One of the worst I’ve ever had. I’ll write more when I can. 





It seems like our little swimmers help elevate our moods. A new study has found that semen is good for your mental and physical health. Whether it enters the body orally or via unprotected sex, the “mood altering chemicals” contained within seminal fluid reduce depression, increase affection, and help you sleep.

The State University of New York study found that women who regularly have unprotected sex are less depressed. Medical Daily points out semen contains mood-elevating estrone and oxytocin, cortisol, melatonin, anti-depressant prolactin, thyrotropin releasing hormone and serotonin.

The study surveyed the sex lives and mental health of 293 women from the SUNY-Albany campus. Researchers also asked respondents to complete the Beck Depression Inventory, which is commonly used to measure mood disorders. The results revealed that sexually active women who “never” used condoms showed significantly fewer depressive symptoms than those who “always” or “usually” used condoms.

The findings, which were published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour journal, also found women who described themselves as “promiscuous” yet used condoms were as depressed as women who practice abstinence

The team says this suggests it is semen, not just sex, that makes women happy. It comes in the same month Gordon Gallup, a psychologist at SUNY-Albany, proposed semen also helps women suffering from morning sickness. Gallup theorized that pregnant women often feel nauseous because their bodies are rejecting the semen’s genetic material as alien. It thus follows that ingesting the same sperm would allow the body to build up a tolerance, The New York Daily News reported.

Considering that this test was only done using female subjects, I think there should be a study using gay men. Let’s pass out the pineapple juice guys and get started. I think I’d much rather lift my mood this way than taking Prozac. It certainly sounds like a lot more fun, and tasty (just don’t forget the pineapple juice).

Yesterday, I woke up with a terrible headache. I’m beginning to think that I don’t have migraines but that I have cluster headaches. Cluster headaches are less common than migraine headache or tension headache, both of which I know I have, but some of the headaches are different and do not fit the regular symptoms of a migraine or tension headache. The pain of cluster headache is its defining and most dramatic feature. This pain comes on without warning (no forewarning symptoms such as the aura in classic migraine, which I do have before a migraine begins) and begins as a burning sensation deep in one eye.

The pain peaks in just a few minutes. People describe the feeling as having an ice pick driven through your eye. They use words such as “excruciating,” “explosive,” and “deep.” This stabbing eye pain carries with it a rapid electrical-shocklike element, which may last for a few seconds, and a deeper element that continues for a half-hour or longer. The pain almost always begins in my eye and always on one side of your face. Interestingly, for most people the pain stays on the same side of the face from cluster to cluster, while in a small minority, including myself. the pain switches to the opposite side during the next cluster.

There are two types of cluster headaches, episodic and chronic. Episodic cluster headaches occur regularly between one week and one year, followed by a headache free period of one month or more. Chronic cluster headaches occur regularly for longer than one year, followed by a headache free period that lasts for less than one month. Because of the frequency to which I have headaches, it could actually be either. I do go months without headaches that are like an ice pick driven through my eye, which could merely mean that I suffer from episodic cluster headaches but with the misfortune of also having tension, sinus, and migraine headaches in the intervals.

As the name suggests, the cluster headache exhibits a clustering of painful attacks over a period of many weeks. The pain of a cluster headache peaks in about five minutes and may last for an hour. Someone with a cluster headache may get several headaches a day for weeks at a time – perhaps months – usually interrupted by a pain-free period of variable length.

One of the reasons that I think I have been suffering from cluster headaches is because of one of the main triggers. Alcohol is one well known trigger of cluster headache, often bringing on the pain within an hour of drinking. In the past four to six months, every time I have drank alcohol, I have suffered from intense debilitating headaches that last for several days. These headaches usually come and go through the day. I haven’t had any alcohol with the exception of three different occasions in the last four months. It appears that a good white wine does not trigger them, but any other alcohol (including cheap white wine) does trigger these headaches. I guess my head is a tad bit of a wine snob.

Even if these headaches are cluster headaches, the treatment is only minimally different from migraine treatment. Doctors still recommend taking a class of drugs known as triptans, which I already have a prescription for the only one of the triptans I can take, Maxalt. The others often are not recommended for people with high blood pressure, and they have the nasty side effect of simulating a heart attack, that is tightness in the chest and a radiating pain down the arm. Maxalt has never caused the simulated heart attack but others have when I have tried them and believe it or not, it is much more uncomfortable than the migraine. Other treatments that have been proved effective, not for curing but for relieving the pain is breathing pure oxygen for short periods of time and opioid pain relievers.

I know this is a bit of an unorthodox post and doesn’t exactly fit into what I usually blog about, but when I research something, I’m like a dog with a bone or my cat Lucy when she has one of her toys, I just don’t want to let it go. After researching cluster headaches, I thought I’d share what I had found out, just in case any of my readers have suffered from similar headaches and would enjoy the information or might have some advice.

There is simply no denying that life can be hard, even cruel. I’ve learned this more than once in my life. Few, if any, of us go through life consistently getting all the affirmation and pleasures that would offset the hardships that inevitably come our way. Fortunately for us, our bodies are equipped to provide the ability to cope with even the most difficult circumstances. We generate our own natural pain and stress relievers through our positive physical contact with other people.

