Sexual Health: 5 Simple Ways to Boost Sexual Vitality

Ready to put the spark back in your love life? We've got all the juicy secrets to boosting sexual vitality and creating a more nurturing, loving relationship.

Healthy digestion not only improves your physical well-being and reduces risks of illness and disease, it can also boost your sexual health and deepen the intensity of your relationship. Today, I'll talk about the top 5 eating-related lifestyle adjustments you can make to invigorate your sex life.

Healthy digestion is an important first step in maximizing the intimacy and endurance of your relationships - specifically, how you absorb foods impacts your sexual vitality. To add passion to your sex life, try these five simple ways to improve digestion:

1. Sit down to eat

The stress of eating while doing other tasks, such as running, standing, driving, doing business, concentrating, and reading, can lead to ulcers and poor digestion. Sitting down to eat focuses your attention on the present moment, so you can fully enjoy your meal and your partner's company without distraction. This simple step not only improves digestion, but also cultivates appreciation for your food and relationship.

2. Chew your food

Digestion begins in the mouth. Amylase enzyme in saliva breaks down carbohydrates so the body can more easily absorb them. As complex carbohydrates (like brown rice) are converted into simple sugars, they become naturally sweeter. Chewing foods 50-100 times not only improves digestion, it also allows you to more easily embrace the sweetness in life, including being with your partner.

3. Eat at regular times

A regular mealtime schedule brings rhythm to your daily routine. When your digestion functions on a predictable cycle, you are in harmony with the natural order, and your relationships with people, animals, food, and yourself are more balanced.

4. Eat whole foods

Over time, eating rich, heavy, or greasy foods, such as meat and hydrogenated oils, burdens digestion and blocks sexual function. Cooked whole foods, like leafy greens and grains, nourish digestion and help the body cleanse and revitalize your reproductive organs.

5. Eat a moderate amount of food

Skipping meals, dieting, overeating, or under eating can all weaken your digestion, which becomes overworked and exhausted. Eating a moderate amount of food restores digestive function and boosts sexual vitality as you absorb more nutrients and energy.

By improving your digestion, you'll strengthen your body from the inside out. As you learn the art of eating, your relationships will become sweeter as well.

Julie S. Ong is Your Guide to Macrobiotic Living and author of The EverythingR Guide to Macrobiotics (Adams Media, 2010). She helps couples boost energy, improve sexual health, and nurture loving relationships through better ways of eating. To find out how she can help you take your relationship to the next level, visit her site at http://www.everythingmacrobiotics.com. Copyright 2010 Julie S. Ong.

Path #3 to Infidelity - Do Men and Women Recognize Attractive Threats to Your Relationship?

A report in Men's Health Magazine is a must read for every man and women who wants to affair-proof your relationship. Find out how men and women learn to recognize and guard against attractive threats to your intimate relationship as you read my summary of this Men's Health report:

Path #3 To Infidelity: You don't know how to recognize or guard against attractive threats to your relationship

Researchers in a McGill University study found that men and women reacted differently when asked to evaluate "attractive alternatives" to their intimate relationship.

When women were presented with photos of an attractive person of the opposite sex, women avoided the photo. Men didn't.

When women were asked to imagine an interaction with an attractive classmate of the opposite sex, women increased their thoughts of commitment and threat. Men didn't.

McGill researchers suspect that women strive to be the protectors and gatekeepers of their relationships, or that women view threats to their relationship as personal. Whereas men tend to let their guard down, possibly because they don't define themselves by their relationship as much.

The remedy:

McGill Researchers noted that when women see an attractive alternative moving in, they tend to use if-then contingencies that spark their automatic defense mechanisms. For example:

If he comes over here, then I'll excuse myself to go get a drink.

Researchers found that when men develop their own if-then plan before entering a situation with many other women, men are more likely to perceive threats and guard their relationship against these "attractive alternatives".

Will you develop your own if-then plan to protect your intimate relationship against the threat of an affair?

And you'll find more leading edge advice on how to create happy relationships in Hadley Finch's articles, songs, podcast show and novel with songs, TRIBE OF BLONDES.

Not a hair color, it's a resilient optimistic spirit that unites us and fuels our passionate choices and personal triumphs. In that spirit, Hadley Finch helps couples spark up existing relationships, and she introduces savvy singles seeking their great love through video chats, special events and travel vacations in the Singles Club.

