Sometimes you just want to bury your head under a pillow.

Have you ever been rushing through the grocery store to purchase that one item you need to finish making dinner, only to be confronted by a person in front of you with a basket piled high with stuff? You’re running late and need to get going. You can feel your stress levels starting to rise, as you think about the dinner in the oven that’s about to burn if you can’t get home on time.

Then something amazing happens. The person in front of you looks at the item in your hand and says, “you go first, you only have one item.” All that stress you were experiencing just seconds before just melts away.

That, my friends, is the lost art of empathy.

Over the past decade or two, the prevailing pop psych wisdom has told us that we need to be much more selfish to achieve personal happiness.

Particularly in the lady mags, and as preached by Oprah (the Messiah of the X chromosome set), happiness is simply one “no” away.

And I agree. To a point. But there also comes a point when we need to behave with compassion, even if it means a little inconvenience. In other words, perhaps saying yes.

I think we have been bogged down by this “just say no” mindset, and to our detriment. Often I feel that something as simple and human as empathy is as old fashioned a notion as a rotary phone. The old cliché “walk a mile in another person’s shoes” has been replaced by the other cliché  “look out for number one.”

Lack of empathy may be good for the military or for police work, where analytical thinking trumps emotions, but for the rest of us, a drop of empathy during a rough time is often very welcome. Sometimes it can be the one thing that stops a full-blown meltdown.

I don’t like to get all political on this blog, but you know what? If the bankers had more empathy, perhaps they would stop blaming foreclosed upon homeowners for getting mortgages they couldn’t afford. After all, those very banks were the ones who decided the homeowners could indeed afford them in the boom.

Which is why this lack of empathy is situation critical. And apparently it is only going to get worse. According to a study presented at the Association for Psychological Science’s annual conference, college students today are 40% less empathetic than students 20 years ago. We could very well be headed for empathetic Armageddon.

Oh, and for those that believe there’s no room empathy is business? Chris Brogan makes some big bucks teaching large corporations essentially how to empathize with their customers.

Perhaps this makes me a push over. But when I am dead, I would rather be remembered for my kindness than for being an asshole.

Check out this great news for yoga afficionados.

A study in the Journal of Sexuality reported that almost 75% of enrolled in a 12 week yoga program reported a more satisfying sex life at the end of the program.

What is it about yoga? Like any regular exercise program, the side effects are more energy and confidence, which certainly enhances romance.

Yoga also improves arterial blood flow, and studies point to this particular benefit for not only reducing the risk of heart disease, but  also enhancing sexuality.

Relaxation is also key. I have forced myself to do yoga once a week for the past 20 weeks and, I will admit that now I can get into the relaxation zone. Yoga reduces levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which is beneficial all around (particular for the skin!). A relaxed body and mind simply improves sexual function.

Well hello there! Where have I been, you ask? I have been trying to take care of myself.

A few weeks ago, I started feeling kind of old. Oh! My knee. Ow! My back!

As a lot of my faithful readers know, I stopped my pilates training about a year ago to cut down on expenses. I tried Power Plate, I really did. But I hated it. So I have been on-again, off-again working out on my own for the past six months. Before the Holidays, I was doing OK. Not great, but OK. But by January, I had completely lost my groove. Life, as it has a habit of doing, got in the way.

But once those aches and pains started to kick in, I got pissed.

And I mean, really pissed. I tend to be a stress mess when I am not working out regularly.  And I really hate what stress does to me physically and mentally.

So after wallowing a bit about getting older, I decided it was time to kick this aging thing in the ass. So I did what any normal person would do. I watched infomercials. And P90X finally sucked me in completely.

I have been reading about P90X off and on for about a year or so. Lots of Twitter friends do it, or are P90X “coaches.” So they put up links, and I check out their blogs about the P90X experience. It kind of captured my imagination. I am a sucker for a good “before” and “after” story. So I took the plunge and ordered the DVDs.

And they are here. And they are pretty!

Here’s what I like:

Everything is structured.

When I work out on my own, I often flit around from bike to eliptical to weights. I hate doing legs so I often avoid them. I can work on my arms and abs all day, so I do those instead. I know I am not giving myself a “full body workout.” So being forced to follow a training program is necessary.

The Nutrition Guide.

OK, I am not in love with it, but I do like how the diet changes every four weeks based on the challenge level of the workouts.  Phase 1 is protein loading. Phase 2 adds in more carbs. I haven’t read Phase 3 yet.

They also break it down so you can either follow their menus or do it yourself. I am taking the DIY route, since I am not up for overhauling my weekly menu plans. But some of the recipes sound fantastic, and I do want to get around to trying a few of them out.

You eat. A lot.

