Top 10 Ways to Avoid Contracting an STD

Top 10 Ways to Avoid Contracting an STD

The best way to avoid contracting a sexually transmitted disease is not to have sex. However, that isn't a choice that most people are always willing to make. Once you have chosen to have sex, there are ways to reduce the risk of contracting an STD. How? Well first, you need to know yourself. Second, you need to know your partner. And third? You need to know about condoms and safer sex.

1. Practice Safer Sex Every Time You Have Sex Safer sex, with a condom, female condom, gloves, and/or other appropriate barriers, only works if you are consistent about it. Make up your mind to have safer sex every time you have sex. If your sex life involves intercourse, anal or vaginal, determine that you'll never have sex without a condom. If you or your partner is at high risk of STDs, be consistent about barrier use (dental dams, condoms) during oral sex as well. Barriers are not 100% protective against all STDs, but they will greatly reduce your risk.

2. Get Tested Regularly, and Encourage Your Partners To Do The Same Want to avoid getting an STD, and spreading STDs to your partner? Be consistent about getting tested and treated. Whether or not you are at high risk for an STD, you and your partner should strongly consider being tested before entering a new sexual relationship. If one or both of you is at high risk of disease, you should be tested even more frequently. And, if you're being treated for an STD, wait until you're done with treatment before resuming sexual activity. Otherwise you and your partner could end up just passing it back and forth.

3. Have Sex Only Within A Mutually Monogamous Relationship Two people who have sex only with one another don’t have any opportunity to bring a new STD into the relationship. If you and your partner have been tested and are healthy, remaining faithful to each other is a very good way to reduce your chances of contracting an STD. However, it is important to be honest with yourself about whether you and your partner are both truly faithful. If you are always consistent about practicing safer sex, even with a long-term partner, you will feel more secure, and it can also take the “trust” issue out of the equation.

4. Know Your Limits When in the throes of passion it can be very difficult to use your brain. Once your clothes have started to come off is, therefore, not the time to start thinking about how far you want to go with your partner that evening. Before you head out on a date, think about your plans for the night. If the opportunity arises, do you want to have sex? Are you comfortable with fooling around a little, but not with oral sex or intercourse? If you make a rational decision before you leave your apartment, you’ll not only be prepared to safely act on it, but you’re far less likely to end the evening doing something you’ll regret.

5. Talk To Your Partner If you can't talk to your partner about sex, you can't talk to them about safer sex. Clear, open, and honest communication is important in all aspects of a relationship, including the sexual. It is important to be able to talk comfortably with your partner not only about safer sex and STD testing, but about monogamy and whether your relationship is or isn't exclusive. In all cases, try your best to focus on the truth as opposed to what you think your partner wants to hear. Improving your communication skills will not only make your sex life safer, it will make it more fulfilling.

6. Don't Drink Or Use Drugs Before Having Sex It's difficult to make responsible choices about your sex life if you're starting out impaired by drugs or alcohol. When you are under the influence, you are more likely to choose to have sex with someone you wouldn’t otherwise have picked as a partner, and less likely to be able to successfully negotiate safer sex. If you do plan to go out drinking, or use other substances, make up your mind beforehand what, and who, you really want to do. Then tell your friends, or write it on your hand, so that you stick with your plan. Also, if you’re on birth control and you vomit, your pills could lose some effectiveness.

7. Be Comfortable Saying No You never have to have sex. If you don’t want to have sex at all, or just not right then, that’s ok. Sex is not something you owe someone because they bought you dinner, and anyone who is going to break up with you because you won’t sleep with them isn’t someone you should be dating in the first place. It's your choice to say yes to sex, and it's also your choice to say no. But, when you do say no, mean it. Don't feign no and hope your partner will try to change your mind. Similarly, if your partner tells you no, listen. They'll know you respect their decisions, and, when they say yes, you can believe that too.

8. Be Responsible For Your Own Protection Part of making responsible sexual choices is being prepared to enact them. It doesn’t matter if you're male or female. If you’re going to have sex with someone you should be prepared. This is not only a matter of emotional preparation, but practicality. Bring your own safer sex supplies. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll have extras. That’s much better than the alternatives. There’s nothing quite so frustrating as being ready to go and having to drop everything to find a store that’s still open and selling condoms. The other alternative, going ahead without them, shouldn't even be an option.

9. Know How To Please Yourself Sometimes it’s impossible to get sex off your mind. You think about it constantly; you fantasize about it; you simply want it. This can make it tempting to jump into bed with someone just to have sex, not because you like them, or even because you particularly want to have sex with them. Unfortunately, this is a good way to end up with regrets. One way to avoid this, or to avoid making a bad decision if you end up in a situation where you want to have safer sex, but there are no supplies around, is to know how to please yourself. There’s nothing wrong with masturbation, and no sexual partner is safer than yourself

10. Remember That Your Brain Is Your Most Important Sex Organ Lots of people talk about the brain as the most important sex organ, because it is where the vast majority of arousal happens. The brain, however, is also your most important safer sex organ. You can use it to inform yourself, and to be aware of risk factors, transmission methods, symptoms, and methods of prevention. You can use it to help you pick your partners sensibly, and decide what you do and don’t feel comfortable doing with them. The decision to make your sex life safer is the first and most important step in reducing your risk of STDs.