Gain free instant access to inspired advice for happy relationships or sign up for a free trial of the Singles Club when you visit http://www.tribeofblondes.com

Improving Doctor-Patient Relationships

The real concern is not about the wait although that's important, but because our medical professionals are so busy, how can we be sure that we really get the full ten minutes we're allotted in the system. I'm not saying that we should keep an eye on the clock, but I am suggesting the importance of you and your medical provider being "present" together throughout the appointment.

There is lots of scientific literature and books about being "mindful". As I interview those with illnesses I'm wondering how our doctors would respond if we tried to practice mindfulness during our appointment. Is it possible to create a sacred space within the doctor's office? Could we invoke some level of control over our appointment by suggesting to our medical provider that we both get centered for a moment making the interaction more human and relationship based and gets both us and our providers to match energetic forces as we tackle the big questions about test results, examinations and treatment?

Would we absorb more and become more responsible patients if we had the doctor's attention to the degree that the two of us, for a brief period of time, were really the only ones in the world....just for those ten minutes. It's important to remember that it's not about the quantity of time you spend with your medical provider but the quality of the visit. Keeping focused and holding the doctor's attention is critical to good care. Having the ability to express yourself and be understood alleviates misunderstanding and increases more efficacious treatment strategies. Taking the guess work out of a treatment plan allows you to have more confidence in your medical team and that elevates your intention to comply with the instructions and in turn elevates the odds for a positive outcome.

It may be difficult to think about medicine as a domino effect, but the truth is that your interaction with your healthcare team impacts the doctor's willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty. You'll have greater access to your medical team because they know that each and every contact is initiated with purpose. There is nothing more detrimental to the doctor-patient relationship than creating an adversarial relationship. The doctor and patient must respect each other and understand that everyone is working toward the same goal...wellness.

If you're facing a health challenge take a personal inventory of your relationships. Note those things that create better relationships between you and your friends and family. Apply those same principles to your relationship with your medical team. Each visit is an opportunity to connect person to person, not simply as doctor to patient. These human relationships create a bond where everyone is vested in the best outcome possible, not out of duty, but out of desire. Don't you want to be at the top of someone's priority list out of choice and not circumstance? "Presence" will give you the edge in the world of medical overwhelm.

Looking for other ideas to improve your relationship with your doctor? Get your FREE copy of the special report "The 5 Pillars of Health and Healing". As a bonus I'd like to offer you the multimedia program "Instilling Hope for Health". Want to benefit from my experience with illness and twenty years of working with clients who have been diagnosed? Get your FREE report and multimedia program at http://www.survivingstrong.com

Key Tips to Dating Someone With a Mental Health Illness

The saying that true love knows no bounds is absolutely correct - and those that suffer from mental conditions have every right in the world to the same happiness and fulfillment that those without such illnesses enjoy. There is still a certain social stigma that stems from the topic of dating someone with a mental health illness, but those that find themselves attracted to someone already in the process of handling such an issue can still find happiness in spite of all odds. Behind every person with a mental health illness is someone that deserves love, kindness, and respect. The problem is that there can be a lot of misunderstandings between someone with a mental health issue and someone without that issue - those misunderstandings can often lead to deeper problems that lead to painful breakups. This article will cover three tips that you can try today to create a pleasant experience when dating someone with a mental health illness.

First, it is important to become a very good listener. One of the major concerns that people with mental health illnesses have is that they are not fully being heard and understood, or worse - ignored because they have a mental disorder. This fear can raise paranoia levels higher than normal and cause negative behavior patterns to surface as a way of getting the attention they feel they are missing.

This can create a fair amount of tension between any two people, but when someone has a mental health illness, this tension can be even greater than before. There's plenty of ways to avoid this, though: listening thoroughly to what is actually being said without letting personal emotions get in the way is a great method to diffuse most relationship problems of this nature. To demonstrate that you're listening to what the other person really has to say, try to weave in past conversations into present ones. For example, if they mention really wanting to see a certain movie or read a certain book, you might place a movie review on the desk or surprise them with tickets. Your gestures of understanding do not have to be elaborate, but they must be sincere. There is nothing worse than finding that the emotions someone has for you aren't authentic, and such a thing will cause further problems to develop.

Just as good listening is key to dating someone with mental issues, so is giving appropriate space. When someone with a mental-emotional disorder is hurting, they may want to spend time alone. A common mistake that many people without a mental health illness do is attempt to force a dialogue on whatever might be bothering the person at the moment. This often ends in disaster: the affected party feels as if they're trapped, and may only give a response just to get you to let the issue go. The better approach is to let them have the space they need without judgment.

