4 Things No one tells you about a Pap Smear
Quick one, before we get carried away—you need to get a pap smear if you are over the age of 21 and sexually active. There are two words in your entire existence that should never appear next to your name on a form—“cancer” and “hell”. For the latter, i feel like heaven has forms, filed in cabinets with bright colored page makers and bahhh….back to pap smears (watch me resist digressing today).
Pap smears are very important, they help to examine the health of the cervix and to screen for cellular change that may occur from the presence of Human Papillomavirus (HPV), a nuisance of a virus, known to cause cervical cancer. Pap smears are very accurate and reduce cervical cancer rates and mortality by 80%.
Fun fact: the pap smear was discovered by a man with the most upbeat name i’ve ever heard—Georgios Papanikolaou.
Many people are bothered by the fact that a face and a pair of hands are in between their spread legs during a pap smear- this really is the least of my concerns, my main concerns are listed below:
Ike’s main concerns about pap smears
- That i look a little like Spider-Man in a pastel-colored ward gown. You have to scoot down to the end of the examination table, while balancing your feet in stirrups
- That even 5 hours after, you find yourself asking "What the heck just happened down there, seriously?" Feels like a parade just walked through! (ok I'm exaggerating....but I really am not *straight face*)
- That you begin to wonder if the gynecologist can read your sex life pattern from being down there *blink* somewhat like reading palms
- That you can’t see what the doctor is actually doing, could be taking a selfie with your….*overactive mind alert*.
I’m sure you don’t have these thoughts, not unless you have an overactive mind like me, in which case, we should meet and discuss the probability of these concerns. Lol.
4 tips on how to prepare and get through a pap smear
Glad tidings, Pap smears are very brief. Here are 4 tips on how to prepare and get through unscathed-relatively unscathed.
- Avoid sex, douching and spermicides the day before
- Get a wax or go in Lioness style, completely up to you
- Take a deep breath and relax; try not to think about the pokes and scrapes
- Say the word “Papanikolaou” about 20 times, you should be done on the 18th count!
Phew! Not so bad, huh? Goodluck with experiencing "the parade" feeling for the next 5 hours!
Seriously though, you need to get a pap smear, please!
Have you had your routine check up this year? Any experiences? Tell me you have at least one of these thoughts? Let’s discuss!
Are you playing Ringer-a-ringer o'roses at the gym?
It turns out that I've been going to the gym to play ringer-a-ringer o'roses. 2-3 times a week I'd show up in my gym gear, my music blaring from my head phones, pumped and ready to go. I'd do some cardio and some strength building exercises for about 35 minutes and then kiss my biceps (like all gymnasts do) and head home.
Anyway, recently i realized that i've been doing close to nothing at the gym. I had a one-on-one session with an instructor who chatted with me about my physical training needs, took me on a tour of my gym and made work, work, work (3x). I was certain I would pass out at some point. Apparently, I hadn't been pushing myself as far as I should have. I was giving it my best -the best by my standards, which in serious gym people world is equal to ringer-a-ringer o'roses (I just learnt how to spell this, hehe).
My point is, though, you need to get the most out of your workout experience.
As with everything in life, you should have actual, achievable goals, in this case, fitness goals and build your work-out routine around these. It didn't occur to me that I needed goals until I chatted with this instructor.
Consider performing a fitness evaluation and speaking with a trainer about your needs. Remember to set your fitness goals; realistic, achievable, challenging goals. Also remember to have the right music playing and to get some other soft motivations too like gym crushes and motivation partners (wink).
Disclaimer: Soft motivations are for single people only. If you are in a relationship, bae is your soft motivation. Studies show couples who work out together attain their fitness goals like that...BAM!!!
Have you set your fitness goals? Any soft motivations? Grin.
Why You should go dancing this weekend
It's Friday, Monday's desirable cousin! What to do? Umm. Go dancing, of course. Here are 3 reasons why you should:
#1 Dancing promotes physical fitness and is a great from of aerobic exercise. Personally, it's my go-to on those days of full-fledged gym truancy (which are usually during the weekends). I turn on the TV or listen to an upbeat playlist using my headphones and dance, works like a charm.....on a treadmill.....going at 8 miles per hour.
#2 Dancing as a frequent activity is also associated with self-confidence which, you'll need on Monday morning....and really every other day....but those Monday mornings, especially. They need all the help they can get.
