3 Success Tips for Generating Your Most Brilliant Ideas

• Select a capture tool, and use it. Ideas can strike when you least expect it. Don’t let it slip through your fingers. Capture ideas on the spot by selecting your favorite tool – a stack of 3×5 cards, an idea notebook, or a Google Drive document on your tablet or laptop. You can even text the idea to yourself on your smart phone. Select a capture tool now so you’re ready when an idea pops.   

• Set up a judgment-free zone when brainstorming. As you write your ideas digitally or on paper, let every thought to be expressed. No editing. It shuts down the creative process. Setting up a judgment-free space opens your stream of consciousness, allowing new ideas to flow.

•  Spark ideas through playful activity. Invite your team to toss around a ball or small toy. As each person catches it, they must share an idea on the spot, as a designated recorder jots it down. This simple game helps people draw out creative ideas. While not all ideas will fly, your team is likely to come up with a few brilliant thoughts that can turn into the next big thing for your department, brand, or business.

Good Food, Good Wine, Good Sex… Goodbye

Yes, it’s a loaded title, with a meaning much different than it might seem. It’s for women who want to design the second half of life to be even more successful, vibrant and fulfilling than the first. Many of my female clients are high powered, type-A, masters of the universe personalities who are brilliant but time-starved, accomplished but exhausted. I see talented women, making a difference in so many ways, in need of reevaluating to make sure they’re heading where they most want to go.
To enjoy the good things that life has to offer, we women need to say goodbye to habits and attitudes holding us back from enjoying fulfilling experiences. There are four main areas every women needs to explore to have breakthroughs in success, fulfillment, and peace of mind.
GOOD FOOD
“Good Food” represents body image. No good can come from comparison to an airbrushed ideal of the perfect body. Even supermodels don’t look like their photos in real life! Does your current body image help or hinder you?
You can improve your body-image regardless of imperfections. One way to do that is to look at every body part with compassion. Acknowledge your body, just the way it is, for carrying you through life. You wouldn’t be here without it!
If you’re so busy you’re fueling your body on caffeine and adrenaline, imagine feeding your body, mind, and soul what would truly keep you active and engaged.
We women take really good care of what we love and it’s time to make peace with the changes our bodies go through during the different phases of life. As we give up criticizing our size and shape, we’re more present to taking better care of ourselves and enjoying good food without feeling guilty.
GOOD WINE
“Good Wine” represents enjoying the finer things in life. Finer doesn’t have to mean expensive. Do you allow yourself to enjoy quality experiences?
I have a friend who moved to a new home that had an enormous Jacuzzi in it.  She lived there for three years and only used the tub twice! Can you relate? I can. There’ve been times when I would have loved to light candles at the dinner table, put on soft music, or read a really good book.  Instead, I either found something to clean, or numbed out in front of the TV watching mindless reruns after a hard day’s work.
We deserve to enjoy quality moments in life. We are worth taking time out to meditate, walk, or lose ourselves doing something fun simply because we enjoy it. We need to create the time for ourselves to enjoy simple pleasures – to pour the wine, light the candles and soak in the bath.
We also need to create quality moments each day to celebrate what’s going right and all that we accomplish.
GOOD SEX
“Good Sex” means more than the obvious. It’s about unleashing our loving, feminine nature, even when hormonal changes take place at various stages in our lives. It’s the emotions we feel when we watch a sunrise, or see a work of art, and the sensations we feel when gliding moisturizer over our arms and face.
It’s the pleasure of moving our bodies in dance. We are sensual beings. When we live in the mystery and power of our sensuality, even simple things become pleasurable.
Whether we’re with a partner or not, feeling feminine awakens passion and vitality. It opens the door to creating intimate, connected relationships with the people we care about.
To enjoy good food, good wine, and good sex, we sometimes need to say:
GOODBYE!
Say goodbye to ways of doing things that worked well at one time, and no longer serves you today. Say goodbye to self-doubt and start trusting yourself. Say goodbye to putting yourself last, and settling for a life that doesn’t suit you, and sprinkle those things you’d love to do into your calendar. Say goodbye to stopping yourself from being self-expressed and fulfilling your dreams.

Stress is no good for your sex life

Research has recently shown what experience has unfortunately proven time and time again: Stress is not good for your sex life. But it's not just because your mind isn't in the mood — it's because of the way your body handles too much stress, finds a recent study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The study divided a sample of women into two groups — a high-stress group and an average-stress group — then measured their levels of arousal while they watched an erotic video. The women in the high-stress group showed lower levels of genital arousal, higher levels of distraction, and higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which researchers hypothesize contributed to decreased physical arousal. In other words, when your brain is buzzing with to-do lists and should-have-dones, your below-the-belt area isn't primed to operate at peak performance.

