Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself.
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I’ve known this for a while intuitively (I think most of us do) and I had it confirmed by passages in the book The Science of Happiness. But here it is in a video…
…which hopefully makes up for the fact that I’ve been a slacker about writing it up.
Bonus: John Cleese of Monty Python fame reports on the same thing…
I have been sick this week. It started Sunday. I finally went to the doctor today, Friday, because it wasn’t getting better and I decided it must be a sinus infection, and I wanted antibiotics.
As a precaution they did a test for the H1N1 virus, which involved sticking a long cotton swab up my nose and then dipping it into a test tube. I may have it backwards, but I think she said, “Red is bad, blue is good.” I cracked a joke about political orientation and thought nothing of it.
I can’t have the dreaded Swine Flu, I thought. The media reports that it’s deadly and that you’ll be horribly ill and in the hospital. What I had, I thought, was a bad cold which turned into a sinus infection.
Well guess what. I do have the Swine Flu. I tested positive for H1N1.
And, also, I have a sinus infection.
Because of all the fear mongering going on about this dreaded flu, I have been taking extra vitamins and washing my hands so often you’d think it had become a compulsion. Maybe because of that, and also maybe because I’d gotten the regular (not H1N1) flu shot, my case is ultra mild.
My lungs are clear. I never ran a temperature. Two of the things closely associated with the H1N1 infection didn’t affect me.
What tipped off my doctor’s office that I might have it was the fact that I was having hot and cold flashes, that I was feeling bodily aches and pains (though not severe), and I did have the occasional dry cough. All my other symptoms were those of the sinus infection.
Because the onset was last Sunday it was too late to give me Tamiflu, and she said the worst of it was already past. True, because today I feel 80% better than I felt yesterday. I’m now on antibiotics for the infection, and am cleared to go back to work next Monday.
So as a layman, and not a doctor, here are my generalized recommendations, being that I’ve gone through this:
Personally, I am wondering how many people have had it, or will have it, and never notice. I wouldn’t have. Its a fluke that I got tested.
In this modern society faced with limitless choices, do you sometimes feel paralyzed?
Join the club. At no other time in history has a book like this been necessary, let alone popular.
In a culture that celebrates freedom via offering limitless choices, here’s a book coming along saying that what we really need in order to be free is to set limits on ourselves.
Perfect example: On a recent episode of WNYC’s Radio Lab, the show hosts are faced with a dazzling array of fruit and their task is to pick just one. While co-host Robert uses his gut instinct and just grabs something, co-host Jad deliberates agonizingly over which one to choose. He’s almost paralyzed by the array of choices spread out before him, and he finds that he fears — horror of horrors — making the wrong decision.
That’s our modern life in a nutshell.
Leo Babauta’s book, The Power of Less, is a brilliant guide toward circumventing this modern problem. The solution? Some soul searching and introspection to determine what it is that you really want to do in your life, and list these as your essentials. Then examine what you are actually doing with your life, and start limiting yourself to tasks and goals that are aligned with your essentials — and systematically eliminating everything else.
Let me tell you, over the last few months I’ve toted this book with me literally half way around the globe, reading it on airplanes, hotel rooms, restaurants — and taking extensive notes. The book is brilliant in its simplicity, and also in its scope. For something so focused it delves into every aspect of your life, guiding you through discovering what is essential to you and helping you limit yourself to that which gets you to your essentials. Not only in your personal life, but in your professional one as well.
It challenged me in some areas, it gave me many “Ah-hah!” moments, and it also echoed a lot of things I’d already decided were truths in my life. But nowhere in the book did it strike a sour note — the philosophy is pure, easy, and true.
I recommend this book, and also, I recommend listening to the Radio Lab’s podcast on choices as a companion. They reinforce each other as well as expand each other’s horizons. And here’s an open suggestion both to Leo and to the guys at Radio Lab — you need to get together and do a show on The Power of Less. The synergy would be fantastic.
