I’ve gotta say that, for the most part, my friends are pretty damn chill. There is one (major) exception, though — and it’s an odd one. Even after all these years and countless times of me giving them the same answer, if there is a time when they think they are my mama, it’s when they see an email come through at an odd hour of the night. Then, all of a sudden, here they come asking me when do I get sleep if I’m emailing at (say) three in the morning.
Again, the answer never changes because, if there is one thing that Shellie Reneé Warren is gonna get, it’s 6-8 (sometimes nine) hours of sleep. However, since my chronotype (check out “Ever Wonder What Personality Traits Make Someone A 'Morning Person'?”) means that I like/prefer to write in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes I will sleep for the night for five hours and take a nap in the day. And y’all, that is just fine with me because I am well aware of the fact that napping does everything from give me more energy, heighten my alertness and even make me more creative to decrease stress levels, strengthen immunity, and reduce my chances of experiencing a heart attack or stroke.
My problem is I will oftentimes go “overboard” with my daytime zzz’s. What I mean by that is, in order to get the most out of a nap, they say thatyou shouldn’t sleep for longer than 25 minutes or so; otherwise, you could wake up feeling sluggish (I don’t but…). Also, it can make resting, soundly, at night a bit of a struggle.
So, what are you saying, Shellie? We should get quickies in? Yeah. And it’s funny that the word “quickie” would come up because just like a sex quickie can do wonders for you (and it can — check out “12 Super Solid Reasons To Have A Quickie Every Single Day”), it’s a full-circle moment when I say that something that can improve the quality of your sex life is to have a power nap (a nap that lasts between 10-30 minutes).
Wanna know how the two things correlate? Honestly, it’s no secret that sleep and sex work together to optimize both (check out “6 Fascinating Ways Sex And Sleep Definitely Go Hand In Hand”). Today, though, we’re going to tap into how a nap, specifically, can have you partaking in some of the best sex that you’ve experienced in a minute. I’ll explain.
Naps Reduce Stress
GiphyIf you’re feeling super stressed out right now, you are not alone. There is plenty of data out here that says that most of us are stressed for at least a couple of reasons at a time — and that can impact your sexual health on a few levels. For one thing, it can bring about feelings of depression and/or anxiety. Stress can also throw your hormone levels off (including your cycle) which can weaken your libido. Stress can make you want to put distance between you and your partner (yes, literally).
Stress can also make it challenging to get aroused or to have an orgasm. And just what can help to decrease stress? Taking a nap. Since sleep has a way of helping you to “get off of the clock” and relax a bit, that can lower your stress levels and “reset” your body so that you are calmer — and that, in turn, can do wonders for your sex drive and ultimately your sex life.
Naps Improve Your Mood
GiphyThere is one person in my life, and fairly 80 percent of the time, she’s in a super good mood. Oh, but let that girl go without sleep, and…who is this woman? LOL. There’s research behind why this happens. When a person is sleep-deprived, it messes with their brain chemicals, and that can amplify emotions like anger, restlessness and sadness. In fact, one study revealed that people who had their sleep disrupted throughout the night, they ended up having their positive outlook on life reduced by about 30 percent.
And geeze, who wants to have sex when they’re not feeling very good? Anyway, since serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps to regulate your moods, your sleep patterns, and your libido and sleep is what helps to keep it in balance — by taking a nap, not only can it help you to feel better, it can also increase your desire for sex (it can also build up your endurance which is also…sexually beneficial).
Naps Increase Your Focus and Concentration
GiphySomething that some of my clients bring up is how, when it comes to having sex, sometimes the flesh is willing while the spirit is weak because, although the desire for intimacy is there, so much is going on that they aren’t able to get still enough to focus on experiencing copulation with their partner. This also tracks because, when you don’t have enough rest, your brain finds itself not working in harmony and that can make it hard to do everything from approaching life with a sense of flexibility to making necessary decisions.
Certain data also reveal that a lack of rest can cause you to have a really poor attention span and not process things in context (the more you know). So, if you really want to get some yet it’s hard for you to focus long enough to make it happen, ask your bae to lie down with you and take a nap. Between the sleep and the snuggling (check out “Fall's Coming: 8 Wonderful Health Benefits Of Cuddling”) — you may wake up with your mind and body totally on the same page. #wink
Naps Can Make You Feel Better About Your Body
GiphyEven if, overall, you feel really good about your body, I think that we all have moments when we feel less attractive than others — and who wants to have sex when they don’t really feel…very sexy? Well, something else that sleep, in general, can do is increase your confidence in your body.