Ironically, the best way to take action is to get some action. "Orgasm is an amazing natural stress reliever," says Joan Price, a sex expert, creator of NakedAtOurAge.com and author of "Naked At Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex." "Whether it's with a partner or by yourself with a toy, having sex will give you a physiological release that will make you feel better." It may sound easier said than done (after all, the last thing you need is one more thing on your to-do list). That's why Price suggests these simple steps to ensure that your sex life doesn't suffer, even when you're stressed.

More From Today: The Surprising Reasons You're Tired All the Time

Exercise. Not only is exercise a well-known stress reducer, but it increases blood flow, including to the genital area, explains Price. Consider yoga, since studies have found that a regular yoga practice may increase sexual arousal and lubrication.

Ask for a back rub. Even if you're not in the mood, skin-on-skin contact is crucial for stress relief. Not only does massage lower stress hormones, but the intimacy of the experience keeps you and your partner connected. It may even be the trigger you need to actually get into bed together. "People think that desire has to come before the physiological response, but that's not the case," says Price. "That's especially true for women and men in mid-life, when they're not driven by hormones." So start with an innocent rub down, then let your partner know if you're in the mood for more.

Put it on the calendar. A sex date may seem absurd — especially if your slammed schedule is the cause of your stress — but putting it in writing will make it more likely to happen. It'll also help get your brain and body in sync. "Thinking about what lingerie you'll wear, whether you're going to try a toy, and what you want to do ignites your anticipation and can start the physiological response of arousal," says Price. So get that hot date in mind and get ready to chill out.

Men and women have different regrets after sex

AUSTIN — Men most often regret not having sex with more people while women frequently regret having sex with the wrong partner, according to a recently released study.

The study from researchers at the University of Texas and University of California, Los Angeles aimed to show that the feeling of regret is part of the evolutionary process when it comes to reproduction, the University of Texas said on Monday.

"For men throughout evolutionary history, every missed opportunity to have sex with a new partner is potentially a missed reproduce opportunity — a costly loss from an evolutionary perspective," said Martie Haselton, a UCLA social psychology professor who worked on the study.

The three main regrets for men: being too timid to approach a possible partner, not being more sexually adventurous when young and not being more sexually adventurous in their single days.

The main regrets for women include losing their virginity to the wrong partner, cheating on a present or past partner and moving too fast sexually.

"The consequences of casual sex were so much higher for women than for men, and this is likely to have shaped emotional reactions to sexual liaisons even today," Haselton said in a statement.

More women than men included "having sex with a physically unattractive partner" as a top regret.

The report was based on three studies with a total of about 25,000 people and the findings were published in the current issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, an academic journal. 

Sexed-up seniors do it more than you'd think

An unprecedented study of sex and seniors finds that many older people are surprisingly frisky — willing to do, and talk about, intimate acts that would make their grandchildren blush.

That may be too much information for some folks.

But it comes from the most comprehensive sex survey ever done among 57- to 85-year-olds in the United States. Sex and interest in it do fall off when people are in their 70s, but more than a quarter of those up to age 85 reported having sex in the previous year.

And the drop-off has a lot to do with health or lack of a partner, especially for women, the survey found.

The federally funded study, done by respected scientists and published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, overturns some stereotypical notions that physical pleasure is just a young person’s game.

“Most people assume that people stop doing it after some vague age,” said sex researcher Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago.

However, more than half of those aged 57 to 75 said they gave or received oral sex, as did about a third of 75- to 85-year-olds.

‘Bravo’ says Dr. Ruth“Bravo that the New England Journal of Medicine is publishing something like that. It’s about time,” said Ruth Westheimer, better known as sexpert Dr. Ruth, who has long counseled seniors on sex.

The survey involved two-hour face-to-face interviews with 3,005 men and women around the country. Researchers also took blood, saliva and other samples that will tell about hormone levels, sex-related infections and other health issues in future reports. They even tested how well seniors could see, taste, hear and smell — things that affect being able to have and enjoy sex.

Some results:

• Sex with a partner in the previous year was reported by 73 percent of people ages 57 to 64; 53 percent of those ages 64 to 75, and 26 percent of people 75 to 85. Of those who were active, most said they did it two to three times a month or more.
• Women at all ages were less likely to be sexually active than men. But they also lacked partners; far more were widowed.
• People whose health was excellent or very good were nearly twice as likely to be sexually active as those in poor or fair health.
• Half of people having sex reported at least one related problem. Most common in men was erection trouble (37 percent); in women, low desire (43 percent), vaginal dryness (39 percent) and inability to have an orgasm (34 percent).
• One out of seven men used Viagra or other substances to improve sex.
• Only 22 percent of women and 38 percent of men had discussed sex with a doctor since age 50.

