At Healthy Lifestyle Secrets, our goal is to provide you with information and instructional classes to help you attain a healthy lifestyle. This month we are focusing on healthy sex in
What Is the Bedroom Really For? — Part 2
With information gathered from experts in couples’ relationships, Denise Foley from Prevention, Dr. Oz, and Dr. Laura Berman of Yahoo Health we examine how important healthy sex is to healthy living.
Take These Tips to Bed
By Denise Foley, Prevention
Isn't it a little unfair that guys can just take a pill when their sex drive is flagging? Even though drug makers are hotly searching for female versions of Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra, it's pretty clear that there won't be a magic bullet for women at least for a while.
"There's not going to be one panacea — one cream or spray or nasal delivery system — that cures all women of sexual dysfunction," says Laura Berman, PhD, a sex therapist, director of Chicago's Berman Center, and half of cable TV's Sister Act (with Jennifer, a urologist) on the Discovery Health channel.
Until the female Viagra, there's self-help — and plenty of it works. Read on to find the most common sex-life saboteurs, the real reasons behind them, and expert advice on how to handle them.
You're Tired
No matter what causes it — insomnia, working the late shift, a new baby — exhaustion is no aphrodisiac. All you want to do in your bed is sleep. How do you perk up your love life when you're anything but perky? Try the following:
Make the time.
"How important is sex and, because they're related, how important is your marriage?" asks Janet Hyde, PhD, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Everyone says they're busy. But my husband and I make time for sex. Things that are important should come first." So, turn off The Amazing Race, and turn each other on. If you have to, says Hyde, make a date that morning so you both can think about it — and each other — all day.
Question 10: According to Dr. Oz, how often should you have sex?
A) Once a week
B) Twice a week
C) 10 times a month
D) 200 times a year or more
The correct answer is D.
If you have more than 200 orgasms a year, you can reduce your physiologic age by six years," Dr. Oz says.
He bases the number on a study done at Duke University that surveyed people on the amount and quality of sex they had. "They looked at what happened to folks that are having a lot of intercourse over time, and the fact is, it correlated."
Among the benefits of having sex often, Dr. Oz says, is that it can prove that your body is functioning as it is supposed to. "But in addition, having sex with someone that you care for deeply is one of the ways we achieve that Zen experience that we all crave as human beings," he says. "It's really a spiritual event for folks when they're with someone they love and they can consummate it with sexual activity ... seems to offer some survival benefit."
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