Anytime we choose to date someone there will undoubtedly be problems and bumps along the way. However, if you follow the tips and tricks in this guide, you'll have all the information you need to start a relationship off on the right foot - even with other issues in the background!

Looking for more tips on how to create lasting, dynamic relationships with people with mental health issues? We have you covered on our mental health social network, where friends of mental health sufferers as well as people dealing directly with mental health problems exchange tips openly and freely in a highly supportive environment. Why not check it out today?

Relationship Tips - Making the Effort

Trying to figure out how to put the romance back into your relationship? Want to feel more connected to your partner? The following tips can help you get more out of the relationship you have now.

Tip #1: Keeping in Touch with your Partner

You tune up your car. You go in for dental checkups and annual doctor appointments. Have you ever considered how important it is to have a "check up" for your relationship? What is the purpose of a check-up? To ensure that your health/teeth/car are all in working order!! Why would your relationship be any different? Think about it. Your needs constantly change, your partner's needs change too. Logically, your relationship has to change over time as well. It is important to communicate these changes to your partner; otherwise, your partner is making the attempt to meet past needs that may not have a purpose in your current life (and vice versa). The more you "check in" with your partner, the greater opportunity you have to circumvent misunderstandings and maintain a healthy relationship.

Tip #2: What Goes Around Comes Around

Have you ever heard of the saying, "Givers gain?" This is the motto to an international networking group, BNI. The belief is that if you give unconditionally without worrying about what you'll get out of it, that your giving will be returned tenfold. How often have you thought about withholding yourself from your partner because they haven't reciprocated in a while or because you've tried in the past to no avail. Think about this....if you gave to your partner unconditionally, that they will be more willing to return the giving??

I'm not talking about giving so much of yourself that you end up becoming resentful. I'm talking about the little things that can go a long way. Try it and see how your partner responds!

Tip #3: Go Beyond the Holidays

During the holidays, it is fascinating how everyone goes all out to demonstrate their love for one another: chocolates, cards, candy, flowers, jewelry...It's all nice, but love needs to be demonstrated to your partner 365 days a year (366 if it's Leap Year!). Love can be expressed in many ways. How do you express love to your partner? Is it the type of love your partner needs? Some people like gifts, other like hugs, and even others prefer help with the daily routines.

An open discussion between you and your partner can uncover if the type of love you give is actually what your partner needs and vice versa. Understanding how your partner appreciates you will allow you to respond appropriately, resulting in an increased connection and less feeling unappreciated. Remember love is...year around! And it gives so much in return!!!

Tip #4: Keep in Touch!

This time is full of responsibilities: children, bills, finances, work, health...but where does your relationship fit in?

You need to give your relationship equal time to be successful. It's easy to say, "We'll do that tomorrow," but if "tomorrow" becomes "tomorrow" again and again, eventually, you may wake up one morning and realize it's been weeks or even months since you've made time for your partner.

You and your partner made time for each other when you first met. How did you make time for each other then? You went on dates. You would agree on a time to go out, be picked up at the door and spend an evening together. You did it once! You can do it again! Start by setting at least one night a month for the two of you to go out. Get a babysitter (if needed), make reservations and enjoy the time to reconnect.

Remember, the bills, finances and work responsibilities will be there the next day. One day the children will be off and having families of their own. Your health may not be what it is today. For all these reasons, today is the day to make a strong connection with your partner...and keep it nourished and healthy.

Tip #5: Claim Your Space

Nurturing your relationship and quality time is important. However, it is equally important to nurture yourself as individuals. Take time occasionally for yourself away from your spouse. Go out with friends...get involved with a hobby...whatever interests you have, foster them. It gives you a chance to regain your identity separate from your relationship, and provides you opportunities to share more with your partner at the same time.

c2007 Jodi Blackley, M.S., M.F.T.
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
If you are interested in receiving more Tips, please visit my website at http://www.jodiblackley.com/relationshiptipoftheweek.htm and sign up to receive more ways to get the relationship you want!!

Soul Purpose - Real Love - The Keys to Happiness, Good Relationship and Health

Arguably, love is the most important, sort after, misplaced and trouble making experience of our lives. As if the soul of human beings is directed at love as a pre programmed target, and all else is simply distraction.