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OUR HEALTH IS THE ROOT OF LIFE

OUR HEALTH IS THE ROOT OF LIFE

Won't you help me doctor beat

Musicogenic epilepsy is a neurological disorder where epileptic seizures are uncontrollably triggered by music. Gloria Estefan's Dr Beat is a catchy 80s pop song where she calls for medical assistance because music is irresistibly moving her body, moving her soul and affecting her brain. Coincidence? I think not. Doctor, I've got this feelin' deep inside of me, deep inside of me I just cant control my feet, hen I hear the beat when I hear the beat Hey doctor, could you give me somethin' to ease the pain cause if you dont help me soon gonna lose my brain gonna go insane Despite Ms Estefan's requests, painkillers are unlikely to help with the acute effects of seizure. First-line treatment is usually a rapid acting benzodiazepine and long-term stabilisation with a common anticonvulsant such as sodium valproate. While her concerns about her mental health are understandable (people with epilepsy are at a slightly higher risk of developing mental illness), the majority of people with the condition lead full and active lives, so her fear of insanity is largely unfounded. There are many cases of musicogenic epilepsy in the medical literature but, unfortunately, only a few few are freely available online. One is particularly interesting though and is available as a pdf file. It's a 1957 article published in Psychosomatic Medicine that reports three fascinating cases, including a girl who had her seizures triggered by swing music that induced, among other things, hallucinations of a smartly dressed couple. For those of you wanting something a bit more up-to-date though, YouTube has the a Dr Beat Mylo remix Dr Who video mashup. Same symptoms, new medical staff.

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Top 10 Health Benefits of Drinking Tea

Top 10 Health Benefits of Drinking Tea

There are lots of reasons why I enjoy a hot cup of tea: I love the aroma of various flavors of tea; holding onto a hot tea mug warms my hands on a cold winter morning; sipping tea in front of the fireplace is a great way to relax. And those are just the feel-good reasons. If you're not drinking tea yet, read up on these 10 ways tea does your body good and then see if you're ready to change your Starbucks order!

1. Tea contains antioxidants. Like the Rust-Oleum paint that keeps your outdoor furniture from rusting, tea's antioxidants protect your body from the ravages of aging and the effects of pollution.
2. Tea has less caffeine than coffee. Coffee usually has two to three times the caffeine of tea (unless you're a fan of Morning Thunder, which combines caffeine with mate, an herb that acts like caffeine in our body). An eight-ounce cup of coffee contains around 135 mg caffeine; tea contains only 30 to 40 mg per cup. If drinking coffee gives you the jitters, causes indigestion or headaches or interferes with sleep -- switch to tea.
3. Tea may reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke. Unwanted blood clots formed from cholesterol and blood platelets cause heart attack and stroke. Drinking tea may help keep your arteries smooth and clog-free, the same way a drain keeps your bathroom pipes clear. A 5.6-year study from the Netherlands found a 70 percent lower risk of fatal heart attack in people who drank at least two to three cups of black tea daily compared to non-tea drinkers.
4. Tea protects your bones. It's not just the milk added to tea that builds strong bones. One study that compared tea drinkers with non-drinkers, found that people who drank tea for 10 or more years had the strongest bones, even after adjusting for age, body weight, exercise, smoking and other risk factors. The authors suggest that this may be the work of tea's many beneficial phytochemicals.
5. Tea gives you a sweet smile. One look at the grimy grin of Austin Powers and you may not think drinking tea is good for your teeth, but think again. It's the sugar added to it that's likely to blame for England's bad dental record. Tea itself actually contains fluoride and tannins that may keep plaque at bay. So add unsweetened tea drinking to your daily dental routine of brushing and flossing for healthier teeth and gums.
6. Tea bolsters your immune defenses. Drinking tea may help your body's immune system fight off infection. When 21 volunteers drank either five cups of tea or coffee each day for four weeks, researchers saw higher immune system activity in the blood of the tea drinkers.
7. Tea protects against cancer. Thank the polyphenols, the antioxidants found in tea, once again for their cancer-fighting effects. While the overall research is inconclusive, there are enough studies that show the potential protective effects of drinking tea to make adding tea to your list of daily beverages.
8. Tea helps keep you hydrated. Caffeinated beverages, including tea, used to be on the list of beverages thatdidn't contribute to our daily fluid needs. Since caffeine is a diuretic and makes us pee more, the thought was that caffeinated beverages couldn't contribute to our overall fluid requirement. However, recent research has shown that the caffeine really doesn't matter -- tea and other caffeinated beverages definitely contribute to our fluid needs. The only time the caffeine becomes a problem as far as fluid is concerned is when you drink more than five or six cups of a caffeinated beverage at one time.
9. Tea is calorie-free. Tea doesn't have any calories, unless you add sweetener or milk. Consuming even 250 fewer calories per day can result in losing one pound per week. If you're looking for a satisfying, calorie-free beverage, tea is a top choice.
10. Tea increases your metabolism. Lots of people complain about a slow metabolic rate and their inability to lose weight. Green tea has been shown to actually increase metabolic rate so that you can burn 70 to 80 additional calories by drinking just five cups of green tea per day. Over a year's time you could lose eight pounds just by drinking green tea. Of course, taking a 15-minute walk every day will also burn calories.

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