There is so much pressure on people these days to look good that it is affecting all areas of life. There was a time when it was thought that only those who worked in the modelling or acting field had to resort to cosmetic surgery in order to give nature a helping hand, but these days this is no longer true. While it is necessary to keep your body and mind healthy and active, in this competitive world it is also necessary to fit in with certain body images in order to succeed.

Research has shown that the way a person thinks and feels about themselvesis closely related to the way that he looks. A person who is slim and has classically good features will tend to be more confident and have a brighter outlook on life. it is also a sad fact that such a person is more likely to succeed in various aspects of life than someone who is overweight or is not attractive.

This is where cosmetic surgery, or aesthetic medicine, comes in and can solve the problems faced by many people. One of the most popular procedures for women, and especially for young women, is the breast augmentation, which is used to increase the chest size by various methods including the use of implants. Breast augmentation can give a morale boost for a woman who thinks that her chest is too small and wants a fuller figure in order to feel more womanly. This is down to personal thought and choice and somebody opting for this procedure should not be made to feel that they are making a wrong decision.

As for the men who opt for male breast reduction, they are usually overweight or have recently lost a lot of weight and have excess fat on their chests which they wish to have removed. In either case the purpose of cosmetic surgery is to improve self confidence and make you feel better about your body. There is nothing wrong with getting the help of surgery if you find that other methods have not succeeded, you should not let anyone discourage you.

On the other end of the scale we have breast reduction and it may surprise you to learn that a large number of enquiries come not only from women, but from men interested in male breast reduction. Breast reduction is simply the procedure where fat is removed from the breasts and a new shape is created. This is often requested by women who have always been self conscious or teased about having a large chest size and wish to go down a few sizes.

After all, nobody else has to live your life, in your body, and have to live with the way that you feel everyday when you look at yourself in the mirror, so you need to do whatever it takes to make you feel good and look good in your own mind.

Along with ninety per cent of the women in this country I always seem to express the desire to lose some weight, at least a couple of times each week and a lot more than that when it comes around to the festive season or the wedding season. If you talk to ten women at any given time you will find that eight of them will be on a diet and the other two will say that they are thinking about trying to lose a little weight. It seems that even men are showing more concern about their weight and are being more careful about what they eat. They are even turning to slimming treatments and aesthetic medicine, previously the domain of women.

The reason for this obsession is often said to lie with the pressures that women face to conform to the ideal body image that is so popular within the media, that all women should be no larger than a size 8, when the reality is that the majority of women are a size 12-14. Young girls are being constantly bombarded with images of skinny models and this then seems like the normal body shape that all women should have. Some are lucky enough to have the good sense not to buckle under the pressure and others are lucky enough to have the perfect body shape anyway, but for the majority, it is an uphill struggle trying to maintain a perfect figure.

When a woman has tried to lose weight, and failed for whatever the reason, by the use of controlling her diet and exercising, she then often decides to resort to cosmetic surgery. This could take the form of a variety of procedures including body contouring, liposuction and other slimming treatments. There was a time when a person who had been “under the knife” (another term for cosmetic surgery) did not broadcast it to the world at large and stayed in hiding until everything was back to normal. However, in this day and age, people are proud to be able to say that they have had cosmetic surgery and will own up to almost any procedure.

There are clinics which offer to do procedures like a tummy tuck or skin tightening during your lunch hour and as for simple Botox and mini- facelifts, well they are just like visiting the dentist these days and probably a lot less stressful and painful! The fact remains that the best way to lose weight is through controlling your calories and sensible eating habits combined with an active lifestyle with plenty of exercise. Weight loss needs to be slow and steady in order for the results to be long term, as crash dieting will only lead to problems.

If you find that you do wish to use the aid of anti aging treatment, make sure that you do some research and find a reputable cosmetic surgery clinic with fully trained and qualified personnel and that they offer after care facilities.

I once saw a picture in a magazine of Joan Collins, which showed her looking as well turned out as usual and the story was about the fact that she looked so much younger than her actual years. She did look good and the photos had shown her in a flattering light. However, the one thing which had gone unnoticed was the fact that her hands were prominently displayed in one of the pictures. Not that there is anything wrong with her hands, but the fact remained that they did not match up to the rest of the image which was created around her.

Her hands were wrinkled and the veins were prominent. No matter how much make up and other camouflage techniques are used on the face and body, the hands will always show your age. There is not a lot that you can do hide them and even make up will just cover them up to an extent. So when you are considering lying about your age, remember that your hands will tell the truth. There are some procedures which can be used to make your hands look plumper and less wrinkled but these are only temporary.