Leo’s blog: Zen Habits Book website: The Power of Less
Buy the book here: Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Borders
Listen to the Radio Lab podcast on Choices: “Choice” by Radio Lab
How it starts out with me, I get blind spots. Like early today I was writing a beer review and was having problems seeing what I had just typed. It gave me a sudden sinking feeling, and I wondered, Is this a migraine coming on?
I struggled with typing for a few more minutes, and then realized, yes, I’m having lots of problems seeing the words on the screen.
This is THE WARNING. When I get THE WARNING it means I have about 50 to 75 minutes before THE PAIN.
The moment I get this warning I drop everything and go take medicine. Fortunately I’ve found the generic OTC migraine pills work just fine, and the Wal-Mart generic Equate Headache Relief (which is the equivalent of Excedrin® Migraine) is dirt cheap. They consist of Acetaminophen, Aspirin, and Caffeine. If I don’t have those pills, I found taking a Tylenol combined with Advil and some coffee will work the same.
They take about 50 minutes to take effect. So if I get those pills in me immediately, they will head off the migraine pain, and all I have to deal with are the other symptoms (sleepiness, reduced mental abilities, and nausea).
So, do you get migraines? How do you deal with them?
Every night I go to sleep with a machine strapped to my face, and it’s wonderful.
Used to be that I’d fall asleep while driving so often that I had my kids trained to pull the hair on my arms to keep me awake. I’d routinely fall dead asleep during meetings at work, and even once during a job interview. When visiting friends, I’d always end up dozing off on their couch. I even used to catch myself falling asleep while standing in line.
Coffee only had a limited effect. Herbal stimulants could only do so much. It was bad. I thought I had narcolepsy.
My doctor pegged it, though — she said I probably have sleep apnea. The moment she described what that meant, I knew she was right. People often told me that I snored loud, and then stopped, and then started again. During camping trips my snoring would scare other campers — my friend’s wife even thought I was an angry bear.
Spending the night at the local sleep lab confirmed the diagnosis. When I’d go to sleep, my throat would slowly close and cut off my airway. I’d stop breathing. My lungs would fight for air, which would wake me up only enough to gasp and open the airway again. Then, drifting back to sleep, it would happen all over again. All night long. Waking up every five minutes.
No wonder I kept falling asleep while I was driving. So many times I’d nod off and then come back just split seconds before disaster! It was because I wasn’t sleeping at night.
The solution to the problem turned out to be a machine called a CPAP, which stands for “Constant Positive Airway Pressure.” It’s basically a specialized air pump with a hose and a mask. The mask comes in various designs, all meant to put air into your nose at a specific pressure that’s just enough to keep your throat from closing while sleeping.
Let me tell you, I was very dubious of being able to sleep with what I considered a SCUBA apparatus strapped to my face all night. But being that it was so hard for me to stay awake in the first place, it only took me twenty minutes to drift off even with the strangeness of the contraption. I slept so well that first time, I woke up a new person. Literally. It had been so many years since I actually had a full night’s sleep that when I finally did, I felt like I’d just woken up from a coma. It was amazing.
Even now, years later, I’m awake all day long. I never fall asleep while driving. I don’t snore anymore. I’m a totally different person. The CPAP doubles as a white noise machine, and is usually much quieter than a fan. You can usually get your health insurance to pay for it — mine did, twice. Even if not, you can now find them on the Internet for a quarter of the price they used to cost.
A beneficial side effect I’ve found — and my doctor has confirmed — it may also solve any acid reflux problems you have at night.
I’m writing this to help anyone facing the decision of going with a CPAP to know that it’s not horrible — it’s wonderful. And I’m hoping that if someone else out there recognizes these symptoms, to please go to your doctor before you fall asleep while driving.
It starts with just a timid touching of the lips.
You both smile, and she takes a breath and leans into you again. It’s a soft, lingering kiss. You pull away slightly, and she leans forward more. Her lips part, so you part yours as well. Your hands slide up her arms, squeeze lightly below the shoulders. Taking her upper lip in between yours, you pull it gently before letting it slide out. She lets out a little sigh, and then does the same to you.
This is good for you. Literally.