#3 Dancing makes you smarter by increasing the number of neural pathways in your brain and who wouldn't want that! A study shows that dancing protects against dementia, improves cognitive acuity and optimizes the use of intelligence during decision-making. After reading that, I would often remind myself to break into a dance randomly. The trick though, is to be creative with it, according to this article by Richard Powers of Stanford University.
If you don't feel like leaving your home, all you need to do is dance along to a music video or your favorite playlist. I have a video of myself dancing to Psquare's Shekini lol. It's not flattering but it sure built up those pathways, made me feel better about skipping the gym that day and probably boosted in me some self-confidence!
Are you a dance-enthusiast? How often do you dance? Are you dancing this weekend?
Do You Practice any of these 5 Eating Habits?
Apparently, you are not only what you eat, you are also how you eat. Sometimes, i wonder what all the fuss is about with eating healthy, exercising and why my Fitbit nags me all the time. I'd like to be left alone on a raft with an endless supply of food! Then i remember my health goals for 87, which is to be a hot granny! Who is with me? Here are 5 eating habits that promote healthy lifestyles. Do you already practice any of these habits? If you do, please share below!
1. Chewing slowly
Are you the last to finish at the dinner table because you chew like a snail? Apparently, it's a great habit!
Studies show that chewing slowly has tremendous health benefits. It helps to relieve stress, to maintain a healthy weight and to maximize caloric consumption! Chewing properly also takes the pressure off your gastrointestinal tract (GIT) during digestion. This is because well-masticated food digests easier and promotes GIT health.
2. The Apple test
If you already do this, you are probably on your path to several clean bills of health!
Recently, I discovered that asking myself if I'm hungry before opening the fridge might be the key to healthier eating. Eating is a response to hunger, not a hobby (this I discovered, much to my distress, sigh. Lol). Hunger and satisfaction are regulated by a mechanism in the brain, located in the hypothalamus. Excessive eating murks up this feedback process and at a point it's hard to tell if you are hungry or satiated. To know if you are hungry, ask yourself if you'd like an apple. If the answer is No, chances are that you aren't hungry. (Healthy snacks such as nuts and fruits help to manage hunger during the day in between meals)
3. Developing healthy eating habits while young
Young. Bet you are past that category, huh? According to a study at Stanford University, the most effective diets and eating habits are diets which begin when you are young. Evidence shows that developing healthy eating habits at a young age helps to increase life expectancy! This would include eating a balanced diet complete with fibers and loads of water and reduced carbonated drinks. Also see #6. Why didn't anyone tell me this years ago? Does it still count at my age? I'm young, right? In my opinion, it's never too late to begin!
4. Savoring your food
Do you take your time with your meals, consciously acknowledging all the explosive flavors that occur in your mouth?
Savoring your meals boosts your mood and helps to regulate your food portions. When we eat, our senses come alive and savoring the experience helps the brain to store it as a memory. This stored memory helps to manage portion control and binge-eating. It's the voice that tells you, 'You just ate...20 minutes ago. Ahem.'
5. Reducing TV-dinner time combo
Watching TV while eating might be killing 2 birds with the same stone; it might also be getting you progressively unhealthy. This report from Havard, shows that being distracted while eating increases food portions, which leads to weight gain and subsequently results in obesity .
Another study shows that when the event of eating is associated with the event of TV watching, then every time you switch on the TV, your brain thinks it's time to eat! This is known as habituation, the TV becomes a stimulus to the hunger center in your brain(same as in #2), which leads to overeating, an increase in caloric intake and subsequent weight gain. This is so true, we haven't used our dining table in like 2 weeks! I also find myself planning multiple snack times in my mind once I switch on the Tv! Hehe. I definitely have to dissociate those two activities.
Do you think up multi-snack opportunities while you watch TV too? Do you already practice any of these habits?
P.s I found the remote by the way! Spring cleaning rocks!
Gym Hack: The Boy at the Gym
What motivates you to go to the gym? For me, I think it's Ed and mainly guilty conscience for eating all that moist, delish Thai curry with Basmati rice and not applying any portion control methods. Actually, I do portion control but with jara*. *Blush*
For my friend, her motivation to get those running shoes on and head to the gym is a guy. Hmmm. Wink. Wink. It gets better, he's a celebrity. It gets better still, he's single....we think. Come to think of it, what if he isn't?! We don't care, that's not what we need him for.
