Category: Life Hacks

How to get the best charity shop finds

Published on by Lisa Hughes4 Comments

Charity shops are the business. Where else can you get vintage designer threads alongside cat ornaments from the 1960s and 99 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey? I mean, really.

Earlier this week I read an interesting post on Racked about how the second-hand clothing resale market is predicted to hit to hit $41 billion by 2022 (wowzers!) and it got me thinking about thrift shopping. This past fortnight I’ve also binged on Layers, a clothes-and-stories podcast from Ana Kinsella and Stevie Mackenzie-Smith, and in one episode they mentioned stumbling across an incredible charity shop in Kensington. Cut to me musing wistfully about my college days when I would spend hours thumbing vintage clothing and lusting over things like a vintage 90s Escada suit but had nowhere to wear it to. Sigh.

If your experience of charity shopping has been less than rewarding and meant thumbing through sweat-stained Primark cast offs or mothballed jumpers worthy of a 1980s kids TV presenter, then you’re doing it wrong.

Here are some dos and don’ts of charity shopping so you can get your hands on amazing charity shop finds: Continue reading “How to get the best charity shop finds” →

Living the lagom lifestyle

Published on by Lisa Hughes1 Comment

I have a confession to make. Even though over 20 books were written about hygge in the last few years, I never got the Danish hygge buzz. While I’m as guilty as the next person of wanting to inject some of that effortlessly cool Scandinavian style into my life, hygge seemed a step too far into twee territory for my liking.

If you somehow missed the hygge train, let me fill you in. Lifestyle trend hygge has been described as the Danish secret to happiness. Put simply, hygge is that warm cosy feeling. Think warm blankets, candlelight, hot chocolate. It’s that Christmas feeling all year long.

I love the idea of that cosy vibe but the older I get, the more I appreciate using what I’ve got, as opposed to the pursuit of more, and that’s why when I heard about another buzz-worthy lifestyle trend that’s about less is more, I sat up and paid attention. Say hello to Swedish lagom. Continue reading “Living the lagom lifestyle” →

How to quit caffeine and not lose your mind

Published on by Lisa Hughes2 Comments

For the fourth time in my life, I’m trying to cut out caffeine and all I can say is hold me. Somebody. Anybody. The headaches, the tiredness, feeling so irritable you are this close to giving Michael Douglas in Falling Down a run for his money. The joys of caffeine withdrawal.

So, why am I doing this to myself? As well as being a sucker for self-punishment, it’s that time of year when we are all vowing to be a bit healthier, to drink more water and turn ourselves into Gisele, all within the space of January, and I’m as guilty of this as the next person. Also, as you may recall from my golden milk recipe post, coffee has been exacerbating my anxiety in the last year or so. Even though I used to drink up to 6 cups a day – insert beating heart emoji – these days all it takes is that second cup and my heart is aflutter…and not in a good way.

Continue reading “How to quit caffeine and not lose your mind” →

Wellness hacks for the January blues

Published on by Lisa Hughes10 Comments

January always feels to me like cracking open a new notebook and feeling the nervous possibilities of that crisp blank page. Whether you’ve got your whole year planned out ahead of you or you’re gonna fly by the seat of your pants, for many of us, January’s newness can be a blessing and a curse, with the unknown creating a palpable sense of panic. There’s also the dreary weather, dark mornings and darker evenings to contend with. After the buzz of Christmas and New Year’s Eve, January just can’t compete, can it? No wonder we’re all swamped in the January blues.

In my opinion, this makes January the perfect time to look after yourself, experiment with wellness and make self-care a real priority. And no, I’m not talking about food fads, drop a dress size diets or dangerous juice cleanses – I’m talking about wellness activities that’ll snap you out of the January blues and that you can practice throughout 2018. Continue reading “Wellness hacks for the January blues” →

5 lessons I learnt in 2017

Published on by Lisa Hughes2 Comments

I really should’ve called this blog ‘Dear Diary’, shouldn’t I? It’s that time of year when we start to look back and make all kinds of fancy resolutions to hopefully make the next 12 months better than the last 12, and maybe even become shiny new versions of ourselves.

