Blog Posts by Care2 Healthy Living

Are these three foods messing with your sex life?By Diana Vilibert, Care2 Healthy Living

Anyone who's ever spent the better part of their Sunday in a pancake-induced coma/state of despair knows there's a definite link between what you eat and how you feel.

Which probably means you also know that there's a link between your nutrition and your sex life. Husband-and-wife team Dr. Brian Clement and Dr. Anna Maria Clement are experts on this very connection-and their book, 7 Keys to Lifelong Sexual Vitality, explores everything from sex-boosting recipes to how to improve your fertility using food (more on that to come in another post!).

Some of their info stopped me in my tracks…or rather, in the middle of my dinner.

THE CULPRIT:
The bacon cheeseburger

THE DANGER:
The saturated fats you'll find in most cheeses and fatty meats clogs your arteries…not exactly news to you. But did you know that the first arteries usually affected are the penal and vaginal arteries? They're small, which means they quickly

Your new boyfriend may cost you two friends.
By Diana Vilibert, Care2 Healthy Living

Science writer Patricia Barnes-Svarney is used to getting a lot of questions. Questions like "why do women crave more sex in the summer?" and "why is a guy with good dance moves so appealing?" and "are my friends bad for my love life?"

In her book published last month, Why Do Women Crave More Sex in the Summer? 112 Questions That Women Keep Asking - and That Keep Everyone Else Guessing, Patricia Barnes-Svarney answers all those and more, tackling 112 questions about women (and women and men) and the science behind the answers. Her timing was great: "Until just a couple decades ago, there were very few studies about women's science-most of the research was conducted with men or a combination of men and women," Barnes-Svarney explains. "Now (finally!) there are many studies that include more, or only concentrate on, women-from youth to maturity."

We couldn't include all 112, but here are our top three most intriguing insights from

Kristen Stewart in 2010By Care2 Healthy Living Editors

The Internet has been abuzz with news that Kristen Stewart, of Twilight fame, cheated on her heartthrob boyfriend Robert Pattinson with Rupert Sanders, her (married-with-kids) director from Snow White and the Huntsman. While this isn't the type of thing we usually report on at Care2, we can't deny the human fascination with cheating and infidelity.

To learn more about why cheating happens and how to prevent it, check out these stories:

• A study published in Archives of Sexual Behaviour found specific personality factors and relationship issues that can be associated with cheating, for both men and women. Plus, 10 tips for keeping your partner faithful: Predictors Of A Cheating Partner
• A team of researchers compared choices in sexual behavior with genes and found an interesting association: Is Sexual Infidelity Genetic?
• Find out the two main reasons why infidelity happens, and rethink what infidelity might mean to your relationship:

Intimacy issues?By Dr. Bill Cloke, Care2 Healthy Living

The other night while at dinner with some friends (all married or with someone) something occurred that is so common I barely took notice of it. One of the women popped up and went to the restroom and four other women jumped up and went with her. We've seen this a million times. They go off to the restroom, fix their hair, adjust something and talk about everything. If men meet up in the restroom, if they speak at all, it would be a very neutral topic like golf or baseball. I think to myself that if a man got up and went to the restroom, no one would go with him. This is, of course, a generalization, but in this small vignette it tells the story of the difference between men and women. So why do men have such a difficult time with intimacy?

The answer is that most men are taught from an early age to be competitive, that feelings are a sign of weakness and to avoid vulnerability and dependency at all costs. The ideal for men is fierce

Is phone time more important to you than sex? By Diana Vilibert, Care2 Healthy Living

If you read the title of this post and promptly started heating up the skillet for some bacon with your bacon, you're not alone.

The past couple of months, it seems research is set on showing us that quite a few of us would give up sex for, well, just about anything that isn't sex, especially if it comes with a side of fries.

When Gazelle.com asked 1,000 people if they're rather go without sex or their iPhones for a weekend, 15 percent said they'd skip all that tedious sex, thankyouverymuch. And of course, there are those of us who believe we can and should have it all. Which, for 4 percent of the survey's participants, translates to just using their iPhone while having sex. Keeping it classy!

A whole bunch of us would also choose a good night's sleep over sex -- 61 percent, according to the albeit possibly biased Better Sleep Council. And according to Cosmopolitan, 20 percent of women would rather give up sex for a week

Tired of being the only one doing the laundry?
By Diana Vilibert, Care2 Healthy Living

Are you a woman? Are you a woman currently making a to-do list in your head while answering a work email, getting dinner started, and texting your husband the grocery list? Then a recent Swedish study recently reported something you probably already knew-ladies are feeling kind of stressed. Something you may not have known? At age 21, men and women report about the same amount of psychological distress. But by age 42, men were sitting pretty while women's stress levels were up.

And it seems that the unfair division of stress may be due to unfair division of labor-we're talking household chores. I knew vacuuming was no good for me!

But there's a twist, so don't set fire to your cleaning supplies just yet-it turns out out that as long as the woman in the relationship felt like an equal to her partner, the risk of extra distress disappeared, even if she was doing more than her fair share of scrubbing and mopping. But if she felt like

What do couples fight about most often?
By Dr. Bill Cloke, Care2 Healthy Living

I opened my Facebook page the other day and a scrolled down to find a video from the Anderson Cooper show, Anderson, featuring the renowned couples therapist Dr. John Gottman, who wrote the best seller The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. In the clip, various couples illustrate examples of some of his principles, like his "four horsemen of the apocalypse" of impending divorce which are: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling.

Cooper then adroitly pops the big question: What is the number one thing that couples fight about? In his own taciturn style, Gottman quickly retorts that he is asked that question all the time and his answer is that couples fight about nothing. Really? He gave an example of a couple arguing over the TV remote. It sounded something like this:

The husband is channel surfing.

Him: Let me see what's on.

Her: No, leave it on that channel.

Him: Fine!

Her: What do you mean by

More alone time might actually help your relationship.
By Diana Vilibert, Care2 Healthy Living

When uttered within a romantic relationship, the words "I need space" are usually not followed by anything good. But what if more space is just what we need for happier, healthier relationships?

In fact, almost a third of us wish we had more of it: Terri Orbuch, a psychologist and research professor at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, has been studying 373 married couples for the past 25 years. When she asked the couples if they felt they had enough "privacy or time for self,", 29% of them said no. And of those participants who said they were unhappy in their marriages, 11.5% said the reason for their unhappiness was lack of privacy or time for themselves.

Of course, just like anything else in a relationship, any two people's needs for space are sometimes mismatched, leading to hurt feelings. But Vondie Lozano, a marriage and family therapist in California, tells the Wall Street Journal that it's not