Erectile dysfunction (ED) is not really uncommon as it seems because it is said that one in five men will experience it under varying severity. This literally means that 20% of the male population will have some sort of erectile dysfunction. If you are included among those 20%, you can call yourself very unfortunate because the condition deprives you of having a normal sex life. Nevertheless, you can still consider yourself very fortunate, even if you have ED, because you now live in an age where the condition can be temporarily treated so you can fulfill not just your sexual needs, but the sexual needs of your partner as well.
There are different types of medications used in treating ED, such as sildenafil (Viagra), vardenafil, avanafil, and tadalafil. However, even though they are different, all of them are classified as PDE5 inhibitor drugs. What this means is that even if these ED drugs have different active ingredients, their main course of action is still the same and that is the relaxing of the smooth muscles covering the penis to make blood be pumped effectively into the cavity within the penis in order to achieve an erection. Read more…
Lately, I’ve been giving them a lot of thought.
First, my yoga teacher is always including toes in her instructions. Lift them off the ground (one at a time). Spread them. Plant them back on your mat (one at a time). It takes awhile to learn to control them – they’re so often ignored. Second, I was reading a book about a woman who had a stroke and was paralyzed on her left side, including all her toes. She was explaining the rehabilitation process and talking about the fact that she realized – once she could no longer use them – how important toes are for balance and for pushing off of when walking. Third, I just so happened to be reading the book passage while I was getting a pedicure (a gift from my husband).
So toes were on my mind.
For most of my life I didn’t pay attention to them. And when I got older I would shove them into cold, hard pointy shoes. In turn, that led to foot cramps. The cramps would attack in the middle of the night and hurt so bad I’d cry. But when I started practicing yoga, I noticed my foot cramps disappeared. I decided to give my feet the love they deserved. In addition to yoga, I began wearing comfortable shoes. And from time to time, I’d get a pedicure. I stopped painting my nails awhile ago (to avoid the harsh chemicals), but today I made a special exception.
I picked a color – Dutch Tulips – in honor of spring.
When they were red and shiny, I wiggled them and smiled. Thankful for my toes.
A few weeks ago I was in Tulum, Mexico for a week of yoga, meditation and silent beach walks. I arrived at night after everyone else had gone to sleep. Inside my cabana two flickering candles revealed a comfy bed draped in mosquito netting with a welcome card on the pillow. I picked up the card and read what was written. Holding it next to my heart I smiled. Then I crawled under the covers and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning as I was journaling in my notebook, I thought about the card and scribbled down what it had said: You are worth loving. I had a funny feeling that what I wrote wasn’t quite right, so I went back to my cabana to double-check. Sure enough, I had misquoted the card. It actually read: I am worth loving.
Notice the difference?
Why is it so easy to believe others are worth loving, but so hard to believe it about ourselves? Why is it difficult to say? To know? To live?
This isn’t a narcissistic kind of love; rather, it’s a “love your neighbor as yourself” kind of love. Eating mindfully, treating ourselves with kindness, practicing yoga — these are ways we can love ourselves by being stewards of our body and soul.
I began practicing yoga years ago after watching my then-boyfriend (now husband) ease into a backbend with grace. To this day I still can’t do that, but it doesn’t matter because self-love is about accepting myself for who I am, not what I can achieve. I will be blogging about yoga twice a week for the Eat Wasa Feel Good team (my partner, Zandria, introduced herself yesterday as the vegan blogger).
So here’s a warm welcome to you, loved one, and an invitation to join me on this journey. Feel free to post comments, questions or ideas. You can also e-mail me or visit my personal blog, Roughly Speaking.
Oh, by the way, my name is Jenny. And I am worth loving.
Erectile dysfunction (ED) is easily the worst woe that a man will ever encounter as he no longer has the capacity to please both himself and his partner. Fortunately, ED medications are aplenty with tadalafil being the most popular amongst couples. However, when it comes to buying ED medications, is it better to go for branded or generic?
If you are not familiar with generic drugs, the name that identifies a generic drug is usually the active ingredient that the treatment has. For generic tadalafil, it means that tadalafil is the active ingredient of the drug. Usually, generic drugs are derived from branded drugs, the likes that had spent a lot of money in the research and development of the medication. Normally, they are given several years of rights as sole maker and distributor of the drug to make up for the cost of the drug’s R&D. In the case of generic tadalafil, it is Eli Lilly that did research as well as manufacturing of the drug Cialis – the branded version of generic tadalafil. Like all drugs though, no manufacturer has sole rights to the making and distribution of the medication for a very long time which is why the ingredients used in the making of the drug are released and generic drug manufacturers are able to copy them and resell the drug for their own, provided of course they pay royalty as well as sell the drug only as generic in name. Read more…