So my friend says they keep having all those flirty eye-locks in the gym mirror. Dear single celebrity guy, thanks for inspiring my friend to hit the gym and giving her the eye. We know your workout schedule and have neatly carved her workout days around yours. She's not hoping for anything more than your cooperation in helping her attain her fitness goals by staring at her. Just staring at her.
Studies suggest that the presence of the opposite sex during workouts motivate women to work out even more, even though it's also reported that women feel a lot more self conscious in a mixed gym; but we are working with the first part, thanks studies.
It's a short-term motivational plan but it's getting the work done and she's on her way to being super fit!
Honestly, it doesn't even matter what it takes to maintain an active lifestyle; guilty conscience, celebrity Adonis', your local Justin Beiber, your significant other, just do it!. You don't have to go to the gym to be fit either. You can work out at home with videos and fitness blogs!
What gets you to the gym? What keeps you on your grind in there?
*jara- Nigerian slang for 'a little extra'
Thanks, Busola for letting me use your gist here. Muah!
Porn Lover or Hater, You should read this!
I know what you are thinking? Who talks about porn on a Tuesday morning? Well, we do! I was going to do a post on porn but then I stumbled on this post on the Art of Manliness (AoM) blog. They killed it (as always)! Therefore, i’ll just probe around this topic, just a little.
So, porn! A strangely fit guy and an unrealistically hot girl, screaming at 500 grunts a minute, the third party glued to the screen clearly trying to achieve something.....important. Now, it's a general misconception that porn improves sexual experiences and performance, not to talk of its signature gift of ungirded excitement as you successfully click on that glorious url and watch it load.
The lights are off, everyone is fast asleep, you grab your laptop and rub your hands together, that mischievous grin on your face in the dark, with a deliberate poke, you hit the power button on your laptop. It ignores your poke. Oh, the battery is completely out from your porn marathon the night before. You scramble off your bed blindly, tripping over some shoes thrown carelessly at the foot of your bed. You grab the charger, connect it to the wall and then your laptop. Your fingers are just about to hit the power button again........ NEPA cuts out the electric power.
Seriously?!
How could this be happening? How?
Well, if that ever happens to you, it might be your lucky day, for every time you skip (intentionally or unintentionally) your porn serving, you are one step closer to a healthier brain, social life and sexual life. Everyone suspects, if not knows for certain, that porn is unhealthy but it's an experience that stimulates the part of the brain which is associated with addiction, so it's a little difficult to control.
Just so you know, here are a couple effects porn may have on you:
1. The 'Fiona-Shrek' effect
Adult material is intentionally crafted to excite the viewer, right? Therefore, the women seem to look much hotter than the average next door Jane. She also looks much hotter than your wife! Hmmm...so after staring at this teeny-waisted, big breasted, Apple-buttomed porn actress (note:actress) for about 5-10 hours a week, chances are your partner will begin to look a little like shrek, complete with funnel ears! The girl on the screen, of course, is your new Fiona. This can only lead to a degradation of your relationship. Reports also show that porn use leads to increased secrecy, less intimacy and depression!
2. Joining Grandpa in the Doctor's office
Studies show that excessive porno use eventually leads to limp situations; “down” is the new “up”, if you know what I mean. More young men are seeking erectile dysfunction medication because they find it a little more difficult to get erections. I have never been in a guy’s head but i know erectile problems are probably your worst nightmare. Bo!
3. Child porn, anyone?
Over time, porn watchers become desensitized to "mainstream" pornographic material. It's just the way it is. Several people report that they start to watch material that they find repulsive but it gets them there, anyway! Gang rapes, child porn etc. Here's why, when the brain gets hit by porn, dopamine is released. The more triple x videos seen, the more the brain becomes insensitive to dopamine, the less excitement is achieved. Of course, the watcher doesn't get as excited as he used to, so he keeps clicking and digging and wading through this porn vortex seeking for the next best thing. It turns out that next best thing progresses from guy/girl combos to orgies to rapes to gang rapes to child rape , it goes on. It gets better…worse, blunted dopamine receptors lead to depression. It's that D-word again.
4. "..A is for Boobs…Duh?"
