RELATIONSHIPS

How to get over breakup depression and coping with a broken heart is a tough one. A divorce breakup, or even a short term break up can be very traumatic, especially for mature women. Obviously getting over a divorce takes years, but even a short term relationship can be hard to get over if you pinned allot of hopes on that person being the right one for you. Add to that the difficulty and scarcity of good men at this age bracket - well it is the recipe for heart break disaster.

Most of the dating and break up manuals and relationship self help books and web sites suggest that a woman focus on her own life, friends, and going to the gym. They say, get out and about in the world. But if you were to ask a plastic surgeon, he would likely admit that many women get secret cosmetic surgery after a divorce, breakup or nasty dumping. You have to be emotionally stable obviously to get plastic surgery. But if you are, sometimes the best time to overhaul yourself is when you are passing through a lonely god awful phase of life. Instead of moping, make yourself over!

Take time to understand what went wrong in your relationship and improve yourself emotionally and spiritually to be the best person you can. Simultaneously, work on improving your appearance because we all know that personality matters but so does your appearance and how you present yourself. If you have to march back into the dating pool after 40, a reinvented you can certainly help not hurt you in the quest to attract men.

If you are not inclined to follow the how to get over a break up advice manuals, then maybe you can take advantage of your time spent pathetically moping over getting dumped. As long as you are holed up, why not take advantage of the situation. If you are squeamish or simply not inclined to get plastic surgery and go under the knife, there are plenty of other alternatives. These are going to make you uglier before they make you prettier so they are perfect projects for breakup ville.

After forty your skin takes a nose dive and any little sun exposure you got from when you were younger or those days of baby oil and sun-in, are catching up by now. Women tend to get three basic skin ugliness. The first is brown spots and brown splotches, secondly they get broken capillaries and varicose veins, and third they get fine wrinkles and crinkles on their facial skin especially.

Without having to get any where near a cosmetic surgery knife, you can do several things to re freshen your skin while miserable over the breakup. First of all, you can address the brown spots. You can get brown spots zapped by the dermatologist or laser aesthetician. There are a number of ways brown spots can be treated. Bleaching creams can help but more aggressive measures can yield real results and they include zapping with either chemicals or the laser. Either way, the laser or derma treatment is going to leave darkened marks for weeks which usually scab and fade over the course of a few weeks or a month. If you have unsightly spots on your face, chest, arms, hands, backs or elsewhere, you are going to look like a leopard after a good dose of treatment. You'll have darkened spots and scabs until they heal and fade. What better time to do this blemishing derma treatment than now when you are sitting home crying any ways?

Another uglier than prettier project would be getting rid of those red, green, and black and blue veins and splotches and the ropey varicose ones that stand above the skin. You get these from sitting on your bum too long in the same position and cutting off your circulation. They also come from aging and hormonal changes and are worsened by pregnancy, weight gain and loss, and sedentary sitting. Light veins can be treated with laser. They darken then fade. Thicker veins need to be injected via sclerotherapy. Generally you have to wear ace bandaged legs for days after treatment and the healing leave unsightly bruises. Again, what better time to do this than now when you're head is dunked into pity?

Another non-surgery thing you can do to beautify is chemical peels. Light lunch time peels can leave your skin with a slight peeling. More aggressive peels are disfiguring indeed. A TCA chemical peel will make you look like a clown for weeks on end. If you really want to freak yourself out you can get a TCA facial peel or spot peel under eyes or around lip wrinkles. These leave your skin brick red and burned throughout the healing process. Provided you get them done safely, they do yield refreshed skin but only after a hideous healing phase. Again, this is something you can do while deadened and numb from that breakup.

So you see you can make good use of that break up time. If a smile makeover, chemical peels, vein treatments and brown spot removal (not to mention plastic surgery) is not in your cards, then do at least consider the text book recommendations. Try a new exercise program or beauty regimen. Basically, anything to improve yourself while going through hell is a good thing. You'll look back and feel like at least you accomplished something while miserable. Try to cheer up because life can take a positive turn at any given moment. Just because you are in throes of a down period does not mean there aren't good times ahead.

Stresses of adult life and the realities of life can really take over your thought processes as you get into middle age. Your so called rose colored glasses come off and you can feel like your looks are fading and you are in a competitive jungle with little advantage in the dating arena. Reinventing yourself and rejuvenating your appearance can be a worthwhile undertaking. Take time for yourself and invest in yourself because you matter. Sometimes looking good goes hand in hand with feeling good.

SMILE MAKEOVER

Most women do not realize what a difference their smile makes. After forty, we all know that our teeth go to hell in a hand basket. Old cavities get decay under them and have to be retrofitted with crowns now. Silver is being replaced by more aesthetic tooth colored fillings. But it's not just our back teeth that get old, its that yellowed, stained teeth hue to the front ones that are visible that makes us look older than we need to.

If your teeth are yellowed you may want to consider getting teeth whitening. You have a choice of wearing the bleaching trays at home and tasting that god awful bleach in your mouth, or getting your teeth zoomed up a few notches by donating an hour and a few hundred bucks to the dentist's chair. For me personally I think the in office whitening is the better deal as women get flaky about wearing the trays. Whitening only lasts about a year until your teeth yellow again, particularly if you are a coffee, soda or tea drinker all of which stain the teeth. Teeth whitening in the office hurts for days afterwards because of gum sensitivity. If you have some downtime after a breakup, you might want to consider doing teeth whitening to perk up your smile. It shouldn't be done too often, but having them whitened up every few years is generally safe.

Another thing to consider is getting braces. So many women have snaggled teeth and never had the opportunity to wear braces when younger. Adult braces can really improve and straighten teeth. They have the invisible trays, or just the plain old metal. The classic metal braces are the tried and true and the fastest way to crank your teeth straight. If you always wanted braces and never got them now is the time. If you are going through a dark era of a divorce or nasty breakup, it's a great time to wear those ugly braces. After a year or two, you'll have a brand new set of straightened teeth to use with your next love of life.

Cosmetic dental veneers look great on women however they are not without their down side. Veneers really are not permanent. Chewing on a slim fast bar can break a veneer. Good veneers cost around $1500 each if you are in LA or Manhattan or Chicago. So, if one breaks it won't be cheap. Veneers are generally not covered by any insurance. They are considered cosmetic. My only advice about veneers is that I sincerely do not recommend them for instantly creating straightened teeth from crooked twisted ones. If your teeth are crooked, get them straightened properly and the right way - with adult braces, then consider veneers after that if you still need them. If you try to cover lumpy snagged teeth with veneers you can end up with a bulky horsey mouth of fake teeth. Veneers are great for cosmetically uplifting your front upper four or six teeth. If you have a dead tooth that is colored differently than the others, a veneer can help. Veneers can also lengthen your teeth and make them look more perfect, not to mention more white.

If you have some tiny chips or cracks in your teeth sometimes getting some carefully aesthetic bonding can correct irregularities and you don't even need the veneers. Bonding is cheap and they can fix corner cracks, chips and tooth imperfections inexpensively with it. Be aware that veneers are quite costly and don't last forever. if you are going through a dumpy time, adult braces, cosmetic bonding, teeth whitening, cosmetic dental veneers, and over-hauling old silver cavity fillings are all on the table as possible mouth fix ups. Misery time is a fantastic time to get your mouth put up to date.

A project such as improving your smile can wind up being a great accomplishment during a time of mental misery. Make sure you research cosmetic dentists carefully as even some of the celebrity dentist give those fake looking chic let teeth that make you look like you are wearing dentures. You want natural looking, but whiter and healthy teeth.