To love your work, your past, your future. Love might just be the soul purpose of life. Love is not holistic. To love something, anything it seems, might be enough. To love self or a Guru, might satiate the hunger. To love a dog or cat, friend or business, to love a sport or environment - maybe the love, real love of something is enough for the soul to feel purpose and therefore rest in the journey.

For me, the love of anything other than a person has rarely lasted. I love what I do, but deep down, there's a part of me wanting to achieve something as a result of what I do, therefore it is not real love. I love going to Nepal and climbing up those magnificent Himalayan slopes, but, I feel that this is an addition to my life, therefore it's not real love.

I have friends I love, deeply, they are wonderful. But their lives are not entwined with mine, therefore there is not the depth of provocation that causes me to feel vulnerable, as it seems my soul requires in order to feel satisfied, this love, I think, is not the Real love.

To further challenge my virtue in following the path of Real Love, soul purpose, I found the need to understand a sense of a God in my life. As a spiritual human being, I acknowledge the presence of a creator, the cause of creation. I struggle to put a name or face to this origin of everything. The whole universe comes from a beginning one can never know. From that first thought, like in our own lives, everything began. Who thought it? This is my idea of a creator.

That thought is real love. The original thought. And so, for me, God is love. Love was the first thought, and all that follows it, the creation and destruction of stars and moons and heavens and earths, came from, and exists in, that first thought. Then, maybe my soul purpose is to tune to that first thought? Because it was the first thought, then it exists in everything, everywhere. Maybe this, is the definition of the souls purpose, to see what already is.

When I fall in love with a person, I fall because it is new. It is like a new territory, unexplored universes, and I wish to find the love that is hidden in it. But we are distracted. Children, jobs, houses, health, money, careers, friends, family and more. We are distracted from love because these things are treated as separate from it.

People try to parent their children. Achieve in their jobs, own their houses, improve their health, increase their money, succeed in their careers, help their friends, and collude with their family. Such ambitions it seems are normal, but for me, such drivers, lack the love my soul aspires to.

Love is the synthesis of all emotion

To love a child is beyond prescription, but to avoid an emotion with that child is to avoid love. Parents who are afraid to be strong, or soft, of challenge or support. Cannot love, can only placate a child, manipulate and control by non confrontation.

To love a job is to explore challenge, to face the reward and hardship with equal enthusiasm. This seems, for many people, to be the one area of life they are unafraid of, primarily because they are free to be aggressive in this one area of life, tough on themselves to live out their hypnotized expectation of life.

To love a home is a substitute for an understanding and trust of anything bigger than self. The ego thrives in a home that is loved. Self obsession reaches its pinnacle if the home one lives in is a proud and designed environment. Here an individual feels they, and their universe are one. Deluded in an avoidance of their real fear.

Money is essential, the love of money is vital. Obsession and possession with holding, building and creating wealth is the fastest and strongest path to the avoidance of love. For the broken heart, the fearful mind, the belittled spirit, an obsession with collection and protection of money is the antidote to lovelessness.

Small is good. A healthy humility is a rich asset in this grand universe. We are nothing, and it is wise to know it. But is a healthy mind, small is wonderful, because small means we are a part of something huge, and that hugeness is the magnificence of that first thought, the whole of creation, the magnificence of a love beyond. But for most people their smallness is not humility, it is shame and irrelevance. Then they cling to careers that kill them, families that need them. This cave is a shelter from the vulnerability a belittled spirit feels. When a person looses their place in a loving universe, they create a substitute, and this substitute is attachment in which pride, need and safety are at the core. This is not love.

Like a child in a kindergarten, we play with toys. We play innocently thinking that our games are real and like a child in kindergarten, we eventually become bored with the games, we need bigger toys, faster swings, more challenging puzzles. We automatically grow out of our shoes, and we automatically grow out of our obsessions. Soul seeks love and cannot remain inside a body that substitutes.

Take human hardship. Take the purpose of soul. Understand the keys of Soul love - real love and our innate desire for it. Like a tree searches for the sun, we too have a life giving quest. That quest is not satiated in anything earthly, it is only guided to grow through them.

Love is not another possession. One finds it for someone, something and one grows and adapts and becomes used to it. The profound becomes the mundane. Therefore in the purpose of the soul, a relationship holds no key other than an initial witnessing of a new possibility and the removal of a distraction. The quest - the quest of the soul, will not be satiated within a job, a career, a family, a relationship, a bank account or anything we can build or own.

