughts from my grandma, a foxy eighty-something:

“Don’t tell me to do those puzzles. They just rock me into insensibility,” she said. “My brain moves too fast to begin with. In less than five minutes, I’m trying to remember when your grandpa’s next doctor’s appointment is, and whether we need coffee cream, God forbid.

“Meanwhile your grandpa starts hollering, ‘Where’s my walking stick? Where’s my hearing aid?’ And while I’m standing on my head looking for his stuff, the oatmeal pot boils over. Anyhow, you’re nuttier than a fruitcake if you think getting old is like a bowl of cherries,” she said

Fortunately for my grandmother, wisdom isn’t lost with age as easily as walking sticks.

“Some things don’t decline,” says Fergus Craik, a leading cognitive psychologist based in Toronto and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Memory.”For example, people in their 50s and 60s tend to have better vocabulary and word knowledge (than younger people). And knowledge of the world seems to hold up with age, as do skilled procedures like mental arithmetic or playing piano, if you still practice.”

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