Extensive research by the University of Miami’s Touch Research Institute has revealed that human touch has wide-ranging physical and emotional benefits for people of all age groups. In the Institute’s experiments, touch lessened pain, improved pulmonary function, increased growth in infants, lowered blood glucose and improved immune function. Human touch is important for all ages, but by the time children reach their teen years, they receive only half as much touching as they did in the early part of their lives. Adults touch each other even less.

From the time we are infants we learn to find pleasure in skin-to-skin contact with others. It appears that we are dependent on copious amounts of this kind of comforting and pleasurable contact for both physical and emotional development. When we transition from childhood to adolescence, we simply move our source of physical contact from our family to our friends. However, the special pleasure of human, skin to skin, contact never loses its importance.

There is only one problem. Over the span of our life there are limited times when we have regular and consistent access to enough of that kind of contact. Even if we are in a relationship with an active sex life, we do not necessarily have access to the physical pleasure when we need it to lessen the pains of life.

I miss that touch that can only come from another human being. Sexual touching is great, but any kind of physical contact is welcome. A friendly hand on your arm or shoulder. A pat on the back. A hug from a friend. Then there are the more intimate touches. Someone running their hands through your hair. A hand brushing your cheek. Slow dancing with someone. Once you get past those touches, then it moves usually from intimate to sensual. A kiss on the lips. A nuzzle in your ear. After that usually comes sexual touch.

I miss all those touches, from the simple to the sexual, but so often, I just crave the simple touch of another human being on my body. Of course touch is not the only sense that we crave, but it is an important one. Besides having physical needs for food, cleanliness and shelter, we also have touch needs. Touch deprived children tend to be the more aggressive and violent ones. They lack the experience to discern whether or not touch is good or bad.

Ever had cold feet at night? People had a remarkable solution to this problem in the Middle Ages. Many nobles in medieval Europe had large beds that allowed a noble, his wife, their children, some servants, and his knights to sleep together in the dead of winter. If this sleeping arrangement sounds a little too cozy, this is probably because modern people like you and I have come to regard the practice of sleeping together with one’s entire household as shameful and uncivilized. Indeed, over the centuries, various forms of interpersonal touch have become less and less common, crushed under an onslaught of changing cultural values and new technology. We increasingly view touch as unhygienic and even invasive, as in the case of sexual harassment, for example. And isolating ourselves behind phones and laptop screens has only exacerbated the trend.

We live in such a busy, crowded world, yet it’s so easy for many of us to go days, even weeks or months without touching or being touched by others. While we might not notice the effects of not being touched right away, it can negatively affect our mood, our confidence and our health. We are only beginning to understand the holistic way our bodies work and the relationship between our emotional well being and our physical health.

We are social beings, and although we all fall in different places on the introversion – extroversion scale, we all need to have that sense of connection to other members of humanity. While some of that connection can come from having conversations with others, touch also plays an important role in human communication.

Simply touching another person can make us feel more secure and less anxious. It can make us feel grounded and safe and not so alone. It’s not just children who could use a warm, reassuring hug to make things a little better, so if you’re feeling like a bundle of nerves, go ahead and ask for a hug.

Studies have shown that those that get regular touch often have lower blood pressure than those that don’t. Even having a pet can have beneficial effects! Touch can also slow the heart rate and help speed recovery times from illness and surgery. It’s harder to get into a pessimistic funk when you feel the confidence of being connected to others. Touch can make people feel more optimistic and positive and less cynical and suspicious. A positive, trusting attitude towards others can reduce tension in our daily lives and improve our relationships.

Scientists are just discovering how truly important it is to exercise all our physical senses for proper brain and emotional development. All the various kinds of touch from butterfly kisses to deep tissue massage send our brains the physical inputs it needs to make sense of the world. So, along with touching other people and pets, make time to explore different textures and touch sensations such as letting cool sand run through your fingers or taking a warm relaxing bath.

A recent survey conducted by Cotton USA asked 1000 British people in relationships what they wear to bed and how happy they were in their current relationships. The survey found that couples who sleep in the buff had happier relationships, more sex and stronger bonds.

57% of those who reported sleeping naked said they felt happy, compared with 48% of pajama wearers and 43% of nightie wearers.

Manhattan-based therapist and relationship expert Amber Madison wasn’t surprised by the findings.

“Being naked in bed with your partner is physically and emotionally intimate,” she said. “It’s a way of showing, ‘I want to be close to you’ and a green light for sex. That intimacy and emotional and physical availability is what keeps a relationship strong in light of daily stressors and challenges.”

I asked a friend of mine who has a pretty wonderful relationship with his boyfriend, if they are usually naked when they sleep together. He said that they usually are, but occasionally will wear briefs to bed. When I am sleeping in bed with someone, I certainly feel closer and more connected if we are both naked. I also certainly understand why couples who sleep together naked would have more sex. What’s better than waking up naked next to your partner when either or both of you have morning wood.

The study also looked at general sleeping habits and relationships. It found that dirty clothes on the floor, clutter and beds left unmade are big turn-offs. Eating in bed, allowing pets in the bedroom, stealing the covers and wearing socks to sleep were also listed as pet peeves. Full story here via the Gaily Grind!