Sleep On Your Stomach For Sexier Dreams

Are you stomach sleeper?  If yes, You are tend to have more sexier dreams than you have in other sleeping positions , as per one study conducted by a researcher of  Hong Kong. 

A dream researcher of Shue Yan University, Hong Kong, Mr. Calvin Kai-Ching Yu, has done a research on impact of your sleep position on dreams.  He surveyed 670 participants, mostly university students, two-thirds of whom were females. The participants had to answer for many questions based on the intensities of their dreams, specific themes of dreams and personality traits. It also included the sleep position on bed i.e. their sides, face up, face down etc.  The conclusions are drawn on the basis the Dream Intensity Scale, Dream Motif Scale, NEO Five-Factor Inventory, and Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale. The study report s indicate that sleeping in the prone position may promote dreaming of sexual, erotomaniac, and persecutory material, such as themes involving “having a sexual relationship with a big wheel or celebrity,” “being smothered, unable to breathe,” “being locked up,” and “being tied, unable to move.”

According to the study, sleep position has great impact on the contents of dreams. According to Kai-Ching Yu that prone position provides more intense physical stimulus, for example, making our bodies feel more constricted. He further added “the unconscious brains of the dreamers try to make sense, and even make use of, the external stimuli. It’s something like the dreams we have – common across cultures – when we have to urinate. We’re sleeping, but the pressure begins influencing our dream content so we start dreaming about bathrooms, or having to go. Also, when we’re face down, our genitals are receiving more stimulus from the bed and sheets, he speculates, so our brains incorporate that into sex-related dreaming.”

But from this research we cannot finally conclude any theory, because the problems with dream-related researches calling the dreams accurately and describing them as you have seen. And it is difficult to tell which sleep position you were, while you dreaming. Often it goes wrong.  Any way you can try by yourself to sleep in various positions and check what kinds of dreams you are getting? Sweet  Dreams!!

Health Benefits of Mindfulness Practices

Specific types of "mindfulness practices" including Zen meditation have demonstrated benefits for patients with certain physical and mental health problems, according to a report in the July Journal of Psychiatric Practice. 

"An extensive review of therapies that include meditation as a key component -- referred to as mindfulness-based practices -- shows convincing evidence that such interventions are effective in the treatment of psychiatric symptoms and pain, when used in combination with more conventional therapies," according to Dr William R. Marchand of the George E. Wahlen Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Mindfulness Techniques Show Health Benefits Dr Marchand reviewed published studies evaluating the health benefits of mindfulness-based practices. Mindfulness has been described as "the practice of learning to focus attention on moment-by-moment experience with an attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance." Put another way, "Practicing mindfulness is simply experiencing the present moment, without trying to change anything."

The review focused on three techniques:

• Zen meditation, a Buddhist spiritual practice that involves the practice of developing mindfulness by meditation, typically focusing on awareness of breathing patterns.

• Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), a secular method of using Buddhist mindfulness, combining meditation with elements of yoga and education about stress and coping strategies.

• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), which combines MBSR with principles of cognitive therapy (for example, recognizing and disengaging from negative thoughts) to prevent relapse of depression.

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Deep-Voiced Men don't have Macho Sperm

A low-pitched voice in a man is associated with a litany of masculine traits: dominance, strength, greater physical size, more attractiveness to women, and so on. But new research strikes one trait off that list: virility.

An Australian study looked at male voice pitch, women's perceptions of it, and semen quality. Their first finding was no surprise: Women like deep voices and consider them masculine.

But contrary to expectations, they also found that these men aren't better off in the semen department. In fact, by one measure of sperm quality — sperm concentration in ejaculate — men with the attractive voices appeared to have a disadvantage.

This is a surprise because females, both humans and of other species, are believed to glean information about male virility through secondary sexual traits, such as facial hair and muscle mass in humans and other traits in other animals, such as colorful plumage in birds.

In the case of voice pitch, the researchers from the University of Western Australia suggest there may be a trade-off at work. In other words, traits associated with dominance and attractiveness, such as physical strength or a deep voice, may come at the cost of reduced sperm quality, they write in a study published Dec. 22 in the journal PLoS ONE.

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Breast-feeding keeps women thinner, even decades later

While breast-feeding is advised partly as a way to help new mothers lose weight, it may help keep their weight down even decades later, a new study from Britain suggests.

Researchers found that women who had children tended to have higher body mass indexes later in life than did women with no children; however, the researchers were able to associate every six months of breast-feeding  with a 0.22 drop in BMIs among the women in their 50s and early 60s.

This translates to a 1 percent drop in BMIs for every six months of breast-feeding, the researchers said.

"We already know breast-feeding is best for babies, and this study adds to a growing body of evidence that the benefits extend to the mother as well, even 30 years after she’s given birth," said study researcher Dr. Kirsty Bobrow, a researcher at the University of Oxford.

Producing breast milk requires energy, often burning up to 500 calories per day, explained Cheryl Lovelady, a professor of nutrition and a breast-feeding expert at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. "If you didn’t change your calorie intake at all, you’re losing a pound a week," she said.

The study was published July 10 in the International Journal of Obesity.

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On-screen smoking may motivate teens for Smoking

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Youth who watch a lot of movies with cigarette-smoking characters - whether the films are rated R or PG-13 - are more likely to start smoking themselves, researchers suggest in a new study out Monday. 

The report's lead author said the finding supports the idea that it's the smoking itself - and not the sex, profanity or violence that may go along with it in certain films - that influences youth to take up the habit. 

"Movie smoking seems to be just as impactful if it's packaged in a PG-13 movie as opposed to an R movie," said Dr. James Sargent, from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

"I really think it's a 'cool' factor. The more they see it, the more they start to see ways that (smoking) might make them seem more movie-star," he told Reuters Health - even if the effect is subconscious. 

Sargent and his colleagues counted how many times a character was seen smoking in each of over 500 box-office hits from recent years. Then, they asked 6,500 U.S. kids ages 10 to 14 which of a random selection of 50 of those movies they'd watched.

The average "dose" of movie smoking was 275 scenes from films rated PG-13 and 93 scenes from R movies, the researchers reported in Pediatrics.

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