Learn to Give Massages and Save Money

Having a massage is a very popular form of alternative therapy for some people, and is widely available in many spas, gyms and health and fitness centres. However, whilst getting a message from an experienced professional can be a highly rewarding and relaxing experience, it can be very expensive, especially if done on a regular basis.

 

However, it is possible to retain massages as a regular part of your routine and save money by learning how to do them with your partner. This can also help to keep the romance and physical intimacy alive in your relationship, as well as created a massage resource that is regularly available.

 

Another great thing about learning how to give massages is that you don’t need any formal training – although if you wish to take it up on a professional basis, more formal training from an experienced professional would be highly beneficial. However there are plenty of available resources if you just wish to practice it privately, including books that can provide an over-view on what different massage techniques can achieve and the equipment you need to conduct them. There are also many DVD’s available that can give you a step-by-step guide on how to get the best out of a massage and sometimes, it can be easier to learn how something is done by actually watching the processes involved in it. Finally, going to a massage work-shop can also prove to be very useful. In such a situation, you will be able to meet experts and other like-minded people, who can give you tips and advice on how to give the best massage.

 

And, as with all physical therapies, “practice makes perfect”- so the more time you invest in it, the better you’ll become!

 

Categories: experienced professional, formal training, learn, massage, massages, nbsp, Professional, save money

Sex Ed for 20-Somethings: What Men Learn with Age

Your experience of sex changes as you get older; hopefully for the better. Sure, you may not be as energetic or eager as you once were, but you learn more as you go along, and all that experience works wonders for your sexual wellbeing. So, as a warning for you younger men, or as a lovely trip down memory lane for you silver foxes, let’s take a look at the sex lessons you learn when you’re in your 20s.

 

1. Girls Can Be Bad at Sex: According to Sexual Health and Wellness Writer Mike Sheppard, ‘This is shocking for most guys. At first, the simple fact that you were both naked was all it took. Then there is that one girl who seems to be dangling from the headboard and shrieking profanities for no reason at all. It’s not you. It’s her. This is a very subtle shift that happens at this stage of our lives when we begin to allow ourselves to have likes and dislikes in bed, and not just gratitude. Well, we should still be grateful. But the bottom line is that she can be equally responsible if a hot date ends up turning into a sexual misfire.’

 

2. You Can Talk About What You Like: ‘You can talk to her during sex?,’ asks Sheppard. ‘Yes. Yes, you can. You can even look her in the eye. Go one step further and you guys can talk about what each of you would enjoy or would rather the other never did again. How else is she supposed to know if she should speed up or slow down? Neither of you are mind readers. And once you open that line of communication in those first years of sexual dalliances, your sex life will get infinitely better. The 20s are about learning what you really like, and this ain’t happening without some talk. Just don’t be a chatterbox.’

 

3. Fantasies Aren’t Always Fantastic: Sheppard notes, ‘Our teen years are spent imagining all the things we would love to do to women and what we would love to have them do to us. Our 20s can be a sobering reminder that these fantasies can actually be painfully awkward – and just plain painful. You have to try things to learn what works, but this is a great example of something that you will start to get a feel for during those formative years. And the only one that will leave you with emotional and physical scarring.’

 

4. Drunk Sex Can Suck: It ‘seems impossible to imagine even being sober when you’re having sex in your 20s,’ Sheppard points out. ‘How am I even supposed to relax? But something changes along the way, and you start to notice that too much booze can make a great encounter quickly turn into an awkward and sleepy event. Many guys learn this after they pass out in the middle of sex and wake up to discover they’re now alone in the bed.’

 

5. You Should Never Sleep With Your Friend’s Ex: Sheppard argues, ‘In our teens, life is like summer camp. People are swapping makeout partners like the cast of Gossip Girl in the span of a single season. But as we enter our 20s, when relationships start to mean a little more, it’s no longer cool to start hooking up with your boy’s ex at the bar two weeks after she dumped him. This is part of growing up.’

 

6. Your Partner Doesn’t Want a Picture of Your Package: ‘To be honest, some guys never learn this – and some women probably know it all too well,’ Sheppard comments. ‘But for the most part, many men have learned the hard way that this can be a huge mistake (or small mistake, depending on the angle). Bottom line here: You will try it and you will learn what works for you.’

 

Categories: 20-Somethings, guys, learn, men, nbsp, sexual, sexual experience, sheppard

Are Your Children Being Affected by the School System?

Parents believe that sending their children to school is the best thing for them, and they’re sent off each morning with the best intentions. They believe that formal education is what children need to become productive and happy in adulthood. But is this really the case? Conventional wisdom says that more money and a more challenging curriculum, along with better teachers, would solve the issues in public schools at the moment. But what if the real problem is the school itself? The fact many people may not be accepting is that school as an institution is failing children today, and society as a result.

