Be More in the Mood for Sex with These Lifestyle Changes

 

When your wellbeing is affected by a low libido, you can feel like you’re the only one, or that something is wrong with you. However, according to sexual health and wellness expert Celia Shatzman, ‘If you’ve lost that frisky feeling, you’re not alone. Research shows that nearly a third of women and 15% of men lack the desire to have sex regularly. But there are things you can do to put the sizzle back into your sex life.’ So, which lifestyle changes can give your sex drive a boost?

 

1. Plan More Date Nights: ‘If a fun Saturday night with your hubby means watching Showtime in sweatpants, it could be killing your sex drive,’ warns Shatzman. ‘Rekindle your romance by getting out of the house for an old-fashioned date. Your dates don’t need to be grand romantic evenings; just going to the movies or out to dinner can reignite the spark you felt when you first met.’ Leah Millheiser, MD, director of the Female Sexual Medicine Programme at Stanford Hospital & Clinics, suggests, ‘If it’s too expensive to hire a nanny, ask your friends with kids to watch yours for the night and offer to return the favour.’

 

2. Choose a Different Birth Control Pill: ‘Hormonal changes take a big toll on your sex drive,’ Shatzman notes. ‘Birth control pills can be one of the biggest perpetrators: they can reduce your body’s production of testosterone, and in turn, your desire to get down. Certain varieties may even cause pain during sex. And even if you’re not on birth control, being aware of your hormonal status can help you dial in your libido. Prolactin, the nursing hormone, decreases estrogen and testosterone in breastfeeding women, which can wreak hormonal havoc. Additionally…menopause can bring a decrease in testosterone and estradiol, a type of oestrogen.’

 

3. Check Your Other Meds, Too: Shatzman instructs, ‘Take a look at your medicine cabinet—your prescriptions could be behind your lower libido. Aside from birth control pills, common offenders include drugs for high blood pressure, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), anxiety, and depression.’ Dr. Millheiser advises, ‘If a medication is the most likely culprit, discuss your concern with the prescribing doctor. It’s possible that another treatment may be used with fewer side effects.’

 

4. Divide Household Chores Equally: Dr. Millheiser points out, ‘After the kids go to bed, there’s often cleanup followed by work that you’ve brought home. As a result, intimacy gets pushed to the background.’ Shatzman comments, ‘If you and your partner are both working full-time, keeping the division of household labour equal and ensuring one partner doesn’t shoulder the whole burden will make both of you happier in the bedroom and out.’

 

5. Set Your Room Up for Romance: ‘It’s easy to get in the habit of letting your kids crawl into bed with you after they’ve had a bad dream, or sharing cuddle time with your cat or dog,’ allows Shatzman. ‘These are major mood killers. [Keep] the kiddos and pets out by simply locking the bedroom door at night. It may take some time to break these habits, but making the bed sexy again will make you more relaxed and ready for romance.’

 

6. Add Sex to Your To-Do List: Shatzman asks, ‘We schedule doctor’s appointments, work meetings, and drinks with friends—so why not sex? It’s not the most romantic approach, but setting aside a specific time with your significant other means you’re making a commitment to having an active sex life. This way, you’ll feel compelled to keep the appointment and be less likely to make excuses.’

Categories: birth, Birth Control, birth control pill, chores, control pills, dr millheiser, low libido, nbsp, Sex Drive, sex life, shatzman, time

10 Ways to Create a Healthier Attitude Towards Sex

When tending to your wellbeing, your sexuality might not be the first thing you think of. However, there’s more to health than exercise or nutritional wellness; your sexual health is a great natural source of energy, and prevents many seemingly unrelated health problems. According to Pepper Schwartz, PhD, professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle and author of The Lifetime Love & Sex Quiz Book, ‘Sex doesn’t always have to be an act of love — it can be a kind of play, a celebration.’ A healthy sex life makes you feel resilient, vibrant and ready for the rush of life – no matter your age or lifestyle. So how can you have a healthier attitude towards sex?

 

1. Think Like a Man Every Now and Then: Online wellness coach Liz Brody advises, ‘Every time you see a half-decent guy on the street, in an elevator, in a Gap ad, mentally undress him and imagine how great he looks naked.’ Just think of it as sexy window shopping!

 

2. But Don’t Assume You Always Know What He’s Thinking: ‘Assume for a day — radical as this thought might be — that your partner is not as critical of your body as you are,’ Brody instructs. Mehmet Oz, MD, director of the Cardiovascular Institute at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Centre and host of The Dr. Oz Show, explains, ‘For men there’s one goal besides eating: sex. We’re very focused. Whether or not you have an extra pound or two, whether or not a nose is crooked, these issues are not first on our minds.’