For one thing, if you want to lose a few pounds, sleep can actually make that happen by helping your body metabolize the glucose (sugar) that’s in it so that you can better manage your appetite. Other studies go on to share that since sleep deprivation can impact one’s mental health and emotional stability in a negative way, of course, getting enough rest would increase body positivity.
Shoot, science even goes so far as to say that insomnia can cause people to have an elevated level of dissatisfaction when it comes to their body image. Don’t take their word for it, though. Look in the mirror before a nap. Then look in a mirror after waking up from me. Do you feel better? I’d be surprised if you don’t.
Makes Your Brain Bigger…Which Could Make Your Orgasms Better
GiphyI saved the best for last by design. Now if you’re wondering how in the world a nap can improve (and possibly increase) your orgasms — oh, there is a method to the madness…trust. For starters, the saying that your biggest sex organ is your brain? That isn’t a myth. Long story less long, the brain is what houses your central nervous system and that is what controls how men and women sexually function (yes, literally).
And since the brain also releases feel-good chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin during sex and brain activity significantly increases in women during sexual activity (especially right before she orgasms) — well, would it trip you out to know that when you take a nap, your brain actually expands? A bigger brain (that’s healthy) can potentially intensify your sexual experiences (and your climaxes) — and who doesn’t want that to go down?
____
Like I said earlier, I never have to be convinced to get a nap in. However, if your sex life has been a bit stagnant lately, you’ve been feeling a little sluggish and you’re not sure what to do — I’m hoping that a nap can get you right.
There’s enough science to prove that it can. All you need to do is give it a shot.
Now where’s your pillow and sleep mask, chile?
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While speaking to xoNecole, Eva shares that she’s a lot like the beloved 1994 character in many ways. “Lyric is so me. She's the odd flower. A flower nonetheless, but definitely not a peony,” she tells us.
“She's not the average flower you see presented, and so she reminds me of myself. I'm a sunflower, beautiful, but different. And what I loved about her character then, and even more so now, is that she was very sure of herself.
"Sure of what she wanted in life and okay to sacrifice her moments right now, to get what she knew she deserved later. And that is me. I'm not an instant gratification kind of a person. I am a long game. I'm not a sprinter, I'm a marathon.
America first fell in love with Eva when she graced our screens on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model in 2004, which she emerged as the winner. Since then, she's ventured into different avenues, from acting on various TV series like House of Payne to starring on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Je-Caryous Johnson Entertainment
Eva praises her castmates and the play’s producer, Je’Caryous for her positive experience. “You know what? Je’Caryous fuels my audacity car daily, ‘cause I consider myself an extremely audacious woman, and I believe in what I know, even if no one else knows it, because God gave it to me. So I know what I know. That is who Je’Caryous is.”
But the mom of three isn’t the only one in the family who enjoys acting. Eva reveals her daughter Marley has also caught the acting bug.
“It is the most adorable thing you can ever see. She’s got a part in her school play. She's in her chorus, and she loves it,” she says. “I don't know if she loves it, because it's like, mommy does it, so maybe I should do it, but there is something about her.”
Overall, Eva hopes that her contribution to the role and the play as a whole serves as motivation for others to reach for the stars.
“I want them to walk out with hope. I want them to re-vision their dreams. Whatever they were. Whatever they are. To re-see them and then have that thing inside of them say, ‘You know what? I'm going to do that. Whatever dream you put on the back burner, go pick it up.
"Whatever dream you've accomplished, make a new dream, but continue to reach for the stars. Continue to reach for what is beyond what people say we can do, especially as [a] Black collective but especially as Black women. When it comes to us and who we are and what we accept and what we're worth, it's not about having seen it before. It's about knowing that I deserve it.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Fortunately, five simple words have simplified my dating process and ushered in clarity faster: “Would my husband do this?”
