8 Things You're Not Doing After Sex That You Should Be

There’s a lot of literature out there about what to do before having sex and what to do during sex. (And we mean a lot of literature.) And hopefully, all of this advice has given you more confidence in approaching and executing the horizontal mambo.

But once the dance is over and you’ve both taken your final bow, it can get a little bit awkward. In movies or porn, you often see couples lying in bed after sex, their chests heaving in sweaty ecstasy, before cutting to the next scene. But there are a lot of other details to consider after sex that can make or break a successful sexual encounter.

10 Things Every Guy Should Do While He's Still Single

Bachelorhood shouldn't just be about nights out followed by days hungover on the couch. The ultimate perk of being single is having nobody to answer to. Do you really want to squander that precious free time by binging shows and getting all of your meals delivered? The only person standing in your way is you.

TRAVEL ALONE
Whether you’re more of an urban explorer or a beach bum, traveling alone is a great way to achieve the peace of mind that most people are seeking on vacation. There’s a lot of pleasure to take out of being entirely on your own schedule for a few days and filling that time however you see fit. It also gives you an opportunity to break out of your social comfort zone and meet a few fellow tourists.

5 Things That Secretly Make Her Horny

Sure, there are obvious things a woman can do to indicate she's interested in more than just your personality, like finding excuses to brush up against you at the bar. But what about the more subtle signs that let you know she means business? Here are five surprising things that boost her arousal—and how you can take advantage of each one.

1. ROLLER COASTERS.
Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Research from the University of Texas at Austin shows that people who have just stepped off a roller coaster find the opposite sex more attractive. The study found that symptoms of physiological arousal—like heavy breathing and increased heart rate—tend to linger without our knowledge after any adrenaline-pumping activity, intensifying perception of attractiveness.

8 Things That Wreck Your Erection

Boners are all about blood flow. So your heart—the organ that pumps your blood—has to be in tip-top shape for you to have A-plus erections.

Anything that puts strain on your ticker, like being overweight or smoking, also tends to take lead out of your pencil.

Testosterone is the second factor that's crucial to a strong erection, and there are plenty of weird things that screw with its production. All the items on this list can mess with your manhood:

1. Grocery receipts. The types of thermal paper and ink used for most supermarket receipts contain high levels of bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical that increases your body’s production of the female hormone estrogen. And that estrogen boost—along with some other BPA-triggered hormonal changes—harms your hardness, finds a study from Kaiser Permanente.

5 Things Losing Weight Will Never Fix

Think losing weight will make you happier, more confident, and kick-ass at work? Well, it doesn't really work like that...

That's something Kelsey Miller, author of Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting And Got A Life, learned the hard way. “I used to tell myself, 'You can do this when you’ve lost X pounds.' That feeling was holding me back in my career and my friendships—it even stopped me from leaving the house," she says.

“The message that weight loss will fix our problems surrounds us,” says clinical psychologist Terese Weinstein Katz, Ph.D., author of the ebook Eat Sanely: Get Off The Diet Roller Coaster For Good. “There’s a fantasy that thin people are ultimately happier.”

While losing weight might make you feel unstoppable at first (and possibly improve your overall health), there are a few issues that dropping pounds definitely won't resolve. So before you set a goal weight, make it your mission to work out the kinks now—not post weight-loss success.

5 Amazing Things Your Brain Does While You Sleep

We spend a third of our lives sleeping, an activity as crucial to our health and well-being as eating. But exactly why we need sleep hasn't always been clear. We know that sleep makes us feel more energized and improves our mood, but what's really happening in the brain and body when we're at rest?

Research has identified a number of reasons that sleep is critical to our health. When we're sleeping, the brain is anything but inactive. In fact, during sleep, neurons in the brain fire nearly as much as they do during waking hours -- so it should come as no surprise that what happens during our resting hours is extremely important to a number brain and cognitive functions.

Here are five incredible things your brain does while you're asleep -- and good reason to get some shuteye tonight:

4 Things to Do Today to Sleep Better Tonight

In a perfect world, your dozing hours look something like this: As you kill the lights, receptors in your eyes signal your body to prep for the sandman. Your brain releases the snooze-inducing hormone melatonin, slows your heart rate, reduces your body temp, and puts a stop order on stimulating stress hormones like cortisol. After you fall asleep, you oscillate between light and deep slumber every 60 to 90 minutes; it's in the latter stage that your cells may fight off illness and recover from injury.

But if you had a hectic day, stress can trigger your brain to pump out excess cortisol, which may hurt your ability to power down, says Natalie Dautovich, Ph.D., an environmental scholar at the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). That means tossing and turning and a racing mind (Is my bank account overdrawn? Is my relationship on the rocks?). It also means you won't reach the deeper, restorative phases of sleep. Come morning, you feel like a vengeful member of The Walking Dead.

6 Things You Didn’t Realize Totally Turn Her On

You can pull out all the stops to get her to like you—dates, flowers, even romantic strolls on the beach. Wouldn’t it be great, though, if you could get her to like you without even trying—or at least, not trying quite so hard? Well, good news: being her Casanova need not be so hard. Read on to find out the six ways you’re turning her on just by being regular ol’ you.

You wear red every now and then
A study from the University of Rochester found that simply wearing red makes a man more attractive and sexually desirable to women. The reason? It makes you appear more powerful. Plus, it’ll have her giving you a double-take. “Red is one of the colors that, depending on the background contrast, causes longer orienting reflexes, in which you look abruptly at a novel feature in the environment,” says Jim Pfaus, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Concordia University. “So wearing red could get her to look at you.”

15 Things She’s Thinking When You’re Naked

Okay, let’s get something out of the way first: she’s probably not comparing you to Brad Pitt. “Women don’t pick apart your naked self as much as you might imagine,” says psychologist Jill Weber, Ph.D, author of Having Sex, Wanting Intimacy. “They’re less aroused by a naked male body than they are by depictions of actual sex activity.”

But while the butt-naked you may not be hitting the same arousal buttons as her bared bod does in your eyes, you can be sure that she is checking you out nonetheless. All of you. “Studies tracking eye movement show women give men the once-over physically just as much as men do women,” says sex columnist and author Tracey Cox. So when you drop trou in her presence, keep the following intel in mind:

4 Things You Think Turn Her On—That Don't

Your girlfriend's libido

  doesn't just have an on/off switch. She requires a slow build—which means there's plenty of time for mistakes. And no matter how well you think you know her hot buttons, there's a good chance a few moves in your repertoire are actually squelching her sex drive. "Men often assume women are turned on by the same things they are," says Brandy Engler, Ph.D., a Los Angeles-based sex therapist and author of The Men on My Couch. That's your first misstep—and unfortunately, it can lead to many more.  

The Surprising Things Women Choose Over Sex

By Vanessa Golembewski, Refinery29

It's taken us a long time, but we think the population at large is finally convinced that women not only want, but enjoy sex. Wild, right? But, according to a new study by British beauty brand Sanctuary Spa, women do have a very interesting set of priorities. The data from the study reveals that 55 percent of women surveyed chose skin moisturizer over their sex life. Ninety-four percent also chose watching the newest episode of Downton Abbey over sex, too.

8 Things Men Wish Women Knew About Sex

By Diana Kelly
Chances are you would never tell your best friend’s boyfriend what she’s spilled to you about their sack sessions—and for good reason (um, awkward!). Sex therapists, however, are more loose-lipped, at least when it comes to sharing guys’ secrets that will strengthen your relationship and make for even hotter sex. Learn what he’s dishing out behind that closed door and how you can use that knowledge to make both of you happier, in and out of bed.