When it comes to showing our age, we always try to cover up the evidence. It used to be that you never asked a lady her age, but these days there are men who will also be offended if you ask them how old they are. It seems that we all wish to appear younger than we really are and there are some people who will go to extreme lengths to deny the fact that they are no longer spring chickens.

I have always liked the saying that the face you have in your twenties is the face you have been given, but the face that you have in your forties is the face that you deserve. This just means that if you look after your health and take care of your appearance with a healthy diet and regular exercise, you will look better as you get older. There are many ways of looking younger than we are but the trend these days is to get cosmetic surgery done, if you can afford it, and if you are brave enough. A lot of the processes involved with cosmetic surgery are painful and can take a few days to heal from.

When it comes to your face, the most popular anti-aging treatment as far as cosmetic surgery is concerned, is the breast augmentation. This will make you look immediately younger since the facelift will re-define your features and make your bone structure more prominent. A nose surgery used to something which was the domain of Hollywood celebrities but now it is so common that is discussed at dinner tables and is something which is de rigour among anyone who is in the public eye. Even normal people often go for a little nip and tuck session to look younger.

It seems that we are never content with what we have. I know that this is not a new sentiment and that people have been saying this since time immemorial. I suppose even the early cave people would have complained of having either too much sun or not enough sun. Too much of anything is bad for us and leads to all sorts of problems. Too much food will lead to obesity and then too much fat will lead to many different diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. The same thing happens with too much money, we tend to become selfish and greedy, leading to a breakdown in relations and a lot of heartache.

This is why we are taught that all should always do everything in moderation, even things which are good for us such as exercise and sleep. You would not think that too much exercise could be bad for you, but it can lead to problems if you become obsessed and lose too much body fat. The same goes for getting too much sleep. We are all taught that sleep is good for us as this is when the body does its repairs and recuperation. However, too much sleep will lead to disorientation and headaches, especially if it is not a regular habit of yours to sleep too much.

Even when it comes to our appearance and our self confidence we can have similar problems. If we are too self- assured we will come across as arrogant and set people against us, and if we lack self confidence then we come across as being too shy or even dense. You just cannot win. With our appearance, there is so much that we are not happy with and that we wish to change. There are very few people in the world who are totally happy with the way that they look and to be honest, I have never met a single one, even though I have met a lot of people in my life through my travels and work.

Let us take the simple example of hair. This may be an innocuous subject but it can cause a lot of problems for a lot of people. There are those people who have too much hair and wish that they had lees. This is usually hair on the body and face, but even hair on the head can be a problem if it is too thick to manage or too curly to keep tidy. This is where people will have laser hair removal treatments (on the body and face, not head!).

The opposite side of the coin is those people who suffer from hair loss and this is usually from the head, leading to total or partial baldness. This can be rectified with the cosmetic surgery procedure of having a hair transplant. Both of these conditions can be equally distressing and leave the person feeling upset and helpless.

We all know that it is inevitable that we are growing to grow old, in fact that we are growing older all the time. That is off course if you do not die young, which is quite likely these days due to the unhealthy lifestyle that a lot of people are leading. If we do manage to get to the old age stage, it would be nice if we could live with dignity and enjoy all our faculties. One way to do this is to try and prepare while we are still young.

This is mainly a matter of looking after our health, mind and finances. The finances part is the way that we invest our savings and the spending habits we develop. We need to realise that we could live for many years after we retire and that we need to be able to support ourselves at a comfortable level. Also, we will need to spend a lot more on healthcare and need to budget for emergencies too. For the mind we need to try and keep it alert and active and there are certain foods which do encourage thought processes and help the memory.

As for the body, there are a few things that we can do which will help us to be healthier as we get older. The first thing is that we need to try and keep our weight down as there are a lot of illness associated with being overweight, such as diabetes and heart disease. We need to try and keep ourselves active so that our joints stay supple and we do not have difficulty in moving around. Also, the more active we stay, the more our bodies will function better.

When it comes to our diet, we need to make sure that we eat a variety of foods and that we have something from each of the food groups. There are certain foods which will ensure that our bodies remain healthier and if we cannot manage to eat these foods, and then we should make sure that we take vitamins and supplements to try and ensure that we get all the vital nutrients.

These precautions cannot guarantee that we will not have any problems as we get older, but they will act as an anti aging treatment to some extent. If you keep your weight down and stay active then you will hopefully not need to have varicose and spider veins treatment as you get older.

Even the appearance of our faces can be affected by the way that we live. You will notice that a person who is slim and active looks younger than one who is overweight. You will have less need to resort to cosmetic surgery for a facelift if you try and look after your skin and have a healthy lifestyle. These things all seem like such obvious measures, but the problem is that we do not give them importance until it’s too late.

