It's decision time, and there's that niggling "little voice" inside that's telling you to go one way, but then you brush it off in favour of the more "rational" choice. Are you using your intuition to its full capacity or do you often ignore that feeling deep in your gut?

Trish Ottone, a certified hypnotherapist, holistic nutritionist, homeopath, and yoga and reiki instructor, offers her take on intuition and explains how she helps clients through intuitive consultations.

Q: What is intuition?

A: Intuition is an inherent language that we all have that utilizes all of our sensory elements (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) to speak to us. For example, when you get a situation that you may need to be cautious in and you have a physical experience -- like the hairs on you arm standing up or tingles or shivers -- this lets you know mentally that something is up, which emotionally signals you to be on guard. This information came from an "energy" that seemed outside yourself, yet connected to you on a deep level. You did not have any prior rational or logical details about the situation, but intuitively you knew.

Intuition is the name for that process; sometimes we just "know" things. I would go as far as saying most of the time we actually "know lots," but we have not been taught to make the most of this wonderful tool that we all have.

Q: What do we need intuition for?

Do you often find yourself feeling lonely? It's a feeling shared by many, but it's rarely openly discussed. Emily White, a Newfoundland-based lawyer-turned-writer, struggled for years with feelings of isolation. She wrote Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude in order to share her experiences with chronic loneliness.

Q: Why did you write this book?

A: I wrote the book because it was the book I wanted to read. There was a fair bit written about loneliness in the third person, but there wasn't anything written by a lonely person using the words "me" and "I". And I wanted a first-person voice. I wanted to read someone talking about their own loneliness, just so that I wouldn't feel so alone with mine. When I realized that the book I wanted didn't exist, I decided to write it myself.

Q: What did you learn by talking to other people who have experienced loneliness?

A: I learned that the vast majority of experiences I had when lonely -- the endless daydreams, the fantasies, the paradoxical retreat from social interaction -- were in fact widely shared. Behaviours I thought were mine alone, such as unplugging the phone when feeling intensely lonely, were in fact fairly common. Talking to other lonely people really normalized what I was going through, and that was wonderful. It also felt good just to hear my experiences repeated back to me -- every story I heard made me realize I wasn't alone.

Moisturizer, exfoliant, eye cream, sunscreen -- every day we slather our skin with substances, yet most of us know little about the ingredients in the products we use. Worried about the chemicals you're putting on your face and body? Alexandra Spurt and Siobhan O'Connor, co-authors of No More Dirty Looks: The Truth About Your Beauty Products and the Ultimate Guide to Safe and Clean Cosmetics, offer their tips for healthy, natural skin.

Q: Which natural products are best for your skin?

Siobhan: For the book we tested and reviewed the best in natural beauty, and our hunt continues. We're discovering new clean products all the time but our favorites are those that feature proven natural ingredients -- things like aloe vera, honey (which has amazing antibacterial powers and helps reduce scarring), argan oil (which fights acne) and so on. We surveyed which naturals have real science behind them and came up with a list of 11 that we really love. Look for these and other ingredients that you can pronounce in your products.

When it comes to work and love, women are often their own worst enemies - especially when it comes to balancing the two. Dr. Marcia Reynolds, leadership coach and author of Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction, explains how to bust through the lies we frequently tell ourselves in our careers and our relationships.

Q: What are the five lies that hold women back?

A: 1. There is a right answer and it is mine: If you are the best and the one who knows, then you have an answer for every question about things that are important to you. Always being right not only hurts your relationships, but your body triggers a 'fight-response' when your brain senses disagreement. Can you let some other people be right sometimes, too?

Truth: There can be more than one right answer, and sometimes people are more right than you.

2. No one can do the work as well as I do: Things will spin out of control or fail if they aren't done by you. As a result, you overwork, take on too many projects, and resist sharing your work with others. This leaves you stressed, resentful and exhausted. Look for times you can develop someone else by training and delegating. Prioritizing and letting go are essential to your success.

Truth: You can have it all, but you can't do it all.

Harry Scott, a personal trainer who has been weight training for 12 years and who is certified in Agatsu Kettlebell, describes his exercise routine and shares his recipe for healthy protein cookies along with a few motivation tips. Check out his best advice for getting in shape.

Q: What does your exercise routine look like?

A: I like to change my routine every six to eight weeks depending on how quickly my body adapts. I make sure to mix compound lifts, kettlebell swings and presses as well as some old fashioned cardio. Depending on my goal, I will perform circuit training routines, heavy lifting routines, or a mixture of both to keep my body and mind engaged. Currently I am lifting weights three days a week accompanied by two days of cardio/kettlebell work to keep up my conditioning level.

Q: How do you motivate yourself to work out when you're not in the mood?