You kiss lightly but constantly for the next few minutes, your heart racing, your breath growing short. Then she touches your lips with her tongue, and you smile slightly and meet it with the tip of your own. It’s like an introduction, the two meeting for the first time. They dance around a bit. Play hide-and-go-seek. Then you run the tip of your tongue lightly around the inside of her lips, then take her bottom lip in between yours and gently pull for a moment before letting go. Your hands caress her neck, her ears. Your fingers slide through her hair.
She sighs again, her passion growing.
What you two are doing burns over 6 calories a minute. It boosts the immune system, slows the aging process, drastically reduces stress, and even helps prevent tooth decay. It also pulls you out of your ordinary day and puts you in an amazing place outside of time and space. The world fades away, leaving just the two of you, and the wonder of what you share.
Now her arms are tight around you, and your bodies are pressed up against each other. Your kisses have built a rhythm, and you’re kissing with more than just your lips. You’re caressing each other, moving against each other, breathing each other’s breath. She gives out the occasional cry of pleasure, almost like a happy whimper, letting you know she is enjoying it as much as you are.
Your body is releasing oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin into your blood, your very own elixir of love. Endorphins flood your system, producing euphoria. All these things are good for you. They work wonders on your physical and mental health.
So kiss often. Kiss as many times a day as you can, every day. It’s a highly recommended therapy with far-flung benefits.
Not to mention that it’s a lot of fun.
This is not really a diet; it’s a simplified version of eating awareness training as originally developed by Molly Groger. While her excellent book is currently out of print, you can usually find copies on Amazon and eBay. As with any major lifestyle change, you may want to consult with your doctor beforehand.
Body vs. Mind
The human body didn’t evolve to be a couch potato. We were meant to hunt gazelle and climb trees for fruit and to throw spears at saber-toothed tigers. By some fluke of nature our brains became supercharged, which has allowed us to systematically outsmart just about everything — including nature. The result is that, as animals, we’re overachievers, able to fend for ourselves so well that the days of chasing gazelle are long gone. To go hunting we merely have to walk 30 feet to a car then drive to a supermarket. In some cases we don’t even have to do that — a simple click of a computer mouse will result in the delivery of groceries, or fresh hot pizza, or an order of Chicken Lo Mein.
At the same time, our big brains are constantly inventing new and ever more fascinating ways to entertain ourselves without exerting physical effort. So now more than ever, we’re more likely to be exercising our fingers on a TV remote or game controller rather than exerting entire body effort to beat a flying ball around four bases, or to race a bunch of other people to a finish line.
So you see we’ve already put ourselves at a disadvantage. But add to that the fact that since we were babies, our parents used food as a reward and as a pacifier, programming our bloated brains to eat for reasons other than hunger. We now eat because we’re happy, sad, bored, frightened, or nervous. That would be a bad idea even if food still consisted of berries and gazelle spleens. But no — our misguided intellects have designed for us much more tasty morsels: chocolate bars, Oreos, French fries, Whoppers, and Big Macs. Yum! I don’t know about you, but I love these things — or at least my brain does, because the flavors are so refined they directly stimulate the mind’s pleasure center to almost sexual intensity.
Face it, we’re way too clever for our own good.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that only a few simple changes can make a significant difference in this dilemma.
Demote Your Brain
Here’s where you begin to unlearn and then relearn. For some of you this initial stage can be a bit tricky and seem weird, but that’s because you’re about to question some fundamental behaviors. The goal is to take the decision to eat away from your mind, and give it back to your stomach.
The idea is simple enough. When you’re hungry, eat. When you’re no longer hungry, stop eating.
For many people that seems to be a no brainer. To them it’s already natural. You’ll notice one thing these people all have in common: they’re thin. And in America they’re in the minority.
I once was one of those people, back before I got my first car, in those long-ago days where I had to ride a bike or walk everywhere. It was also before video games. I used to ride for miles and hike through the wilderness, and climb trees, and dig big holes in the ground with a shovel. I also was much less into eating, because back then there always seemed to be more important things to do. Sure, I watched TV, but there were only three channels, and I usually only had two favorite shows at a time … and they were on only once a week.
