How to create a year filled with love rather than fear and make it last.
I am a big believer in the phenomenon that how you begin your year is how you will live your year. And as I recently learned from my acupuncturist Dr. Feng, there is an ancient Chinese proverb that says the exact same thing. That is powerful medicine. Think about it, how you decide to step into these first few weeks of January says a lot about the energy you will walk with the remaining 11 months.
It’s that time of year again. To buy, host, decorate and exchange; to stand in line, shuttle between families and swear like Russell Crowe when the person in front of you at Best Buy takes too long to pay for that Inception DVD with exact change. Calendars get full and tensions can run high.
A regular reader of my ProjectHappilyEverAfter.com site asked me this very question recently. She and her husband of 9 years had recently gone into a Frisky Streak. They just could not get enough of each other. She wanted to know if that was normal and if other married couples went through the same thing.
I wanted to tell her to stop looking for problems where there aren’t any. There are many women who would kill for that sort of problem in their relationship, you know?
The vast majority of people who write to me complain about a different problem: low sex drive. They want to know if it’s normal to crave sex just once or twice a month, for instance.
My answer to that is this: it depends on what’s causing your drive to be low.
It’s NOT a problem if:
Ten tips for married moms looking to thrive through grad school.
About five years ago, just after enrolling in graduate school, I read that—for married women—attending graduate school is sometimes the fast road to divorce. Yikes. More than two years after finishing my degree, my husband and I are still together—it's been 22 years now—and the D word was only uttered once, in the pitch of (a stupid) battle.
A recent rat study proves regular sex may increase brain cells.
A recent study out of Princeton aimed to answer what effect pleasurable, yet stressful, experiences had on a rat by studying their brains before and after sex. Previous studies proved that unpleasurable, yet stressful experiences, actually lead to a decrease in brain growth—so could the opposite be true? Could highly satisfying, but strenuous, activity cause an upswing? The unequivocal answer: yes.
There’s a reason sleep is considered the new sex. I think exhaustion is very real and a big concern for couples. No doubt, there are many times when a couple is too tired to have sex. Generally though, being tired shouldn’t equate to a person’s motivation to have sex.
Each day we make choices that influence our pace and quality of life, and often we’re completely unaware of the choices we’re making and how they affect our life balance. So often we’re operating from habit, instinct or need. While it’s a good thing that we don’t have to think about every little choice we make, when it comes to creating a balance between our “work-related activities” and the “rest-of-our-life activities”, it’s critical to be conscious and deliberate about our decisions. Otherwise, you may find yourself feeling the negative effect of your unconscious choices by feeling overwhelmed, out of control, stressed, or even sick.
Start to become more aware of the many decisions you have to make in a day and their consequences by asking yourself these three questions:
1. Is this moving me toward or away from a balanced life?
2. Do I have a choice?
3. If I don’t have a choice, what can be a positive perspective around this decision?
Contrary to popular belief, men aren’t always the horn-dogs they’re made out to be. In fact, many times just the opposite is true. Consequently there are a lot of things that can negatively affect his sex drive.
A study shows that holding hands with a loved one is really good for your health.
Why is it that when we're upset, stressed, or scared we instinctively reach for our partner's hand? Or conversely, why is it that we always seem to reach for our partner's hand to comfort them when they're upset? Well a recent study by University of Virginia psychologist, Dr. James Coan, showed that the answer doesn't lie between our fingers, but in our brains. The study involved subjecting 16 happily-married women to stressful situations while monitoring their brain activity. The results showed less activity in the stress-related areas of the women's brains even while holding a stranger's hand, and a whole lot less when they held their hubby's hand.
