Thursday Thoughts - Combating Spots and Blemishes

Most people begin the battle against spots and blemishes at the start of puberty. Spots are mostly caused by two things;

•  A build up of dead skin cells
• Excess oil

Spots on our face, neck, chest and back are common, this is because in these places we have a lot of glands in these places that produce our skins natural moisturiser, sebum.

There are several 'kinds' of spots.

• Blackheads
• Whiteheads

Black heads often occur in larger pores where air can circulate and react with the oil and/or the dead skin causing the top to darken in colour, therefore becoming black. Whiteheads are in smaller pores compared to the Blackheads, therefore air cannot get in and react with the oil or dead skin cells so the top remains white.

Even though most spots don't progress to this stage I feel like I must share. If pores remain blocked the build up of oil allows usual non harmful bacteria to multiply. Then the high level of bacteria sets your bodies immune system into attack mode causing inflammation. Sometimes inflamed red spots require a stronger treatment.

To avoid the appearance of spots and/or blemishes, set yourself a daily skincare regime of Cleanser, toner and moisturiser. Use these products morning and evening and use gentle products that wont strip or irritate your skin.

It is important that when you're choosing your cleansers etc. that you opt for oil free water based products as those that are oily will only add oil to your pores, resulting in further break outs. It is also important not to use any skincare products that contain alcohol as alcohol based products tend to be very drying even for oily skin. Some people may require oil control cleanser which helps loosen the binding of cells so that they don't clump together and block pores.

Salicylic acid has important antibacterial properties, so it can help prevent spots developing. But please do not assume that you need products made for oily skin just because you get spots.
If you have worries about you skin and its break outs, talk to a skin specialist before you jump in and begin buying products designed specifically for acne when there is a possibility you are not experiencing acne. It might simply be that your skin is prone to blocked pores and acne range products may be too harsh, therefore making things worse.'

Some people avoid moisturisers thinking that it would trigger spots. Even oily skin needs hydrating more so if you're using oil control products. Do not avoid moisturisers because you have oily skin, just choose one is light. This helps with keeping your pores unblocked.

Thursday Thoughts - Dreaming Big

Every one of us have dreams both big and small. Unfortunately, too many of us keep these dreams to ourselves because we fear what others may say. It's OK to dream and dream big and talk about your dreams so that others are inspired to dream big too. Dreams can do wonders for you, when you believe in your dreams, they take on a life of their own. You start dreaming up things to do to make your inspiration a reality. More dreams, more inspiration, then more dreams and a few more. Then one morning you wake up and the dream has come true.

        So dream, big, small. Just dream.

Thursday Thoughts - Comfort Zone.

Your comfort zone is what I refer to as a point where every action you do keeps your level of anxiety, low. Your comfort zone is usually in things you do all the time, like cooking or commuting to work, or watching TV. Everyday actions or tasks that you’re used to won’t make you feel anxious and uneasy. These are a part of your comfort zone.

People often refer to ‘getting outside your comfort zone’ they say it in terms of trying new things, something you wouldn't usually do on a daily basis can be counted as being outside that zone. If getting to work or school makes you anxious because the traffic is bad or you don’t like being on a train full of people, for instance, you’re not going to be comfortable in that situation therefore being outside of your comfort zone if you successfully manages to travel that train or make it to work using a form of transport that you are using as an alternative due to a change in something like a road closure for a day so you take the train etc.

Although anxiety isn’t something we or anyone loves, a little bit of anxiety can be beneficial. We often need just a hint of anxiety to push us to get our work done, or to improve our performance.

I'm often told to 'get out of my comfort zone' but I'm never ready to, I often get full blown attacks as I try to take a leap out of my comfort zone, so for others out there who like me who are really bad at leaving their comfort zones here are four steps I've found that could help:

Do everyday things differently. Take a different route to work, (smile at that new person you've been seeing a lot of but never spoken to.)

Take your time making decisions.

Trust yourself and make snap decisions. ...

Do it in small steps.