Things are much different today. I sit at a computer and type all the time. I love good food. I have hot and cold running DVD’s at the push of a button — I figure if I get into an accident and both my legs are broken, I have enough quality TV to watch for three months straight. Add Netflix to that and it could stretch to infinity.
Then there’s those bugaboos from childhood: You didn’t finish your dinner! You’re not a part of the “Clean Plate Club!” There are poor starving children in Africa. And left over from babyhood, when food was used as a pacifier: If I feel unhappy, a box of cookies will make things better. If bored, eat a tube of Pringles. Nervousness brings on munchies for candy like you wouldn’t believe. When things are going good, it’s time to celebrate by going out for a huge steak dinner … with ice cream for desert! Ice cream drowned in 5 pounds of caramel and hot fudge.
My peak weight was over 350 pounds. My doctor used to give me alarmed looks while checking my blood pressure, and began prescribing pills. I started noticing lots of little problems, like my back had become fragile, and my knees would make breaking-celery noises when I went up stairs.
Things didn’t begin to get better until I learned there was a difference between being “full” and being “no longer hungry.”
Learn To Listen To Your Stomach
Listening to your stomach doesn’t mean waiting until it growls and gurgles. It means relaxing your mind and letting yourself feel those signals it’s sending you. There are levels of hunger, ranging from slightly-maybe hungry to gnawing-open-pit-of-pain hungry. What you need to do is try an experiment, and practice it a few times during the next week.
Pick a time when you don’t have a lot of distractions, and skip a meal. Feel free to drink water (and I mean water, not coffee or soda, or anything with caffeine — which is an appetite suppressant). You’ll find that in the beginning, when you’re just starting to feel hungry, it’s hard to tell the difference between hunger and thirst. So when you start to notice that feeling, take a drink, and see it that makes the feeling subside. In many cases it will, and you’ve just learned your first important lesson. Sometimes when you think you’re hungry, you’re actually thirsty.
Continue the experiment, paying close attention to your feelings of hunger as they grow over time. When water no longer does the trick, then you know you’re experiencing real hunger. Memorize this feeling. This is your cue — your ONLY cue — to eat.
When you feel you’ve mastered the art of identifying genuine hunger, the experiment is over. It’s time to take the next step.
You’ve established you’re hungry, so go ahead and eat something. Don’t worry about carbs or calories, just make sure it’s real food and not Hostess Twinkies or an ice cream cone. If you’re craving pizza or fried chicken, then indulge yourself. But eat slowly without distractions — no TV, no talking on the phone — and pay very close attention to signals from your stomach after each swallow. The moment your hungry feeling goes away, stop eating. You’re done.
This is one of the hardest things to get used to, because here is where your mind — not your stomach — is going to tell you to keep eating. Your mind will say things like:
Here’s where you’ll come to a startling realization: we really do eat way too much food! Also, here’s where we must accept an unpleasant fact: when we do eat too much, we are abusing our bodies.
I’m going to repeat this because it’s so important. We as a society eat too much food, and when we do, we are abusing our bodies. We are abusing our bodies just as sure as a smoker is abusing his lungs; as sure as a demented glue sniffer is abusing his poor damaged brain.
Is saving food, or money, or someone’s misguided feelings worth shortening your life? Is it worth wrecking your health, causing you to spend more on healthcare and the like? Is it worth the stunted self esteem of being labeled a fatso? The shame, humiliation, and the self-loathing?
Freaking no, man! No! It is not. And so you must ignore your brain when it sends you these signals to keep eating, or to begin eating in the first place, and listen ONLY to your stomach.
Only your stomach!
So continue practicing the art of listening to your stomach, determining when it is really hungry (as opposed to thirsty), and only eating until the feeling of hunger goes away. If you eat until you feel full, then you’ve eaten too much.
Don’t freak out if just a tiny bit of food satisfies your hunger. Remember that the moment you feel hungry again, you can eat again. This is not about starving yourself. You can eat as many times a day that your stomach tells you to eat. You can eat just about anything. But only eat until your stomach tells you it’s no longer hungry. If that means seven tiny meals a day, then so be it.