 

3. Unplug the TV for a Week: That way, instead of flopping on the sofa for the evening, you and your partner will have to think of something else to pass the time.

 

4. Split the Chores: Brody advises, ‘Try this on your partner: Tell him it’s really hard to work all day, cook, do homework with the children, straighten up, and then feel like having sex. Suggest that if he’d take the kids out for dinner or ice cream one night, you’d probably be more in the mood.’ That said, Brody also comments, ‘Pick a day of the week for you and your partner to come home from work early, and don’t use the time to do chores.’

 

5. Treat Yourself: ‘For Valentine’s Day, buy yourself a new vibrator,’ Brody recommends. Not only does this mean you can have fun during your alone time; you can pass on your self-loving techniques to your partner so that he can do things just how you like them. Alice Domar, PhD, director of the Mind/Body Centre for Women’s Health at Boston IVF and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, adds, ‘Have a glass of wine if you need help getting in the mood.’

 

6. Get Wet: ‘Take a shower or bath with your partner,’ Brody suggests. ‘See where it leads.’

 

7. Reminisce: Brody directs, ‘Think back to your courting days. Did you neck during concerts? Talk forever in coffeehouses? Go Rollerblading? Do one of those things again together.

 

8. Prepare Your Mind: If you decide sex is on the menu in the evening, call your partner at least once during the same day and flirt. This means both of you will be raring to go once you get home.

 

9. Get Away: Brody notes, ‘Go away one weekend without the kids. If you can’t afford a hotel and a babysitter, switch houses with another couple and take turns caring for each other’s children.’

 

10. Mix Things Up: ‘Try a little change of pace, something sensual,’ says Brody. ‘Wear a different colour than you normally do, put on cashmere instead of flannel, listen to music instead of the news, burn a scented candle, get a luscious massage.’

Categories: brody, brody advises, chores, Flirting, health, healthier attitude, masturbation, nbsp, partner, time

Six Little Things That Could Make or Break Your Relationship

When you first fall in love, relationship wellness is a breeze; all you have to worry about is your next big date or the best cutsie nicknames to choose. However, once you get married or live together, even the smallest things can get in the way of family wellness. I bet you never thought your wellbeing would be so tested by a pile of washing up in the kitchen! Let’s take a look at six little everyday things that can actually make or break your relationship.

 

1. Household chores: If you’re always battling it out over who’s turn it is to take out the bins or empty the dishwasher, you may be clashing due to your different personality types. According to Dr. Karyn Gordon, a relationship, marriage, and family expert, there are 16 personality types, only half of which are focused on organisation, structure, and cleanliness. The problem is that opposites often attract, so you may be a neat freak living with an absolute slob! If that sounds all-too familiar, Dr. Gordon advises, ‘Explain that cleanliness is important to you, and you understand that it may not be that important to them.’ It may be second nature to you, but your partner needs to know why neatness is something you prioritise.

 

2. Always Choosing the Restaurant: Dr. Gordon admits, ‘Some people are much better at picking movies and restaurants than other people, so it might be that one person just has a better skill set.’ However, wellness writer Lauren Le Vine warns that if one partner does always seem to be dominating the decisions, ‘it could be more of a red flag that reveals certain control issues. You’ll never know until you say something, though. It could just be a blind spot for the person who likes to choose where to go.’

 

3. Always Doing What You/He Wants: Making individual plans all the time can leave the other person in the relationship feeling insignificant and slighted. Le Vine notes, ‘It’s important to be direct with one another and explain why you feel slighted by the other person’s choices. Otherwise, it can lead to passive-aggressive behaviour and resentment.’ Dr. Gordon explains, ‘Partners need to feel significant. When they’re feeling threatened and insignificant, people get very clingy and desperate.’

 

4. Forgetting Important Dates: Often, it’s not a case of your partner forgetting the occasion; it’s more likely that you were raised differently, and so have different expectations of how much of an effort to make. That said, this doesn’t mean that your partner can get away with making less of an important occasion. Dr. Gordon asserts that remembering and celebrating important dates is ‘a skill you can learn with practice and by communicating your expectations.’ Le Vine adds, ‘It also helps to have a shared calendar where you can notify each other of important events in advance.’

 

5. Not Saying Hello or Goodbye: Le Vine argues that many couples ‘manage to lose the greeting and hug/kiss habit over time if they’re distracted by things like checking their email on their phone when they come home from work.’ It may also be a case of you copying how your parents did things, but you need to reprogramme yourselves. Dr. Gordon urges, ‘When you walk in the door, you’ve gotta shift gears to home. These attentive, affectionate qualities are important for both you and your kids.’

 

6. Not Showing Enough Affection: Le Vine recommends, ‘If you want more affection from your partner, start encouraging him or her in little ways. Hold hands while you watch TV or when you’re walking somewhere. If you’re also feeling disconnected in other ways; however, a lack of affection could be a sign of something deeper, and that should be addressed.’