Thursday Thoughts - Paperback vs Electronic

I love books, in both formats but something about the physical paperback or hardback book just seems more appealing.

The Smell that you sense when you open it for the first time or as you flick the pages just brings joy, lets not forget the way it feels in my hands just the love and delicacy I treat my books with, where I don't dog ear the pages, break its spine, or mess it up in any other way. I love to feel the pages, crisp and real. I'm not sure why these things make me love Physical books but they do.

But

When your hands are tired, you have hand cramp, you're low on funds to re frill your bookcase I have to sad Electronic books are a life saver. They also come in handy when you are given the right to read for review. They have the downside of battery life on the device and if you get a headache or whatever but either format helps me journey through a lot of different lives and also helps expand my knowledge of being able to create my own world through my writing.


This post is not a post to say one is better than another, I just wanted to simply talk about the difference of both and my own personal views, if you guys want to talk about this topic in the comments feel free, let me know what you think about the two formats of books.

Thursday Thoughts - Friendships

I think friendships are one of the best parts of life, like hey there random human who I've just met can you tell me about yourself? and then boom you either click or don't and when you do it's amazing.

When I was three I started school/nursery and there I met a friend who I will call S for this post. Since then me and S stayed friends, we have gone through the whole of primary together until I left my secondary school to move schools. We continued to talk and even though we don't see each other a lot we are best friends. I'm now 17 so I have know S for a mind blowing 14 years and we are still close as ever, we rarely argue and we have laughs and long conversations and she's so supportive. I'm lucky to of found a person I could share so long with and not regret a single moment.

I have friendships in sixth form, and they're great because they're always willing to have a laugh which makes my day when I'm down, they never fail to make me smile and I can not wait to go back and see them and just get back into our routine of laughs.

Its weird, how friendships work really, its heart breaking when they never work out how we want them to, I always want to treasure my friendships with people because there are very few people that I can trust but I'm afraid of being soppy with people.

To anyone with a great friendship out there, treasure it, laugh joke, play fight, watch movies, play games, keep that person in your life because you've connected so much since you discovered that person and they would clearly mean a lot to you if you've been friends for a long while through rough times.

Thursday Thoughts - Writing

Finally after several years, around 4-5 years I finally informed my mother that I enjoyed writing and at the time we were discussing my future and the rest of my education, I informed her I loved writing after she asked me what I loved to do, her response unlike most, was positive. She said I could be an author and write several books, but not everyone is as understanding as my mother was on the 'I want to write books' front.

I guess writing was my way to express who I truly was as I faked to be someone better and loveable. My best friend, informed I want to write is supportive and really encouraging when it comes to me writing, she once made a point of me writing and she could create the covers. Others, an ex or two, a large proportion of my friends, many others find that writing is only a pass time and not an actually career yet they fail to see that several people out in the big wide world made a career when it came to writing.

I write to pass time, re-live a time, create a new time. I do it because everything I see, hear or do stores itself in my mind and over time it arranges into a perfect sequence that I can write, it usually happens at 2am most times, I would be in bed and staring at the ceiling when suddenly this fantastic story unfolds and I have to wake up fully and write it down as soon as I can in fear that if I don't write it down in that moment, it'll soon disappear and that opportunity will never come around again.

The thing is, writing, is beautiful it creates worlds, breaks and mends hearts, it gives us 1 or 200 lives to live and it is beautiful, so to everyone out there who writes for a pass time or writes as a passion, you are creating life and its an amazing thing, keep with it, people wont support you if you want to make a career out of it but I do, don't let them steer you away from writing, if you love to do it stay with it, if you think your writing sucks, get a friend to read over it. Truth is aspiring writers start to get sick of their work because they work on it over and over and they see it over and over but a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh mind full of imagination will love the work and you can get good quality feedback and constructive criticism.

If you love to do it, keep at it, you have worlds and life inside of you.

Thursday Thoughts - Confusing Emotions

Have you ever been in the position where you feel so many emotions you're not sure how you can function?