Children are required to be in school and as a result of that, their freedom is greatly restricted – far more, in most cases, than most adults would tolerate in their workplaces. In recent decades, adults have been compelling children to spend even more time in a school setting, and there’s now been evidence to prove that it’s damaging many children psychologically. Children naturally learn better in conditions outside of those such as school, where they can learn with more enthusiasm and on a deeper level. Compulsory education has become a fixture of our culture for several generations, and more and more people are attaching to the concept of longer school days and years. People assume that the way schools are developed now has emerged from scientific evidence of how children learn, but this isn’t the case.

 

Schools are more a product of history than research, and the blueprint for them was developed during the Protestant Reformation, when schools were created to teach children how to read the Bible without questioning it, and to teach them to automatically obey authority without questioning it. But when these schools were taken over by the government, and as a result made compulsory, the basic structure never changes and the methods of teaching remained unchanged. The teach and test method is spurred on by a system of rewards and punishments, rather than by a real desire to know about the subject in question, and this isn’t the best way to learn – certainly not in children who should have more enthusiasm to learn on a deeper level. We need only look to some of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs and innovators, many of which left school early or said they never enjoyed it, from Edison to Einstein, to see that children learn in different ways. One size fits all-teaching doesn’t help the majority of students find their passion in life.

 

As a society, we tend to ignore findings such as these, and yet we’re not surprised that children are unhappy in schools. Much research has gone into this sort of subject and a lot of that has come back to show that people of all ages learn best when they’re self-motivated and are looking into answers of questions they themselves have a yearning to know. Learning in such a way is joyful, not forced. This is proven in early age, when children grown through their own efforts to learn to speak, jump and run, through their own desire to learn. Why are schools not encouraging this way of learning more, rather than forcing them to learn about things they have no desire for?In order to make children as happy as they can be, without hindering their learning ability, schools need to latch on to what children enjoy and how they learn, rather than using the system that’s been in place for so long out of nothing more than habit.

Categories: Children, children learn, deeper level, learn, learning, people, School, Schools

How to Journal Your Way to a Better Career

You may think that journaling is a practise reserved for aspiring novelists and teenage girls, but keeping a journal is beneficial for anyone’s emotional wellbeing. However, that’s not all; keeping a daily record of your experiences and observations, particularly at work, can help you to sort out your corporate wellness. A journal can be a great tool for sorting out those stressful office situations, analysing where you’re at in your job and even advancing in your career. We’ve found five reasons why starting a journal can improve your work life, but I bet you’ll discover even more.

 

1. Remember your good ideas: Whether you’re an inventor, writer or just great at coming up with new ideas and creative solutions, inspiration doesn’t always strike when you’re ready for it. Even if you set aside special time for thinking of new ideas, you know you’ll only come up with something when you’re cooking dinner, taking a shower or trying to get to sleep. However, with your trusty journal on hand (or a nice note-taking app on your smartphone) you don’t have to let that brilliance go to waste just because you were busy with real life! Plus, jotting ideas down tends to generate more ideas, so who knows what genius thoughts you might access?

 

2. Learn from your experiences: There’s no such thing as a bad experience, at least as long as you learn from each event. If you totally stumble through a presentation, write it all down and note what went wrong. If you completely nail a meeting, jot down where it went right! Either way, you can always learn and be better next time, which will set you up for much greater professional success in the future.

 

3. Log good advice: Whether a colleague makes an offhand comment that sticks with you or your mentor sits you down for a good, long chat, there’s always invaluable feedback and advice that you need to hold on to, and so writing it down can help you to remember. This is especially helpful if you’re new to the job, and don’t like asking people the same questions over and over again. If you ask once and write it down, you can refer back to your trusty journal instead of bugging your co-workers. Plus, looking back over all the advice can pick you up and inspire you when you’re feeling down, and give you a great wealth of wisdom to pass on to your own mentee one day.

 

4. Have a safe space to vent: If your boss is breathing down your neck or you keep getting nagging emails from irritating colleagues, the perfect place to put your pent-up anger is in the privacy of your own journal. While it is important to talk to someone about the big workplace issues you face, the daily little annoyances are best kept within the safety of the pages. After all, if you’re looking to get promoted you don’t want to be that person who complains about everything, you want to be a team player. Get your dissatisfaction off your chest, as well as the response you really wanted to send to that colleague or client. Then take a deep breath and let it go.

 

5. Look to the future: Writing down what you’re doing know can help you envision what you want to do in the future. According to author of The How of Happiness Sonja Lyubomirsky, a  researcher and professor of psychology, spending 20 minutes each day writing a narrative description of your “best possible future self” can help you to be more optimistic and happy, and build a road map to a brighter future. As Sonja writes, ‘considering your most important, deeply held goals and picturing that they will be achieved’ will help you to plan your next steps as you grow in your career.