This is not a calorie deprivation diet. They want you to eat a lot of food. But they have to be the right foods. Which is going to force me to consider everything I stick in my mouth (which is actually easier when you are not starving)

The Box.

Did I mention the pretty packaging!

Here’s what I don’t like:

Supplements.

Since this is supposed to be a hard core training program, there is a push for protein drinks and other concoctions. Which, of course, you can buy from Beachbody, the parent company of P90X. I am on hold with this at the moment.

Pull Ups.

Oh yes, pull ups. Lots of them. I was never able to do them in high school gym class. I am going to seriously have to work up to these things. Plus this necessitates a pull up bar. But they have them super cheap at CVS. I think my pull up issues are completely psychological. But until I get brave enough to try one out, I may have to figure out another option.

My biggest challenge:

Time.

I have to make time for myself, and it’s not something I am terribly good at doing.

I need to really think about my diet. I need to eat in the morning, which I don’t do, since I feel like I don’t have time. I can’t just throw together a sandwich for lunch–I have to be very aware of what I am eating and how much. In fact, I have to eat several times a day. I am already overwhelmed by this.

The workouts themselves are in the 60 to 90 minute range. I usually do 45 minutes tops. Again, I never feel like I have the time to push longer. There’s always something else that needs my attention.

The good news is that this lack of time (perceived or otherwise) is getting extremely frustrating. I am tired of not having enough time to look after my well being. If I am physically incapable to doing my jobs, then I won’t have any work. So it’s time to be a little less available.

Sneakers.

Most of my work outs for the past two plus years have been barefooters (yoga, pilates, even Power Plate). So I don’t own any. And I don’t like wearing them. But I need to get them. And wear them.

So here I am, just about ready to embark on this 90 day challenge. And I am feeling pretty damn stoked to try this out. I wish I had the six pack ab goal or something exciting that would make a great visual.  But honestly, I just want to get fitter and stronger. I don’t want my body to fail me at 40.

And, I want to do five (or more) unassisted pull ups. I am not reaching big on this, but I do have a goal.

Of course, if I end up with a washboard, I am certainly not going to complain.

I will definitely blog through this process. You guys will keep me accountable.

It has been a whirlwind week at my house. My daughter started kindergarten on Tuesday and what should have been a tear filled, exciting day turned into a big old battle with The Man. For her very first teacher, my kid ended up with Mrs. McNasty.

It’s a long story, but needless to say Mrs. McNasty messed with the wrong Mom. Manly Man Husband and I marched our asses straight to the Principal’s office and had a showdown. What followed was hours of phone calls that lead straight to the top of educational food chain to pull my kid away from that craptastic teacher.

Here’s why I went mental. My kid is bright, curious and full of spunk and one lousy teacher can take all of that away quickly. I had horrendous teachers in my early school years, and until I hit college, there was absolutely no joy in learning. School was a loathsome task and one that I feared every morning. So to have Mrs. McNasty at the age of 5, her introduction to real school, was just not going to fly.

When my daughter came home that afternoon and said she was afraid to ask to use the bathroom, I knew for certain that we had done the right thing by intervening immediately.

Here’s my admittedly tenuous beauty connection. Imagine my shock when I ended up in esthy school, learning chemistry, biology and anatomy (subjects I ran from throughout my school years) and found that not only did I enjoy learning them, I was pretty damn good at them. If I did not have a fear of school, who knows what I could have achieved.

That, and I expect a case of stress-induced acne to explode any day now.

Oh Allure! Why do you break my heart? I always rip open the new issue when it arrives, anxious to read the “beauty bible” and am always so disappointed. The March issue came this morning, and the cover tag of “Stressed Out Skin?” pulled me in, only to hurt me within the very first paragraph.

In analyzing the skin of our over stressed masses, writer Sarah Van Boven says “Not only does stress cause our sebaceous glands to pump out more of the oil that bacteria thrive on…” Or, Oil = bad. 

Oil on our skin, for the most part, is a good thing. We need it to help kill the bacteria on our skin (oil=acid; bacteria cannot thrive in an acidic environment). However, there is one more piece to the acne puzzle. Oxygen. The problem is when the pore gets clogged by dead skin and dirt and oxygen cannot reach the bacteria to help kill it. Oil alone is not the sole culprit.

Strip away that oil and you will have to read the Sensitivity part of this article: “The epidermal barrier that locks moisture to the skin is the same thing that keeps irritants like pollution, allergens and chemicals out.” Guess what that epidermal barrier is? The one you just stripped away because of your acne.

I suppose I should learn by now not to get so excited when the damn magazine shows up.  But it’s kind of like porn. Excited by the promise yet ultimately deflated by the actual experience.