Photo by Darrell Eager
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Leapin’ Libido
By Melissa Gotthardt, July & August 2006
Get your motor running, the natural way
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Has your sex drive hit the skids? You may not need to turn to pills for an answer. Scientists have discovered some easy, do-it-yourself strategies that can turn the heat back up.
Feed Your Sweetie The smell of sugary foods stimulates sexy feelings, according to Alan Hirsch, M.D., author of Scentsational Sex (Element, 1998). Inhaling the aroma of doughnuts increased blood flow to men's genitals in one Hirsch study, while banana bread triggered a similar rush in women. For a treat you can both benefit from, try black licorice.
Break a Sweat Twenty minutes of aerobic exercise spurred significant increases in women's responses to sexual stimuli, researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver found. And exercising three to four days a week upped the frequency (and satisfaction) of sex for men in a classic University of San Diego study.
Banish TV Couples without TVs in their bedrooms had sex an average of seven times a month, in a recent Italian study, compared with four times a month for those with bedroom TVs. Content may play a role: violent films put the kibosh on sex for half of couples; reality shows, for one third. (For us, it's Howie Mandel on Deal or No Deal.)
Do the Dishes Guys who help out with the housework are seen as sexier by their partners and—surprise!—have more sex as a result, says Barbara Bartlik, M.D., a psychiatrist and sex therapist at Cornell University's Weill Medical College in New York City.
Snuggle Up Even nonsexual contact like handholding can prompt the release of oxytocin, the so-called love hormone: it sparks sexual arousal, relaxes you, and increases sensitivity to touch.
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