Taylor Swift aside, the general consensus is that 2017 was a shit show but, in an effort to be more positive, I learnt a lot this year. My wellness obsession swelled to new heights and led me to spend a lot more time delving into self-care and self-help, spaces I previously scoffed at. There’s no book, blog post or podcast which changed my mind about these things – maybe it’s just part of getting older – but this year I’ve spent more time considering my own choices, looking at why I and those around me do what we do and, as twee as this sounds, generally seeking to be a bit more understanding.

Here’s 5 of the big lessons I learnt and started to apply in my life in 2017 and a few podcast recommendations thrown in for good measure:

Continue reading “5 lessons I learnt in 2017” →

September Self-Care

Published on by Lisa Hughes2 Comments

Wait, it’s 30th September. Why am I writing a blog post about September? Well, like they say in The September Issue, September is the best month to shake off your old skin and start afresh. For me it’s been a month of change. It’s also the month where self-care really landed on my radar as a real, doable thing and not just a vague idea I read about on Goop.

Maybe it’s yet another thing you only appreciate as you get older, like drinking wine for the taste and not just to get drunk or young Tom Cruise. I used to scoff at the idea of taking care of myself but – hello, self-help bible alert – if you don’t look after yourself, no one else will. Self-care is all about the little things, from taking your make-up off every night (even when plastered) to just avoiding situations and people who cause you stress.

Self-care is an ongoing thing that I’m sure changes throughout your life, if not day-to-day. With this in mind, I just wanted to share six new self-care strategies and steps I’ve been trying this month: Continue reading “September Self-Care” →

Commuter health: how to stay healthy – and sane – on your daily commute

Published on by Lisa HughesLeave a comment

So, I read an article in The Irish Times about Ireland’s long haul commuters (Limerick to Dublin commuters – I salute you!) and it inspired me to write about an aspect of commuting  I think is most important but that I don’t see covered regularly – commuter health.

If you’ve never really commuted or you enjoy a leisurely 25 minute cycle into the office, you’re probably thinking ‘commuter health? But they’re just sitting still for an hour!” Yes, I once thought that about commuting too. Then I had a bad experience with a greedy landlord (you know who you are) who wanted to exploit the housing crisis and I quickly found myself with nowhere to stay and forced into a two hour commute each day. Both ways.

To say it was a shock to the system would be an understatement. Let’s just say I went from smiley Ken Cosgrove to Season 7 Pete Campbell in six weeks. Continue reading “Commuter health: how to stay healthy – and sane – on your daily commute” →

5 Things To Know About Going Vegan

Published on by Lisa Hughes1 Comment

Vegans wear dreadlocks, tie-dye and stink of patchouli, right? Think again. In recent years, the word vegan has gone from hippie dippie to (dare I say it?) kinda cool, thanks in no small part to famous names like Jared Leto, Beyonce and even Arnold Schwarzenegger swapping pork for plants.

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years (making me *cough* 22) and spent almost 3 years as a committed vegan. There’s been a huge shift in attitudes towards eating healthier in Ireland in the last 5 years (I could rant allll day about how many ‘rabbit food’ comments I’ve gotten over the years but I won’t bore you) so it’s thankfully much easier now to have a diet that’s not meat and potatoes but going vegan is still a big lifestyle change for most people. Continue reading “5 Things To Know About Going Vegan” →

Networking tips for people who hate networking

Published on by Lisa Hughes2 Comments

‘It’s all who you know.’ Is there a more discouraging sentiment when you’re starting out in your career? After finding out that your arts degree is in fact worthless, I can’t think of a more sinking realisation than the one where you realise connections, not your First Class Honours degree or last slave labour internship, are what catapult you further up the ladder.

After a few years of feeling all ‘why me?’ about growing up in a small town and therefore having no ties to the all-important Dublin-centric media, I started to realise that the personal connections thing works both ways. If I could just bump into people and make a good impression…that was an opportunity to make the connections I was so lacking. Sounds easy, right?

There’s just one problem: I loathe networking. Continue reading “Networking tips for people who hate networking” →