Also, begin to really trust your cravings. Once you get in tune with what your body actually wants, and not what your mind wants, you’ll realize that you’re craving things because of what’s in them, like specific vitamins you may be low in. Once you’ve been doing this a while, you’re going to begin craving certain vegetables, like carrots, or perhaps specific proteins like fish or chicken. You might think to yourself, for example, “Mmm! Jell-O sounds good!” Yes, Jell-O is good for you — your body may be craving the gelatin it needs to grow your fingernails.
Your body instinctively knows what it needs. It knows when it needs food, and it knows what kind of food. All you have to do is listen to it. Trust it. There’s millions of years of programming in your DNA, the result of millions of generations of your ancestors who survived the harshness of live, all leading up to you. You inherited all that wisdom. Trust it.
Help Your Body Outsmart Your Brain
As clever as your human intellect is, it’s really a spoiled brat. It’s used to being in control of when, what, and how much to eat, and now that you’re shifting the job back to your stomach where it belongs, your brain is going to fight it. It will complain, throw tantrums, and try to sabotage you. You must accept this and be ready for it with a arsenal of tricks to help your stomach retain control:
Besides all these tricks you can pull on yourself (and I’m sure you can come up with an endless supply of your own), you can also enlist the help of your friends and family. Explain to them what you’re doing and why. Get them in on it. Help them help you. Who knows, they may even join you — then you can help each other.
This is also important: if you succumb to your brain’s urgings and do overeat, don’t beat yourself up over it. This is a learning process, not a fad diet. What you’re attempting to do here is modify your lifestyle. It’s not going to be an overnight cure. You will no doubt stumble from time to time, but when you do, simply shrug it off and keep going. If in a moment of weakness you eat an entire box of Oreos, or a jumbo two pound mushroom Swiss cheeseburger, then make it a learning experience. Pay attention and memorize the feeling of being over-stuffed. Memorize how uncomfortable your stomach feels. Take a mental picture of how awful you feel, and show it to yourself the next time you sit down in front of the same type of meal.
Falling down once or twice doesn’t mean you just give up and lay there until you die. You pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and keep going. Life is like that anyway, so why should eating be any different? The point is to enjoy yourself while you’re here, and you can enjoy eating, too. Eat when your stomach says you’re hungry, eat something you enjoy eating, and stop the moment you’re no longer hungry.
Amazing how difficult such a simple thing can be.
What Else?
Surely there must be more to it than this. Right?
Wrong.
You don’t have to count calories, you don’t have to eat only low carb food. You don’t have to completely cut sweets out of your diet. You don’t have to measure your serving sizes. You can completely disregard anything you’ve ever read about dieting. The only thing you have to do at the “South Beach” is take a nice walk in the sand.
No fasting is necessary. Meditation is optional. Eat organic food if you’d like. Have an occasional Twinkie, it’s okay.
Listen to your stomach. It tells you two things:
That’s all you need to know. Where eating is concerned, your stomach is the boss. If you feel full, you’ve eaten too much, or you’ve eaten too quickly. Slow down, pay closer attention to your stomach’s signals, and learn when to detect when the hungry feeling has gone away. When it has, stop eating.
Period.
You will lose weight. How fast it happens depends on how far out of balance you are from your natural weight as determined by your DNA. In most cases you’ll lose more weight up front, and it will gradually slow as you approach your natural balance. It will take some time, so don’t be in a rush. Maintain patience. Even better, simply put it out of your mind. Don’t obsess on weight loss, but instead concentrate on making your new eating habits so ingrained in your psyche that you do it without thinking — like scratching your nose or breathing.
If you do that, your body will take care of itself, and weight will never again be a problem.
Bonus Objectives
If you live a sedentary lifestyle, commit to walking every day. Walking is the best exercise. It’s also the easiest. Don’t overdo it, but slowly build up to a healthy mile or so a day if possible. If you do this, it will dramatically increase the benefit of your change of eating habits.
Drink more water and less soda — including diet soda. Flavor the water if you have to. Use a squeeze of lemon or lime, or a dash of spearmint extract.