Do you believe that love conquers all? Well, a book states that your partner's earning power is more important for your relationship's long-term health. Elizabeth Ford, co-author of Smart Girls Marry Money: How Women Have Been Duped Into the Romantic Dream - And How They're Paying For It, explains how marriage is like a business and why settling for a safe bet is sometimes a good idea.

Q: What's the key message you're trying to communicate with the book?

A: The key message we want to communicate is that women who want to marry need to be smart about the choice that they make and not be blinded by "love" alone. Marriage is the most important economic partnership most people will ever enter into, and women need to take the time to explore and evaluate the economics of a relationship before walking down the aisle.

Women are called "gold-diggers" if they consider their economic security when shopping for a husband, but have you ever heard the term "beauty digger" applied to men who want to marry a beautiful woman? Of course not. Women are asked to adhere to higher standards but are judged harshly when they look out for the economic well-being of themselves and their children. Not every woman wants or needs to be married, but for those that do, a failure to watch the financial bottom line before tying the knot is simply foolish.

"Ayurveda" is a word that often comes up on spa menus, but it's actually an ancient Indian practice that encompasses many different aspects of life to promote health and well-being. Here, Felicia Marie Tomasko, an Ayurvedic practitioner and yoga teacher, explains some of the basic tenets.

Q: What is Ayurveda? Can anyone follow an Ayurvedic plan, or is it better for some over others?

A: Ayurveda is a Sanskrit word that means science of life. The science and philosophy of Ayurveda contains information related to how we can live a life in balance with our true nature and with the cycles of the natural world around us and within us. Part of the essence of Ayurveda is that we are all unique individuals and different types of routines, relationships with food and even the numbers of hours of sleep that we need or ounces of water we need to drink is related to that uniqueness. From this point of view, there isn't one right plan or program that works for everyone the world over, at every age, in every climate or geographic location. In some ways, this frees us.

If the latest diet plan didn't work for us, no matter how much we stuck to the letter of the law, it could mean that we did not choose the routine that worked best for who we are --our own true nature. What often happens is that someone finds a way of eating, or sleeping or being that helps them feel healthy, or allows them to cure a long-standing disease or imbalance and then they try to teach it to everyone, everywhere. It works for some people, but not for everyone.

Are you sick of agonizing over your size - whether you perceive yourself to be 10 or 100 pounds overweight? We asked Wendy Shanker, author of The Fat Girl's Guide to Life, to explain why she decided to stop dieting and embrace her body.

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

A: I wrote The Fat Girl's Guide to Life because I was fed up. I'd been dieting for almost my entire adult life. While I was good at a lot of things, I was not good at losing weight. At least, losing weight and keeping it off. I always felt like I was too fat, too weak, too sad, not good enough...and if only I could be thin, I'd be happy.

When I turned 30 I went to this very famous medical weight loss center in North Carolina for one final attempt to dump my big ass forever. Well, I lost it – but "it" wasn't weight. After four weeks of perfect dieting, exercise, medical supervision, group talks, cooking classes, calorie counting...I lost exactly two pounds. The program cost me almost $10,000. It netted out to about $5000 a pound in weight loss. It wasn't the expense that tipped me over the edge, it was the realization that maybe, just maybe, my body was naturally inclined to stay at the weight it was at, and always returned to after losing weight. Maybe I could be a happy, healthy person at the weight I was (about 219 at the time). That was it. No more diets, no more self-hate, no more waiting for life to start in different size pants.

Worried that shampoos and styling products are hurting your hair (and your body) rather than helping it? You might be right. It's for this reason that Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt, co-authors of No More Dirty Looks, launched a Summer Hair Challenge to encourage ladies everywhere to go natural.

Q: What is the Summer Hair Challenge?

S: The Summer Hair Challenge was a fun little dare, basically, but with a point! We wanted to show that when you switch to clean, natural hair products and then leave your hair alone it behaves much more than any of us would have thought. We all get stuck in beauty ruts, becoming slaves to these products we think we need. Turns out, though, we don't.

Q: What are the rules?

S + A: Wet your hair, use a non-toxic natural shampoo and conditioner (or nothing at all), air dry, and say cheese! No leave-ins and no heat allowed.

Q: Why did you start it?

Ever wondered if men are more likely to cheat on some types of women over others? Well, a new study finds evidence that some kinds of relationships are more prone to infidelity. The study's researcher, Christin Munsch from Cornell University, recently presented her findings at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Here we ask her for more details.

Q: Can you explain the core findings of your study?

A: My research finds a relationship between economic dependency and one's likelihood of engaging in infidelity such that, for men, the more economically dependent one is on a female partner, the more likely he is to engage in infidelity.

Ironically, the research also indicates that the more economically dependent a man's female partner is on him, the more likely he is to engage in infidelity. In other words, the couples that are most "safe" from cheating, are those in which both partners contribute relatively equally to the shared income pool, or partnerships where the man makes a little more than the woman.