Porn leads to the weakening of the prefrontal complex which is responsible for cognitive ability, executive function, personality expression and social behavior ; decision making; thoughts and action associated with internal goals. Seriously, that just means it turns a perfectly healthy person into a person who is a little less intelligent, a little more depressed, a limp "countenance" and impaired decision-making abilities! You know we don't mess with our decision-making on PGI. Nuh-un. Don't mess with your decision making, please, please! It's your key to too many things and your avenues to several levels of fulfillment.
Stopping porn all together must be as challenging as any addiction is but here's a link on the blog, AoM that helps with that!
All the best and blow NEPA a kiss for that night!
Have you ever experienced any of these effects? The Fiona-Shrek effect especially?! Do you read the Art of manliness?
Crafted using "The Possible Pitfalls of Porn" AoM
How the Apes Plan to Take Over the World
One word. Meme-a-thons; this is how I spend my evenings, unwinding, giggling, even bawling sometimes. In the last two years, i have increasingly become a social media addict. That isn't shocking to you because you probably are an addict as well. Lol. I probably watch at the least 45 memes a day!
Well, studies show that the human brain loves being online! We love it! Our brains are like an insatiable trough that craves excitement and amusement. We are constantly looking for the next best thing, the next best meme. We are way past addiction with this internet-social media thing. In 2012, the average time spent on the Internet was about 3-5 hours, a day, now, we are spending about 5-7 hours a day!
This increased use of the internet and being perpetually transfixed on social media is now known to cause a loss of empathy, impaired decision making, and a perpetual adrenaline-high, resulting in mind fatigue.
Here's how: On either side of the cerebral hemispheres in your brain are the insular cortices. The insular controls your consciousness, emotions, empathy, cognition and interpersonal functions in general. In more practical terms, the insular controls your self-consciousness and environmental awareness; it's the reason you cry when your friend mourns, the reason you help when someone is in trouble etc. Studies now show that the increase in media-use causes a direct shrinkage of the insular!
Now here's where I'm going with this, the scary part, the ONLY other creature on earth who has access to the functionality of this insular- this ability to access these higher emotions, is the ape.
The apes show empathy, they cringe, they mourn with members of their family and friends. When a cousin ape falls into a 9-foot ditch, they don't giggle and take out their iPhones to record. When an ape kid gets hit by a car, they don't step over her and send out tweets about how they just witnessed something "absolutely crazy!" They don't have social media, so I'm guessing these apes are definitely not shrinking their insulars away, instead, probably developing this function quite extensively while we run around like zombies poking our phones and laughing intermittently at memes!
Decisions. Decisions. Moderate my nightly meme-a-thons or keep shrinking my brain and let the apes take over?
Of course, I'm not saying we should ditch social media all together, No! I love social media and all those crazy memes but I'm suggesting that we tone it down a bit and save the insular!
Imagine one morning you wake up, you hear a low grunt from the right side of your bed, it's an ape and he's wearing military gear with a side smile, he's holding your phone. He hangs it over your head, taunting you, as you would have taunted him with a banana. In a split second, he throws your phone into a large steel cage sitting in the corner of your room, you look at him, then at the phone, ....Would you jump in? Would I?
From my overactive mind.......
Quinoa+Sweetcorn with Chicken, Shrimp, Broccoli Stir-fry (a million sighs)
Remember the not-everytime-jollof-rice goal i set in January, here's me living it out! My friends gave me this recipe a year ago and I became the hugest Quinoa fan out there. It's loaded with so many Superfoods it's almost illegal.
What you need:
For the Quinoa
1 cup Quinoa (feeds 3)
1 tin of Sweetcorn
For the Stir-fry
3 tbs of olive oil
1 pound of cooked chicken (cut into medium strips)
1 medium onion (sliced)
1 clove of garlic (grated)
1 red bell pepper (sliced longitudinally)
1 green bell pepper (sliced longitudinally)
2 Scotch bonnets (optional, I use 3!)
4 cups of broccoli florets
1 cup of mushrooms
3 sticks of spring onions (chopped)
A pair of bouillon cubes
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground pepper/Cayenne pepper
Salt to taste
Go!
Cook Quinoa according to directions on box, once cooked, turn off burner and add drained Sweetcorn.
Next!
Sauté the onions and crushed garlic in the olive oil
Once the onions are translucent, add the other vegetables
Add your spices and stir
Add your chicken (and shrimp)
Stir-fry for about 4 minutes
Serve with your steamy quinoa-sweetcorn and enjoy!
Let me know if you try it out!
Thank you for the recipe Demi and Ife, the original #fitfam!