Diet soda can actually keep you from losing weight. The reason is that your body isn’t smart enough to tell the difference between an artificial sweetener and a real one, and so it still releases insulin to counteract the sugar it thinks you just consumed. Insulin released in your system makes it harder to lose weight. You’re much better off drinking water or tea sweetened with just a hint of citrus than you are drinking something with an artificial sweetener in it.
One last but important tip: accept and learn to love yourself as you are. Under no circumstances should you compare yourself with a supermodel or hunk actor on TV. Those people are not normal. Statistically they are genetic freaks. Random chance, as well as some very expensive dental and plastic surgery, have given them uber-attractiveness which has been even more augmented by make up, professionally styled hair, and custom tailored clothing. Repeat after me, right now, out loud:
“IT’S NOT REAL!”
I mean it. I want you to speak these words to yourself. I want you to say them every time you see one of those commercials or billboards.
Those images you see are not real, and they’re not realistic. Don’t compare yourself to them. Don’t compare yourself to anyone. You are you. If you love and respect yourself, you’ll treat yourself better, you’ll treat others better, and things will naturally become better. You will inspire others. You will enjoy life more.
And that’s what it’s all about.
Further Reading
by Molly Groger
by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
by Karen R. Koenig
by Susan Albers
This is a very embarrassing topic, but my girlfriend urged me to write about it as a public service. “It could make a difference in the relationships for hundreds of couples,” she told me.
The subject is control over how long a guy lasts during lovemaking.
Quoting my girlfriend: “Why is it that so many men don’t care about control when it is so very important? Don’t they realize that it makes such a huge difference to their relationships? Why can they not see that a satisfied woman will do anything for her man?”
This is obviously a wide spread problem, otherwise you wouldn’t see it as one of the most popular subjects for annoying Spam mail.
The ironic thing is that teaching yourself how to last longer in your lovemaking is simple, and unlike what all those junk emails tell you, you don’t have to buy a pill or special cream. All it takes is the willingness to learn. Or, actually, unlearn.
Because of the sexually frank nature of the subject, those who might be offended should stop reading right here. I mean it. Stop reading.
You’re still reading? Okay. You have no one to blame but yourself if you’re offended…
Premature ejaculation in men is nothing more than a bad habit.
The habit is learned usually as a boy during puberty, directly after experiencing his first orgasm. He’s not to blame, either, it’s our sexual prudishness that is the root cause of the problem. The fear of getting caught.
All boys masturbate. All of them. Most men do it as well, and most will lie about it too. It’s extremely embarrassing, and guys would rather die than be discovered.
Why? Because we’ve all been taught that sex is bad. It’s dirty. It’s a sin.
Well, it’s not, but that’s not the point of this article. However it is this stigma over self-gratification that causes boys (and later men) to rush through it as fast as humanly possible. They feel the urge, they find a quiet place, and they take care of business. Over and done with. The original wham, bam, thank you hand.
The human penis is a simple creature. It only has a couple jobs in life, and it only does what it’s been taught to do. It stands to reason that if you spend years teaching it to ejaculate quickly, then that is what it’s going to continue doing. It doesn’t care what the circumstances … or what is doing the stimulation. It knows what it knows.
Fortunately, a penis can learn to change. Slow down. Relax and enjoy the journey instead of focusing only on the destination.
The simplest way to unlearn the bad habit is doing the very same activity which originally caused it, but with a different mindset. There are two feelings you have to master, one which you know and another you may not be too familiar with.
Lesson number one starts with you getting friendly with yourself. That’s right, it’s okay. You have an excuse. This is a class.
Start getting friendly with yourself, but pay close attention to what you’re feeling. There’s a point of no return, and there’s a point right before orgasm. They’re two separate places along the journey. Get to know these two places, but more specifically, get to know the difference between the two.
So it’s feeling good, and you feel it working up to that point, then … pay close attention … you’ll feel when it changes. You haven’t reached the point of imminent orgasm, but there is that place where you know it’s going to happen any moment. There’s a point where there’s no going back, it’s going to blow. Then, anywhere from a split second to maybe ten seconds later, you know the orgasm is about to happen.