When I was a student in college, I had to frequently use the public library for research purposes (and off course as a meeting place for friends, but let’s keep that as a separate issue shall we?!). I noticed that there was a whole section of the library which was devoted to romantic novels and there were so many different types of these novels. There were two whole bookcases just filled with Mills and Boon novels.

Within these bookcases there were further divisions among the types of romance. There were the standard novels which were set in the modern world, historical novels set at some point in history, but usually in a century which was not too far distant and where the fashion was for the women to wear corsets and voluminous dresses with lots of buttons and petticoats! Then there were the medical novels which were set in hospitals either in large cities or in some deserted outpost. There were also the ones which tried to combine the old Wild West with the modern idea of romance.

The one thing that you could be sure of was that they would all follow a standard pattern and that the end would be totally predictable, in fact for many of them you could know the whole story just from reading the blurb at the back. I got into the habit of reading these novels and found that some were better written than others and soon learned which authors’ style I liked. Some of them were quite funny and all were very light and easy reading that you could do while having lunch at your desk, or sitting on the bus to and from work.

Another thing that always stuck me was the way that all the heroes and heroines were described in the same way. The women were all tall, slim but voluptuous and with long legs. They all had shining flowing locks of hair and eyes that would change colour depending on their moods. They all had pert noses, full lips and wonderful skin. It is no wonder that the modern woman feels that she needs to have cosmetic surgery in order to live up to the ideal of beauty that she has grown up with, and yes most women will have read a few Mills and Boon books in their life. The heroines in these novels would never have needed to have a tummy tuck or liposuction.

As for the men in these books, they were all fine specimens of manhood, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and glossy thick hair which was always slightly long. The eyes were also piercing and the nose always proud. The lips were full (and without Botox and fillers and the skin was tanned and rippling with muscles, which he maintained without working out. Yeah right! How many men do you know who match up to this description, at least outside of the gym and the movies!

The first time I heard this phrase, I did not have a clue as to what it meant. It was used in reference to a teacher at my high school and it was only later that I understood the negative connotations attached to the phrase. It is used to describe any woman who is deemed to be inappropriately dressed for her age, and who is trying unsuccessfully to appear younger than she is. It is not a very nice thing to say about somebody but some women do seem to invite derision with the way that they portray themselves.

There are some people who will disagree with me and say that a woman should be able to wear whatever she wishes to without being ridiculed. They will say that dress and make up are a matter of personal choice and that it is nobody’s business how a woman chooses to appear.

On the other hand, there are those people who will say that once a woman reaches or passes a certain age, she should alter her dress and make up style to fit in with her age. That she should wear clothing which is suitable for a woman of her age group and that her make up should be more subtle and discreet than that of a younger woman.

The same arguments are also applied when we are talking about behaviour and deportment, that a woman, and to some extent, a man too, should act according to their age and position in life. There was a book I saw a few years ago called something along the lines of “When I Am An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple”, and in it was a list of all the fun and interesting things which this lady was looking forward to doing in her old age.

These days there are a lot of pressures on men and women to try and look as young as possible, for as long as possible. We are not only talking about people in the public eye or in jobs such as modelling, but the average person on the street and holding down a normal job. Everybody likes to be told that they look good for their age, and we all like it when we tell someone our age and they say that we look younger than we are. In fact, thanks to modern cosmetic surgery procedures, people can look so much younger than their actual years.

Cosmetic surgery alone is not sufficient to be able to mask your age; you need to be aware of other factors such as genes and lifestyle. However, there are a few procedures which can be counted as a reliable anti aging treatment and these include things such as skin tighteningand special skincare treatment. All of these can help to make you look younger for a while but you need to be careful that you do not go overboard and have all the treatments done at once.

The ideal body shape has changed many times in the history of mankind. At some points, the desired shape of the female form was the flat chested boyish look, whereas at others, a voluptuous woman was deemed to be beautiful. This changing ideal of beauty has led to many cultures adopting varying degrees of body altering rituals, which would seem to be barbaric to many people today.

For example, in China, a girl child used to have her feet tightly bound so that they would not grow properly and this would give her a dainty walk. The truth was that the feet would be so misshaped that the poor girl would spend her life with pain when she walked.

Then there was the custom of wearing corsets. These were restricting undergarments which contained bits whale bone or ivory to make the wearer stand straight and the whole thing was bound so tightly that the women could not eat properly and so remained slim. This practice was carried out till only about a hundred years ago and if you look at the old pictures, or museum pieces, you will notice that all the women were stick thin and standing ramrod straight. In reality, they could hardly breathe and their organs could not develop fully. This is why they were famous for fainting; it was not a lack of strength, but a lack of air!