True happiness, true love comes from the journey, the ongoing quest to witness the beauty of creation. To see beauty in family, money, relationship, career, home is to deconstruct it and in doing so, reveal that first thought of creation within it. That deconstruction is not a moral or ethical one, those are human laws. The deconstruction and the purpose of the soul is to witness the universal laws in all, everything, and therefore evolve, through real life, to real love. Everyday, every hour, another step on the path to the purpose of the soul. It simply wants to go home, from whence it came, home to the thought that created it, through love.

To the body - mind there is pain and pleasure, and mine and yours, life and death. But to the soul, no such boundaries exist. It only knows its purpose, though life after life, body after body, all it knows, is that it is away, uncomfortable - it wants to go home, to its creator, home to love.

Now, you may understand a little more, why relationships feel so good at first, but might not feel so good at last. When your soul feels love, that falling in love it feels home. But this is not home. This is an earthly reminder of where home really is. And before it reaches that home a million billion such reminders will be required. They, like moments of sunlight nourish, guide and direct its growth, going home, from whence it came. To that first thought, to love.

Live with Spirit

Chris Walker

http://www.chriswalker.com.au Chris Walker is a world leading change agent, an environmentalist and author of more than 20 books. Born and bred in Australia, he consults to people and organisations throughout the world on improved relationships, health and lifestyle through the application of the Universal laws of Nature. The result he offers is that we stay balanced, share loving relationships, work with passion, enjoy success, and live our personal truth. To learn more about Chris?s work and journeys to Nepal, visit http://www.chriswalker.com.au

Collateral Benefits - Be Good to Your Mate, It's Good For Your Health!

You're in the middle of a screaming yelling fight with your mate. You can feel your heart racing, your blood pressure rising, and after the fight, even though you smoothed things out, your stomach is still a mess. You think "I can't do this anymore. This is just not good for me!"

Or it's that daily litany of things that irritate you about your relationship, the annoyances you put up with, the little things that grate on your nerves, like his snoring, or her never quite putting away all her stuff. His overly loud laugh when someone says something he thinks he should laugh at even though he doesn't think it's funny, or her forgetting to mail the bills on time. You never quite feel relaxed, you tense up every time he/she does it again, your digestive system suffers and you think "I can't do this anymore. This is just not good for me!"

And you're absolutely right. It isn't good for you. When you feel angry or even very irritated, annoyed, your heart beats more chaotically, your blood vessels may constrict and with that, your heart pumps blood less efficiently throughout your body. Parts of your brain shut down as less blood reaches them, and you're functioning on far less than your full potential. Various chemicals and hormones are released in response to your agitation, contributing to your physical distress and lowering your immune response. All in all, not a pretty picture.

"Well, now what?" you ask, "Leave my mate to preserve my health?" No, of course not, unless your spouse is abusive, which is a whole different subject. But what you can do, is focus your attention more on what you do like about your spouse, what you can appreciate about what he or she brings to the relationship, to the betterment of your life, and less - much less - on what you don't like, on what has little value for you, and frankly annoys you.

So you appreciate that he voices his opinion, and you turn your attention to trying to understand why he has an opinion so radically different from yours, rather than angrily defending your position. You appreciate the inevitable good that will come out of working things through rather than screaming them through.

You appreciate the emotional warmth and comfort of sleeping by his side, and look into solutions for his snoring. You take a step back, and value her spontaneity and easy-going nature which benefits you far more than her untidy habits damage you. You appreciate that he does laugh, even if it's loud. You appreciate how she juggles so many things at once - work, kids, household - and find other ways to manage timely mailing.

Why would you do all this? Because it's not only good for your relationship, it's good for your health. Studies show that when you feel and think appreciation, your heart rate smoothes out, good cardiovascular health is supported, your hormonal balance is improved and your immune system enhanced. Your brain functions at full capacity, firing on all cylinders as it were. And the cascade of chemicals and hormones which flow from an appreciative state of mind all benefit the overall well-being of your physical and emotional self.

Collateral benefits: when you look for what works, for what is positive about your mate and your relationship, not only does your relationship improve dramatically, but your personal health and well-being do as well.

Noelle C. Nelson, Ph.D. is a respected relationship expert, consultant, speaker and author. Her latest book is "Your Man is Wonderful," (Free Press, 2009). For more than a decade, she has helped people live happier, healthier lives through appreciation--at work, at home and in relationships. E-mail: nnelson@dr.noellenelson.com, website: http://www.noellenelson.com