I've been in that position so many times and even I find it hard to deal with. I often get all of these feelings of both negative and positive kind, I often become so overwhelmed I don't speak or do much and then I get asked the questions of.
"are you okay?
"what's up?"
"do you want to talk?"
and I never quite know what to say or do because as much as I appreciate the support and the need to know I'm okay, I  just simply can't explain how I feel when it comes to all of these overwhelming emotions.

I always hope for the days to be the happy emotion days and to eliminate the negative ones but we cannot always get what we wish for.

The thing is, emotions are a part of who we are, with days that are positive, come days that are the opposite and as much as we try to avoid those days, sometimes it's impossible to stop, maybe you don't know those emotions are taking you over on those days and you become vaguely confused as to why you feel so negative all of a sudden, but it is important that we let someone know how it happened and then "let it go like a fart in the wind" as some people might say.

We all strive for the good things in life and It's wonderful, use the confidence you build up to excel the good things, and never let a bad day or thought drag you down so you begin to lose your good days. And when every emotion plays a part in your day just sit down, turn on your favourite movie, drink your favourite beverage and speak or surround yourself with the best people you know and know that the confusion you feel with your emotions doesn't last for ever and some days it will happen probably more than once but you have the control over whether you let those emotional days take you over or whether you take control over them.

Thursday Thoughts: Trophy Hunting.

So this isn't a normal post, as you can tell from the title. This subject was chosen by me after me and my mother spoke about it quite a lot, more than anything this post is going to primarily be information on a topic I've thought and seen a lot of in the past week or so, and in the past week or so we have been hearing a lot about the shooting of Cecil the lion, a victim of Trophy Hunting.

The definition of Trophy Hunting is:

• Trophy hunting is the selective hunting of wild game animals. Although parts of the slain animal may be kept as a hunting trophy or memorial (usually the skin, antlers and/or head).

Cecil was a 13-year-old male Southwest African lion who lived in the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe. He was a major attraction at the park and was being studied and tracked by the University of Oxford as part of a larger study. Cecil was shot by Walter Palmer, an American recreational big-game hunter, who had wounded him with an arrow from a crossbow. He was then tracked, and on 1 July 2015, approximately 40 hours later, he was killed with a rifle. The killing drew international media attention and sparked outrage among animal conservationists.
Walter Palmer paid an estimate of £35,000 to kill Cecil. Cecil being one of the dominant males of a group, the other 'dominant' male is now a danger to the cubs of Cecil as he now wants to declare dominance. Luckily no bad news has come and Cecil's cubs are safe for now.

Sabrina Corgatelli has also been under attack after posing with the dead animals she had killed on her recent guided hunt in south Africa, she defended the hobby stating that "everyone thinks were cold-hearted killers and its not that" and that "here is a connection to the animal and just because we hunt them doesn't mean we don't have a respect for them."

Every year, trophy hunters kill thousands of wild animals, primarily in Africa. They prefer to kill the most beautiful, the biggest and the rarest. Wealthy trophy hunters pay big money to local cash-stripped governments for permits that grant them a choice of which animal to kill. The list of “huntable” species is very long and includes more common species such as impala, black bears, common zebra, giraffes, and baboons, but also endangered species such as elephants, leopards and white rhinos (the Western African black rhino  has also been declared to be “extinct”).

There is also no regard for species protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) such as the African elephant or leopards. In fact, the more rare the animal, the more thrill to kill for the “big game” hunters, and the higher the price for the permit.

Since Cecil was hunted and killed, Trophy hunting has been the topic of many discussions and on every news channel. Trophy hunting needs to be stopped, the slaughter of innocent and sometimes endangered animals needs to be brought to an end, we need to take further steps to protect the animals of the world. It's very sad that it took the murder of Cecil to bring trophy hunting to the attention of many people, trophy hunting takes place maybe everyday and we have been oblivious to it until now.


I know this was just information you may or may not already know I just wanted to share it with you after I had thought a lot about the topic this week. Feel free to talk in the comments about the topic. Thank you for visiting the blog and reading this post.