A couple of years ago, I met an entertainment lawyer who was tonguing down a twenty-something-year-old woman for breakfast while I slurped my green smoothie and chomped on a flatbread sandwich. Okay, Black love, I grinned and thought as I sauntered out of the Joe & The Juice. As soon as I stepped down from the front door, a torrential downpour of Miami summer rain cascaded and throttled me back inside to wait out the storm.
I grabbed a hot green tea and vacillated between peering out the wet door and anxiously checking my watch. My lengthy agenda started with attending the Tabitha Brown and Chance Brown’s “Black Love” panel, and I was already late. That’s when the lawyer introduced himself to me, after he made a joke about neither one of us wanting to get soaked by the rain. His female companion had braved the storm, leaving us to find our commonalities.
We both lived in L.A. and had traveled to the American Black Film Festival to expand our network. He represented various artists, including entertainment writers, while I was working as a writer/creative producer in Hollywood.
While there is no shortage of internet advice on how to strategically meet a prominent man at conferences, if I spend my hard-earned funds on career growth, I have tunnel vision, and that doesn’t include finding Mr. Right. So, I stowed his contact details away as strictly professional.
Keep It Cute Love And Hip Hop GIFGiphyAs the humidity and mosquitoes were rising around L.A., two months later, another suitor-turned-terrible match cooled off after three unimpressive dates and a bevy of red flags. I posted what some of my friends called a thirst trap, but it was really me wearing a black freakum jumpsuit with a plunging neckline to my friend’s 35th birthday soiree despite feeling oh, so unsexy and bloated on my cycle.
I’d been waiting to post a sassy caption and finally had the perfect picture to match: “You not asking for too much, you just asking the wrong MF.”
That’s when the entertainment lawyer swooped into my DMs and asked me to dinner. I was quite confused. Is he asking me on a date? Or is this professional? Common sense would’ve picked the former. Once it clicked that this would in fact be a date, I told my mentor, who’s been happily married for over twenty years and has often been a guiding light and has steered me away from the wrong men.
Upon telling him about how we met, he emphatically stated, “He ain’t it.” He followed up with a simple question, "You have to ask yourself: Would my husband do this? Would you tell others that you met your husband, tonguing down another woman, and later married him?"
Aint It No Way GIF by UFCGiphyOuch. The thought-provoking question cleared any haze. Prior to going out with the lawyer, the first thing I inquired about was the woman.
“You saw that?” He said, taken aback that I’d witnessed his steamy PDA. Surely, anyone with two open eyes peeped him caressing her backside as he kissed her in the middle of the coffee shop.
He brushed her off as a casual someone he’d gone on a couple of dates with but had since stopped talking to. He said he hadn’t been in a serious relationship in over three years. Though I was still doubtful, dating in L.A. is treacherous and ephemeral. Making it past three months is considered a rarity.
With my antennae alert, I dined with him at a cozy beachside steakhouse restaurant where we were serenaded by a live jazz band. I’d emphasized forming a platonic friendship first.
Break Up Friendship GIF by TLCGiphy“I’ll come to you,” he obliged. I liked that he had made me a priority by driving over 50 miles to see me. I also liked the effort he made to check in with me daily. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he initiated on a professional pretense and then alley hooped through the back door on a romantic venture, which bombarded me with confusion.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my dating life, God is not the author of confusion; any man who brings confusion, rather than clarity, is simply not The One. It doesn’t matter how many boxes he checks–eventually, that confusion will manifest itself into bigger problems, in time.
After diving into deeper conversations on the phone, post our first dinner date, I quickly realized this man was indeed not The One for me. But I’m grateful for the valuable lesson I learned.
I don’t expect some unattainable fairytale of a husband; we all have our own flaws and conflict is inevitable, but after dating for two decades, through failure and success, I’ve realized that the person I ultimately marry must mirror the values I exert into the world. He must reciprocate kindness, patience, and respect. He must be quick to listen and slow to respond. He needs to be forgiving and trustworthy, practice healthy communication, and be a man of his word at the bare minimum.
If I’d had “Would my husband do this?” in my toolbox when I was dating and floundering in stagnant relationships, in my twenties, it would’ve saved me a lot of precious time. But now that I’m equipped with the reminder, it’s allowed me to ground myself in my non-negotiables and set/maintain the standard for the special person, I’ll one day say, “I do,” to.
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