Even these days there are practices where young girls in particular are forced to be restricted in their deportment and development, in order to be more feminine. Women still go out of their way to conform to the body type which the media and advertising have declared to be the norm, whether or not this fits in with their natural body type.

These days’ women do not wear corsets to appear or stay slim, but instead they turn to the medical profession. They will either start to take diet pills or resort to cosmetic surgery in order to achieve the body that they want. There are all sorts of procedures which come under the heading of body contouring, and what they basically do, is re-shape your body to fit the image that you want to see when you look in the mirror. None only women, but many men are also guilty of going under the knife to try and look better in their own and in the eyes of a society which is obsessed with body image.

One of the most popular cosmetic surgery procedures is the breast reduction, and increasingly, the male breast reduction. This is not a joke, because many men have a lot of excess weight on their chests and this can affect not only their self esteem, but also their health. Having a large chest size will affect your balance and more importantly, it will lead to back pain. This is due to bad posture and the way that you will sit and slouch, in order to hide your chest.

_ Last night I had a dream that my hair had gone all brittle and lifeless just before a major event in which I was to be making a presentation in front of a large group of people. This may be a common dream for anyone who is used to making presentations or doing public speaking, but for someone like me who does not make speeches and lives a very quiet life; this was a most unusual dream.

Then I realised where the germ for the dream had come from. It was not, as I had supposed, a fear of embarrassing myself in front of people, but from the fact that I had had my hair dyed the day before! You see, I had tries out a new dye and would have been fine but for the fact that a friend who was with me at the time told me that some dyes can make your hair fall out very fast.

Now, I am not the type of person who tends to worry about a lot of things and I do not think that I am vain about my looks. However, I do have a lovely head of hair and I am proud of the way that my hair is glossy and soft and that when it is freshly washed and styled, I get many compliments on it. So yes you could say that I am vain about my hair. The only problem is that I have to dye it regularly and this is a bit of a nuisance, especially when I cannot find the time to fit in a visit to the salon. So this is when I have to resort to a 20 minute home job with a dyeing kit. I have never had a problem with any of these home kits and would recommend them to people.

I got to thinking about all the many things that we tend to worry about and which may never happen. On the other hand there are things which cause stress and worry which we have to think about and be wary against. The problem is that all of these worries can lead to early hair loss and this is a vicious cycle. The more you worry about hair loss, the more you will suffer from the same affliction.

There was a time when the most that you could do to cover the fact that you were losing your hair, was to wear a wig or a hair piece, or continually wear a hat in public. None of these actions were very natural and they included a lot of palaver each morning. Thanks to advances in the field of cosmetic surgery, you can now get a hair transplant which is permanent and is a one off process. A hair transplant can give you back a natural looking head of hair and the recovery process is now quite short. You will suffer from a little discomfort for a while.

It may be an old cliché, but nonetheless it is such a true thing to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is true both for the female form, the male form or even the way that a baby looks. This may be offensive to some people but I do not believe that all children, or even all babies are beautiful. There is a reason why an ugly person is said to have the kind of looks that only a mother could love.

It is a fact of life that everybody wants to be considered beautiful and it is also a fact of life that everyone is not beautiful. The interesting thing though is that what is considered to be beautiful by one person, will be not be the same for another person. This is a good thing and the reason why there is a match for everyone, since we all have different tastes.

In some cultures, a woman with an ample rear end is considered to be attractive, whereas in the western world, any woman with a behind which is more than a size 12 is considered to be too fat. It seems that it is not possible to achieve the perfect shape to please everyone, so you need to be able to feel comfortable with the shape that you are happy with. This could be a size zero or a size 16, as long as you feel that you are happy and healthy.

This is where the main problem arises. The word healthy is the key word to looking beautiful. If you are a size zero, and look as though you would blow over in a strong wind, you are probably not getting all the nutrients and vitamins that your body needs. On the other hand, if you are a size 20, you may feel happy, but all the extra weight is not good for your heart and other organs, so this is not a satisfactory situation either.

When it comes to female beauty, there are a few things which are universally considered to be attractive and one of these is being buxom. There are very few cultures which consider a flat chested woman to be attractive, but even here, it seems that you can have too much of a good thing. There has been a rise in the number of women seeking the aid of cosmetic surgery to feel better about themselves and one of the most popular procedures is the breast reduction and the breast lift for the older woman.

This is opposed to the earlier popularity of the breast augmentation which seemed to be the most requested and talked about cosmetic surgery procedure for many years. These days there are even men who are now choosing to undergo surgery and the male breast reduction procedure is something which is becoming less of a taboo subject. Whatever you think is beautiful, remember that someone will always disagree with you.