Why do this research? Sex is an important indicator of health, said Georgeanne Patmios of the National Institute on Aging, the study’s main funder.

Sexual problems can be a warning sign of diabetes, infections, cancer or other health woes. Untreated sex issues can lead to depression and social withdrawal, and people may even stop taking needed medications because of sexual side effects, the researchers wrote.

Some of them did a landmark study of sexual habits in younger people a decade ago, but little is known about X-rated behaviors beyond Generation X.

“This subject has been taboo for so long that many older people haven’t even talked to their spouses about their sexual problems, let alone a physician,” said the lead author, Dr. Stacy Tesser Lindau, a University of Chicago gynecologist.

Many doctors are embarrassed to bring it up, and some may not know how to treat sexual dysfunction, said Dr. Alison Moore, a geriatrics specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who had no role in the study.

‘Lost in the shuffle’“Even among geriatricians, there can be an age bias that this is not as big a deal as some of the other things they come into us for,” like heart problems or dementia, Moore said. “It gets lost in the shuffle.”

The National Opinion Research Center, a university-affiliated private research firm, did the surveys in people’s homes. Laumann, its chairman, has received research support from Pfizer Inc., the maker of Viagra.

Hundreds of questions were asked face to face; others, like the number of lifetime sex partners and frequency of masturbation, were asked in a questionnaire, and 84 percent of those were completed.

Most participants were married. But by the time they were 75 to 85, only 37 percent of women had spouses compared to 71 percent of men. Roughly 10 percent of those in the survey were black and more than 6 percent were Hispanic.

The proportion of each gender reporting giving and receiving oral sex “matched up perfectly,” Lindau said. “This gives us pretty good reassurance that men and women are telling the same story.”

Older people were generally sexually conservative. A small minority had more than one partner, and very few said they paid for sex.

Researchers also used state-of-the-art technology and products donated by several companies to test people’s senses. Taste strips were used to see if people could distinguish between various tastes (sour, salty). Special devices were used to test the ability to smell certain scents, including a suspected pheromone — a smell thought to evoke sexual responses.

Scents and tastes “get under the skin to influence biology,” and scientists wanted to know whether these senses diminish as people age, Lindau explained.

Niels Teunis, an anthropologist and researcher at the Institute of Sexuality, Social Inequality, and Health at San Francisco State University, said the survey bolsters the “use it or lose it” factor seen in previous studies.

60 sexy years ... and countingJack Menager, 83, and his wife, Elizabeth, 84, agree. The suburban Los Angeles couple say they have had a good sex life for nearly 60 years.

“It gives a person relief on any burdens or problems. It makes us forget everything — escape,” he said, admitting that as physical endurance wanes “you have to work at it harder.”

The couple takes twice daily walks, drinks wine in moderation and talks a lot, said his wife.

“I think it’s important,” she said of sex. “It just makes you feel close.”

More men than women felt that way. Only 13 percent of men but 35 percent of women said sex was “not at all important.”

Menopause has a big effect on women, and the drop-off of estrogen makes many of them less interested in sex, Dr. John Bancroft of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University wrote in an accompanying editorial.

But menopause also means women no longer have to worry about getting pregnant, and many have more time and feel freer after children are gone, notes Westheimer, the sex adviser.

At age 79, she said, “I don’t ever answer personal questions” about sex. But she added, “I certainly have a zest for life.”