Categories: chores, dr gordon, gordon, greetings, important dates, le vine, nbsp, partner, personality types, relationship, vine

How to Make Exercise Part of Your Daily Routine

Many daily household activities could actually be as good for helping you lose weight as a regular fitness routine, according to a recent study. This looked into the effects of normal household chores such as gardening and home repairs on people’s wellness and wellbeing, and showed that being active with various daily chores may dramatically reduce your chances of having a heart attack or suffering from a stroke.

 

Not only that, sex may also be considered a type of exercise, according to the study. The researchers found that men can burn around 4.2 calories for every minute of a sexual workout, and women can burn 3.1 calories a minute.

 

This all goes to prove that getting into a good fitness routine, and sticking to it, is just a case of finding something that you enjoy and that works as part of your daily life.

 

Don’t cancel that gym membership just yet, though, as a bit of light cleaning is not going to fulfil your entire calorie burn requirement for the week. This is one of the dangers of calling daily activities ‘exercise’, as it may lead people into a false sense of security, where they go about their lives convincing themselves that they are actually doing exercise, when in fact they are not active enough to keep themselves healthy and to burn enough calories.

 

In other words, whilst the chores and the sex do count as exercise, they are probably not going to be all the exercise you need. You should schedule in some traditional workouts too, and make sure that you think carefully about how you are going to maintain this schedule long term.

 

Getting hold of an exercise buddy is an excellent way to make sure that you stick to a fitness routine, as you feel indebted to them to go to the gym, even when you don’t particularly feel like it, and the company can also make it seem more fun and less like a chore.

Categories: burn, chores, daily, exercise, fitness routine, nbsp, Routine, Sex

Think Yourself Thin: How to Lose Weight Using Your Mind

If you want to lose weight and boost your fitness, a large part of the battle is not with your body, but with your mind. Your wellness and wellbeing is linked to the way you think in a much stronger way than you may understand. If you really want to get in shape, it’s time to change the way that you think about your everyday chores. When you stop thinking about them as daily activities and start thinking about them as ways to burn calories.

 

The truth is, exercise has a powerful effect on your mental health, and not just because of the serotonin (happy hormones) that it releases. Just by thinking you are doing something good for your health, a sort of ‘placebo effect’ occurs, where your mind is lifted and real physiological effects occur like lower blood pressure and weight loss. The trick is, then, to find a way of training your brain to believe that when you are doing daily activities, you are actually exercising.

 

A recent study backs up this theory. Researchers divided a group into two sections. The first section were given daily household chores to do, but they were not told that these chores were exercise. The second section were given the same chores, but they were told that these chores qualified as exercise. At the end of the four week trial period, the two groups had a medical test. The results showed that the group who believed that they had done exercise for the past four weeks had lower blood pressure and a lower BMI than the group that believed they had done no exercise.

 

This proves that when people think that their daily chores, such as hoovering, dusting and cleaning the floors count as exercise, these chores then actually make them healthier – so change the way you think about your daily routine!

Categories: blood pressure, chores, daily, daily activities, exercise, group, Lose weight, mind, nbsp, thin, weight

Exercise or Sexercise? Which Do Most Women Prefer?

A recent survey has shown that – understandably – around 76 percent of women would rather have a sexual workout than an actual workout at the gym, especially when they are feeling tired. This was reported in the Daily Mail recently.

 

The survey showed that women valued their sexual wellness and wellbeing above any fitness goals, but that when the two were linked together, a fantastic combination could be created. Women were far more likely to say yes to a sex session if they thought that it was likely to help them to lose weight, and were also far more keen to carry out household chores if they thought that they burned a considerable number of calories.

 

Sex is more appealing to most women than walking or running on a treadmill down at the gym, and of course there are financial benefits to not attending a gym, too. It is thought that expensive gym membership fees are a big part of the reason why many women are keen to find alternative ways to exercise.

 

Even women who do have gym memberships still agree that they would far rather work out between the sheets in the evening rather than slogging it out in the gym, even if they happen to be feeling tired.

 

Kerry McCloskey, a leading sexpert, has even claimed recently that 30 minutes of sex can burn up to 350 calories, depending on how ‘active’ your session is. Around 50 minutes of kissing (if you can sustain it for that long!) also burns off around 200 calories, according to the survey. At the same time, doing household chores such as mopping the floor or vacuuming for around 30 minutes a day can also burn off around 120 calories every day.

 

Sexual exercise also has other benefits as well, of course, as it can boost cardio health, help to ease depression, reduce stress, provide relief from pain and could even extend your life.