Then it happens.
Did you feel the difference? Can you spot these two points? Don’t worry, it may take a while, but here’s the good news. You have permission to keep trying. You’re not going to unlearn this bad habit overnight. Give yourself three or four weeks of practice.
When you start being able to feel that place where you know, if you keep going, the orgasm will happen … back off. That’s right, back off from what you’re doing. Stop and let it calm down for a few moments, then start going again.
This is lesson number two. Play with yourself for as long as you can without reaching your orgasm. Work yourself almost up to, but not past, that point of no return. Having a hard time figuring out where? Keep slipping past it? No problem. Here’s what you do: if you even think you’re near it, stop. I don’t care if you have to stop every five seconds, just stop. Let it calm down. Start again.
Keep going. I don’t care how much you want that orgasm, you goal is not to have it. Why? Let me quote my girlfriend again: “Why can they not see that a satisfied woman will do anything for her man?”
That’s why. There is absolutely nothing in this world like completely satisfying the woman you love. So…
Keep practicing. See how long you can keep it going without passing the point of no return. Challenge yourself to go longer and longer. When you feel you are starting to get the hang of it, it’s on to lesson number three, which is putting it to practice with your lover.
Now remember, you’re still unlearning the bad habit. Don’t be discouraged with failure … just keep trying. You will get better.
Let your lover know what you’re doing. Let her know you need to be in control, and why, and I’m betting she’s going to be more than willing to help. Don’t rush through the foreplay, and when it’s time to enter, pay close attention to what you’re feeling. Move slowly, don’t get too caught up into it. The moment you even think you’re getting close to that point, pull out, and let it calm down. Then continue.
You’ll find something amazing. Your penis is not so dumb after all. It can learn something new, and you’ll find that — as you get used to not rushing headlong toward that orgasm — your penis is going to get better at letting you know when that point of no return is. Also, you’ll find it takes longer to get there as well.
That’s the penis learning.
Aren’t you proud of it? Good penis! Well done!
If you haven’t noticed by now, there’s a benefit to you as well as your lover. The longer you hold back your orgasm, the more intense it’s going to be when you finally reach it. Instead of just an, OOOH! AHHHH! WOW! it will start becoming a OOOOOOOOHHHHAAAA OH MY GOD! AAAAAAHHHGGHH!!!!! YES YES YES!
And she’ll be proud of herself for giving you such a big one, too.
If you’re not convinced yet that this is worth the effort, consider this (especially you married guys) … bad lovemaking leads to less lovemaking, which leads to even worse lovemaking, which can lead to zero lovemaking. A downward spiral. Conversely, good lovemaking leads to MORE lovemaking, which leads to BETTER lovemaking, which leads to EVEN MORE lovemaking. An upward spiral.
That’s the kind of love that makes your world go round. It can make you healthier, happier, and live longer too. And, let me quote my girlfriend one last time: “Why can they not see that a satisfied woman will do anything for her man?”
So guys, what are you waiting for? Get busy. Practice makes perfect!
We’ve heard for so long about how coffee and beer are bad for us that we’ve accepted them both as vices.
Now it’s coming out that this is not true.
Not only are coffee and beer not bad, they’re actually good for us. More and more studies have shown amazing benefits in drinking both beverages, from alleviating asthma to helping prevent cancer, diabetes, gallstones, and even suicide.
Read the full articles about Coffee and Beer on our new spin-off site, GroovyBrew.
A Dartmouth professor, in researching the source of the rule that we should all drink at least 8 glasses of water a day, found — much to his surprise — absolutely nothing to support it. Indeed, he found that under some circumstances it actually may be bad for you.
It’s a bit disconcerting to think that something so widely accepted as a truism has absolutely no basis in reality. Makes you wonder what other things we “know” are actually wrong.
What it boils down to is that, if you’re thirsty, drink something. If you’re not feeling thirsty, then don’t. Funny, that falls right in line with the theory of Eating Awareness … as in, gee, our body actually know how to take care of itself without the help of our intellect.
Read the text of the Dartmouth article here.