Skip the gym this summer

he long, warm days of summer leave plenty of time to fit in a workout without having to hit the gym. Try some of these expert-recommended outdoor workouts to burn calories and get fit while enjoying the summer sun.
Stand up paddle boarding
Average Hourly Calorie Burn: 350
Stand up paddle boarding (aka ‘SUP’) might look intimidating, but the way the board is designed makes it easy for anyone to do, according to Kim Truman, a certified personal trainer and outdoor athletic coach. SUP is done on a large surfboard, which provides a wider area to stand on and balance. And while this activity can be almost meditative, you’ll still be strengthening your upper back, legs, glutes and abs while developing balance and coordination, too.
To help maximize your workout—and minimize your chances of falling off—Truman suggests standing with feet hip width apart on the board, maintaining good posture and starting your paddle strokes on your dominant side (right if you're right handed) to help to find your rhythm, balance and strengthen your connection to both the board and the water. Once you're steady, start alternating sides after every third stroke.
Hiking
Average Hourly Calorie Burn: 375
Not only does hiking offer a physical challenge, it gets you out into nature, which can boost your mood. And the beautiful scenery and changing terrain shifts your focus to your movement and surroundings, taking your mind off exercising (unlike the boring repetition of a treadmill). “Hiking is one workout you can't help but fall in love with,” Truman says. Hiking is a great cardio workout that challenges all of your muscles as the terrain shifts (going uphill and stepping over rocks), says Truman. The pace of your hike will influence the intensity of your workout and how many calories you burn, so pick a trail that meets both your fitness level and goals.
Never go alone hiking alone—if you get easy lost or stuck you need a buddy -- and plan out a route in advance.
Biking
Average Hourly Calorie Burn: 400
It may have been years since you last rode your bike, but it’s never too late to get back in the saddle! Riding a bike outdoors offers even more benefits than a stationary bike since you’ll have to balance, steer your bike and respond to changing terrain as you pedal. Cycling works your glutes, thighs and hamstrings as well as your core, Truman says.
She recommends trying a pedal stroke interval to amp up your calorie burn and improve your cardiovascular fitness: Pedal as fast as you can for 60 seconds, then slow down and recover for 20, repeat five times in total. “Make it a cardio and mental game knowing you're getting stronger with each pedal stroke,” says Truman. Wear clothing that is easy to pedal in (such as bike shorts) and stiff-soled or bike shoes.
For more on getting the most out of your ride check out these biking tips for beginners.
Swimming
Average Hourly Calorie Burn: 425
Want a total body workout that’s easy on your joints but still a great calorie burner? Try swimming! “Swimming challenges your muscles because of the density of the water. Your own body weight is your resistance and you are working much harder than you will feel in the moment,” Truman says. Swimming develops strong, lean muscles as well as strengthening your core and low back to help protect your spine and improve posture, she notes.
Truman recommends focusing on your form and breathing with each stroke -- if you are new to swimming, just get comfortable with moving in the water. The faster your pace and the shorter your rest time in between laps, the more intense your workout (and calorie burn) will be.
Beach volleyball
Average Hourly Calorie Burn: 500
Turn exercising into a fun game with volleyball—you'll get both a strength-training and cardio session. “Volleyball is a fabulous total body workout; it’s interval training at its best. You work hard, using the legs and butt to get under the ball, core to maintain your balance, and upper body to power through, followed by a period of rest, but you never know how long,” says fitness expert Sara Haley, creator of the Daily Sweat DVDs “Sweat UNLIMITED and Expecting More.” And, playing in the soft, uneven terrain of sand on the beach means you’ll be working even harder (translation: burning up extra calories) than on a flat, indoor court every time you go to spike that ball. If you're not near a beach start a game of pool volleyball – it's just as challenging (and fun).
Rollerblading
Average Hourly Calorie Burn: 800
If you love the feeling of running outdoors but find it too hard on your joints, give rollerblading a whirl. “Rollerblading, once you get the hang of it, is an incredibly effective cardio workout,” Haley says. “It’s low-impact, so it places less stress on the joints and muscles then running or aerobics. Plus, you use more muscle groups, especially your core, to maintain your balance,” she explains.
Skating through a park with level terrain and no traffic is a great place to get your bearings and practice building your speed. Don’t worry if you aren’t ‘good’ at it in the beginning—practice makes perfect. “The best way to get better at rollerblading is to just get out and do it. You’ll be having so much fun learning a new skill, you’ll forget you’re working out,” says Haley.
Yoga in the park
Average Hourly Calorie Burn: 175
Summer’s warmer weather makes it the perfect time of year to try an outdoor yoga, which is often offered in local parks as a sunrise or sunset group class. Most outdoor yoga classes are for all levels (check with your instructor first to be sure), making it easy for beginners to join in without any prior experience. “Depending on the type of yoga, you might experience the benefits of flexibility, strength and/or cardiovascular training. Plus, you’ll have the most amazing backdrop, as you see the sun rise or set around you,” Haley says.
Come prepared for class in an outfit that you’ll feel comfortable wearing in both standing and floor postures. Most classes are BYM (bring your own mat) and toting a towel can be helpful if sweat and dirt start to show up on your mat.
Gardening
Average Hourly Calorie Burn: 250
If you've never planted a garden, you may not think of gardening as exercise, but it's a great full body workout! “If you are doing some serious gardening, such as digging holes, planting and weeding, you will exert a significant workload, which can sometimes work the body harder than most typical exercise,” explains Haley. “From raking, lifting, pushing, pulling and shoveling, gardening is a complete body workout for the butt, legs, back, chest, arms and abs,” she says.
Take breaks every hour from that forward, hunched over position by standing up and walking around. Try a few standing back extensions to help relieve any stiffness. Get inspired to dig into the dirt with these amazing garden designs for spaces and landscapes of all shapes and sizes.
Calories burned are based on a 140-pound woman; exact calorie burn may vary depending on workout intensity, body composition and fitness level.