Categories: calories, chores, exercise, feeling tired, household chores, minutes, nbsp, Sex, sexual, Women

No Time for Exercise in Your Daily Routine? Get Creative!

Yes, you want to lose weight and look out for your wellbeing, but who has the time? Between work, family and having some sort of a social life, getting to the gym is a near-impossible addition to your hectic calendar (not to mention being too expensive and unappealing for most of us!). However, there are – thank God – loads of creative ways you can lose calories without setting foot inside a sweaty gym.

 

1. Laughing it off – According to researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, ‘Ten to 15 minutes of laughter could increase energy expenditure by 10 to 40 calories per day, which could translate into about four pounds a year.’

 

2. Workplace walks – Not only can a stroll around the office be the perfect break when you’re having a stressful day, but wandering for 10 minutes at a slow pace can burn 40 calories. You can also burn more by buying your lunch off site – so you have to walk further to get it – or taking the stairs more and parking further away from the office.

 

3. Calorie chores – Vacuuming for 20-25 minutes gives your upper body a good workout, to the tune of burning 70 calories. 20 minutes of sweeping can get rid of another 80 calories, while you can also get that blood pumping by dusting or scrubbing the tub. If you’re doing laundry, carrying loads up and down the stairs can provide an extra calorie-burning opportunity, especially if you have to take them to your local Laundromat.

 

4. The great outdoors – Developing your green fingers will also help you to tone your shoulders and upper arms. 20 minutes of raking or general gardening will help to burn 80 calories, but if you really want to burn it off, crack out the lawn mower; 45 minutes will help you lose 200 calories.

 

5. Parenting tips – If your kids are getting in the way of your exercise regime, make them part of it! The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommends ‘at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, such as brisk walking, during and after pregnancy,’ so grab the buggy and take baby out for a stroll. Plus, walking your kids to school will help to teach them to be healthy while you all burn calories together.

Categories: burn, calories, chores, gardening, Lose, minutes, nbsp, Weight Loss

Boys and their Toys: What to Do If Your Partner Plays

There’s nothing wrong with boys and their toys, and your husband and son playing video games together can be a good way to bond, but what about when family wellness suffers? What happens when your partner spends too much time in virtual reality, and not enough time helping with your other children or with chores around the house?

In this situation, the chances are that you’ve begged, pleaded and nagged him about his game playing, all to no avail. Being in this type of relationship is certainly no fun, and can take its toll on your relationship wellness, as well as your personal sense of wellbeing. It is not uncommon to feel neglected or that you are pulling the majority of the weight around the house and with the children. It’s easy for your partner to get lost in a video game, but this can cause you to drift apart as a result.

If this is the case, it is time to have a serious discussion. Your partner may not realise how much it bothers you, or that he is spending more time playing games than participating in the relationship. However, don’t keep nagging him but, instead, clearly tell him how you feel then leave it up to him to change. Explain that it’s not a case of giving up gaming altogether, but rather just cutting down so that he isn’t absent from important events and responsibilities. Put some boundaries in place, letting him know what you expect of him in the relationship.

Another thing you can try is suggesting you spend some quality time together, just the two of you. Whether it’s biking, going for a walk or watching a movie together, find a regular activity and time in the week where you can spend some time doing what you love to do as a couple. However, don’t make yourself readily available every time your husband is not playing video games, as he will pick up and put down the console when it suits him. Instead, find things you enjoy doing and schedule them when your husband is playing.

Boys and their Toys: What to Do If Your Partner Plays

Categories: chores, Quality Time, Video Games

How To Make The Most Of Your Exercise Program

Here are four great tips for getting some moderate exercise.

Take a walk

Going for a walk is a great way to get a little exercise every day. Take the dog for a walk or just go for a stroll (an audiobook on your mp3 player is a great way to pass the time). Encourage your family to go for more regular walks, it’s great for your health and if the sun is out you’ll get a healthy boost of vitamin D.

Play some sports

You’d be hard pressed to find a health expert who doesn’t recommend playing sports to get some exercise. There’s an almost endless variety so try your hand at a few different things to see which you prefer. You don’t have to take the sport seriously if you’re not the competitive type, just enjoy it and burn off some calories.

Try yoga

Many people don’t think of yoga as a way of getting exercise, but it’s actually an excellent way to get a low-impact workout. Yoga positions are not too complex and can provide you with a lot of benefits such as burning calories and improving flexibility. Yoga can also give you a little energy burst to help you at the start of your day.

Use your household chores

Household chores are another great way to work up a sweat. Mow the lawn, do some laundry to vacuum around the house – they are all ideal for getting your body moving. What’s more is that it changes your attitude towards chores. Now instead of just being something you have to do they are an essential part of helping you stay in shape.

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How To Make The Most Of Your Exercise Program

Categories: chores, Walking, yoga