Categories: future, Journal, learn, nbsp, Remember Good Ideas, trusty journal, Vent, writing

Sex Lessons Men Can Learn In Their Twenties

Your sexual capabilities certainly change from one decade to another as you age, but if you’re doing things right you’ll learn more as you go along. Most people begin having sex more in their 20s, so this is the prime learning opportunity for the majority of men. For a lot of men, their 20s mean more confidence, both in and out of the bedroom, as well as more opportunities for sleeping with people. Here are some of the best tips you can learn from in your 20s that will serve you well later in life and (hopefully!) make you a better lover .

Girls can be bad at sex

For a lot of men, this realisation is a surprising one. At first, it seems simple  - you both get naked and that’s all it takes. But as you get older, you realise that there is more to it than that. There’s a subtle shift when you realise that some women aren’t that great at sex, and you might actually be better. But more than that, it’s also the realisation that people have different likes and dislikes in bed, and that its not just a case of gratitude. While, naturally, manners and gratitude play a part, the simple fact is that there are two people involved, and a bad sexual experience can be just as likely to be down to her as it can you.

You can talk about what you like

Communication, particularly in the bedroom, has notoriously been the male species’ downfall. But while this may be news to many men, it’s one worth remembering – talking in bed isn’t off limits. In fact, it’s encouraged if you actually want to know about each other’s likes and dislikes! How else are you supposed to know what to do? Having sex hundreds of times or just the once makes no difference when you’re having sex with someone new – you still need to learn about their body, what they enjoy and how they like having sex. After all, everyone is different. The moment you realise this, sex becomes a lot better.

Women do have orgasms, too

So it’s not all about the guy – this might be a bit of a shock to men in their 20s. When you’re younger you don’t care. But as you get older, you realise that women expect something at the end too – they aren’t there to help you finish, they’d actually like to enjoy some of the action as well. Think of sex as a team sport, rather than just a solo activity – your sex life and reputation will improve unbelievably.

Fantasies aren’t always that great

We’ve all been fed the line about fantasies being the be all and end all of sex, but as you get older you realise that that might not actually be the case. Some things are better when they’re left to the imagination. Our 20s can be a sobering reminder that fantasises can sometimes be very awkward and not really live up to the hype. But if you take it with good humour and enjoy the moment regardless, you can have fun practicing at the very least!

Drunk sex can be rubbish

In all the films and books, a couple get drunk, fall into bed and have mind-blowing sex. In reality, it doesn’t really pan out this way. Then there is the fact that in your 20s, you struggle to comprehend sober sex – how will you relax? But age does something wonderful to your sex life – you realise that confidence and experience go hand in hand, and you don’t need alcohol to have a great time in bed. If you’re lucky, you’ll realise this before the awkward drunken sex which results in you passing out in the middle of the act.

Categories: Experience, learn, life, men, older, people, realise, Sex, sex life

How to Deal With a Workplace Mentor Who Seems to Hate You

In the corporate world, a workplace mentor is supposed to help you, guide you and to do everything possible to protect your wellness and wellbeing in the workplace. In reality, things can be a little difficult.

 

Frequently, someone who is assigned to be a ‘mentor’ may not actually be the best person for the job. Some people find that they have a personality clash with their mentor and simply do not get on. This can lead to the one person they are supposed to be able to rely on actually shutting them out of workplace activities, giving them incorrect information or sabotaging efforts that they make at work.

 

If you find that your mentor seems to hate you, first of all – try not to take it personally. A workplace is a competitive environment, and it may simply be that your mentor feels threatened by your presence for some reason, or finds the role of mentoring you to be an additional burden on top of an already stressful workload.

 

It’s also worth bearing in mind that whatever title has been given, someone who is not helpful and supportive is not really your mentor in any sense of the word. Instead, you are quite free to look around the workplace and find an older or more senior member of staff who would like to help show you the ropes, and gravitate more towards them.

 

Do be polite to your formal mentor, though, as her mentoring of you may be part of an HR programme and she may be reporting back to HR about how you are settling in. Don’t directly fall out with her or fail to respond to her.

 

If your mentor behaves badly, a good trick is to ask yourself what you can learn from this behaviour. It may be that your own job is not up to scratch, or it may be that there is something you can learn from their attitude – and it’s always worth asking them, ‘Is there some way I could have handled XYZ better?’ which will help them to either explain their behaviour or at least feel a bit embarrassed!

Categories: behaviour, hate, learn, mentor, nbsp, work, workplace, workplace mentor