Spritual / Philosophical Health

Some people believe that good health also includes a feeling that one's behavior is in rhythm with one's basic values (mensana in coporesano). This feeling may also include a sense that life has meaning and is worth-while, a sense of awe at the beauty and majesty of nature, or just a deep tranquility when you sit by yourself and ponder.

Health is partly a matter of personal values and preferences: Some people feel healthy only if they get at least an hour of strenuous exercise four or five times a week; others get depressed and fatigued unless they spend at least an hour a day with friends, no matter what other obligations are looming.

The ingredients for health also vary with one's age and physical status. A twenty-year-old woman may want to be able to run four miles a day, an eighty-year-old woman may satisfied with her physical health if she is able to walk a mile a day. The key is: Both these individuals have good health if they are able to do most of the things they want to do in their everyday lives, with a minimum of stress.
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When is a "Sexual Problem" Really a Problem

People inevitably compare their own sexual experiences with those they learn about in popular fiction or the media. As a result, many pick up distorted ideas about their own sexuality and about what constitutes a sexual problem.


Non Problems
Many people believe that a man should be able to achieve an erection and maintain it as long as he likes without ejaculating, that women should always have orgasms at least some of the time, or that neither a woman can be sexually satisfied without orgasm.

Other believe that touching, holding, and kissing should always be foreplay for intercourse, or that sexual aroused without orgasm is somehow physically or emotionally unhealthy. Such beliefs are mistaken and can themselves cause problems.

Each person needs to learn that he or she is the best judge of his or her own sexual experience. Simply touching, holding, and kissing, for example, may be quite satisfying and even exciting without any other sexual activity. Orgasm need not be the single good of sexual arousal, and it is perfectly normal for some people to dislike some sexual practice or methods of stimulation that other enjoy.

Real Problems
A couple may have a real problem, however, if both partners find lovemaking consistently unsatisfying, painful, or even distasteful. Similarly, if sex is being forced on one partner or used by one partner to exploit the other, the couple has a problem.

One person need not always dominate the experience, and while love-making may not be sensational every time, both people should desire sexual activity and get pleasure from it. Consistently with holding sex be a form of hostility or a sign of an unconscious power struggle in the relationship. Serious sexual problem also arise when one partner constantly makes the other feel inferior, unattractive, or unsexy.

When such problem persist, they can undermine a relationship. If the couple can't resolve them by talking to each other, a therapist may be able to help. The therapist may get to root of lingering unconscious difficulties that one or both partners may be having related to earlier experiences, or may see unnoticed problems in the current relationship.

Sexual love can be a celebration of a relationship, but only when the partners are truly in tune. Communicating their needs and expressing their affection for each other without the context of healthy relationship.

Source: Mary S. Calderone and Eric W. Johnson, The Family about Sexuality (New York:Harper & Row, 1981) pp. 166-171
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How Emotion Develop Throughout Our Lives

We’re all born with the capacity to experience emotions. This trait is something we’ve probably inherited from our animal ancestors. By the end of the first year, a child has identifiable, complex human emotions, including love, fear, aand fascination. These occur in children all over the world at roughly the same age, a fact that shows that early emotions are maturational – that is, they are linked to physical development rather than learned.

Yet despite this universality, specific events will trigger emotions of different intensity, depending on the child’s environment. A child in a small, isolated village tend to be more disturbeb by seeing a stranger than a child of the same age who lives in a large city. Variations can even be found among children with the same genetic background if they are raised differently. Zaslow found that at the age of eighteen months, Israeli children raised communally on a kibbutz were just as shy as children of similar genetic backround raised at home. But by age two, the kibbutz children played with others more readily than those with a more traditional home life.

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Emotional and Physical Health: Is there any connnection?

Our physical health is closely related to our emotional health. Have you ever had a stomach ache caused by the prospect of going to the dentist? Have you ever gotten a tension headache after dealing with a cranky two-year-old child all afternoon? If so, you know the close connection between feelings in the mind and feelings in the body. Feeling bad emotionally may make you feel bad physically.

Conversely, if you feel well emotionally you may be able to help yourself feel better physically. Surgeons routinely evaluate their patients’ emotional states before their operate on them, because they have learned that these emotionaal states can have an important impact on the patient’s chances for recovery. In a well-known case, writer and editor Norman Cousins used laughter and positive attitude – good emotional health, in other words – to recover from a degenerative spinal disease that physicians were unable to treat. Improving one’s emotional health can sometimes be a powerful tool in the treatment of physical disease.

How does the connection between mind and body work? Scientists know about some of the links in the chain. First of all, it is widely accepted today that our emotions, which we may think we experience “in our minds”, are actually physical states. Let’s examine what happens to our bodies when we experience an emotion.

Source: Marvin R. Levy, Mark Dignan, Janet H. Shirreffs
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"The Birth Control"

The practice of birth control prevents conception, thus limiting reproduction. The term birth control was coined by Margaret Sanger in 1914, usually refers specifically to methods contraception, including sterilization.

Ttemps to control fertility have been going on for thousands of years. Several modern method of birth control are practiced by creating a barrier between the sperm and the egg cell. Condoms also help protect against the spread of venereal disease.

Even in ancient times, attempts were made to find a medicine that would prevent a woman's body from producing a baby. Researchers tried to find something that would work similarly in a woman's cervix. The earliest such objects were made of metal and were held in by prongs. Later, wire rings were placed beyond the cervix, in the uterus itself, thus giving rise to the term intrauterine device, or IUD.

Today, most IUD are made of plastic. Some types are combinations of plastic and copper, and must be replaced periodically. Unless a problem arises with their use, all plastic IUDs may be left in place until pregnancy is desired. Sometimes IUDs cause uterine infection, and the most common disturbance is bleeding. Millions of women have chosen IUDs, because of the low risk in using compared to their proven effectiveness and the convenience of continuous contraception.
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