The Gross Mistake You’re Making With Your Contact Lenses

Photo: Getty Images

If you’re a regular wearer of contact lenses, you’ve probably been warned about the health hazards of leaving them in too long and washing them improperly (or infrequently). But a new study from NYU Langone Medical Center’s a gross reminder about why it really is a bad idea to use unwashed fingers to pop them out or sleep in them  (as tempting as that may be when you’re sooo tired): It found people who wear contacts have different types of bacteria in their eyes than non-users—including one kind often connected with eye ulcers. (Ouch.)

For this small study, researchers swabbed the eyes of 20 subjects—9 contacts-wearers and 11 non-users—to examine the types of bacteria there. Those who wear contacts had a higher number of four species: Lactobacillus, Acinetobacter, Methylobacterium, and Pseudomonas, the last of which is commonly linked to corneal ulcers.

RELATED: 5 Ways You’re Using Contact Lenses Wrong

“There has been an increase in the prevalence of corneal ulcers following the introduction of soft contact lenses in the 1970s,” study co-author Jack Dodick, MD, and professor of ophthalmology at NYU Langone noted in a press release. “Because the offending organisms seem to emanate from the skin, greater attention should be directed to eyelid and hand hygiene.”

So what can you do to keep your eyes infection-free? We asked Steven Shanbom, MD, an opthamologist in Berkeley, Michigan, for a quick primer:

RELATED: Easy Ways to Protect Your Eyes at Any Age

Clean your hands, then the lenses

Be sure to wash your hands with soap before you handle your contacts. Then rid the lenses of harmful dirt and bacteria by putting them in the (now spotless) palm of your hand, followed by some cleaning solution, then gently rubbing the solution into the lens. (Note: Even if your solution bottle says “No Rub” on it, you’ll get much more sanitary lens if you do.)

Consider different contacts

Dr. Shanbom sees daily disposable soft lenses as a good way to avoid these issues. “There’s only so much gunk and bacteria that can get into the eye when you’re using a new set of contacts every day,” he says. And if you’re less than diligent about cleaning your contacts, what could be easier than never having to do it ever again?

Give ’em a rest

The best way to avoid a bout of pink eye or something more severe, however, is wear glasses when you can to limit your eye’s exposure to lenses. Dr. Shanbom advises wearing your contacts only during the work day, and sticking to glasses at home and on the weekends, limiting your lenses to 12-14 hours a day at the most. (And never swim with your contacts in, since pool water’s teeming with infectious bacteria just waiting to glom onto them. Ew.) The upside: With the recent resurgence of glasses as a cool accessory, you’ll be right on trend.

RELATED: Should You See An Eye Doctor?

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Here’s the Difference Between MERS and Ebola

Photo: Getty Images

The news sounds familiar: a virus with no treatment or cure is spreading abroad. But while Ebola dominated the infectious disease news over the last year, the latest infection making headlines is the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which has most recently hit South Korea, infecting 87 there and killing 6.

Could the two viruses cause similar damage?

Currently, MERS doesn’t appear to be able to spread like Ebola can. Though it’s in the same family of viruses as SARS and the common cold—both highly contagious—MERS appears to be less transmittable. While Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, MERS doesn’t spread easily from person to person, and though it spreads through the respiratory tract, very close contact is needed, which is why the risk is higher for health care workers.

Both diseases have high fatality rates (around 3 to 4 of every 10 patients reported with MERS have died) and like Ebola, there is no vaccine or cure for MERS. But right now, MERS is more of a mystery to the medical community.

“Ebola has been around for 40 years so we have a pretty good sense of how it functions and its genome has been pretty stable,” says Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “MERS emerged in 2012 and we are still learning about it, and it may still be learning about us and evolving. It’s believed that when SARS spent more time circulating among humans, it evolved and became more transmissible.” Frieden says they haven’t yet seen that in MERS, but they’re watching: the CDC is currently sequencing the genome of the virus to understand how it might be changing, and to track its course.

The chance that MERS could change to become more transmittable worries experts. “Personally, I am more concerned about MERS following the course of SARS than I ever will be regarding Ebola becoming widespread outside of certain regions of Africa,” says Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior associate at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh.

Source: Courtest of WHO/Time.com

MORE: What Is MERS? Here’s What You Need To Know

MERS has yet to take that course, Frieden says, but hospitals can be hotbeds for the infection. Through intensive investigations in affected countries, the CDC has determined that more than 90% of the cases could be traced health care exposures. So far there hasn’t been evidence of sustained community spreading. “Hospitals can become amplification points,” says Frieden. “It’s the case in measles, it’s the case for drug-resistant tuberculosis, it’s the case for MERS and SARS and Ebola. That’s where sick people go and that’s where vulnerable people are. It really emphasizes the importance of good infection control in the health care system.”

In May of 2014, the U.S. experienced two cases of MERS. In both instances, the patients were health care providers who lived and worked in the Middle East. Health departments around the U.S. have the ability to test for the virus, and the U.S. has already tested around 550 people in 45 states as a precaution since the disease first emerged in 2012.

MERS and Ebola share an important similarity: a lack of treatments or vaccinations. There’s currently no vaccine. “If there were a vaccine, it’s the kind of thing that might be useful in the camel population, but that’s very theoretical for the future,” Frieden says.

Only 20% of countries are currently able to rapidly detect, respond to or prevent global health threats from emerging infections, like MERS and Ebola, according to CDC data. Countries around the world and official health emergency responders like the World Health Organization have vowed to increase their ability to act during outbreaks that public health experts say are undeniably in our future. Frieden says the CDC in partnership with other countries is accelerating its Global Health Security program, which will increase preparedness worldwide. The CDC is making visits to eight countries in the next six weeks to move the program forward.

“Bottom line, both Ebola and MERS are emerging infections that show us why it’s so important for every country in the world to be prepared to find and stop health threats when and where they emerge,” Frieden says. “We do think the South Korea outbreak will well grow, but there’s no reason to think it can’t be controlled as other outbreaks have been controlled.”

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Poor Sleep? Eating Less at Night May Make Next Day Easier

MONDAY, June 8, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Concentration and attention problems caused by sleep deprivation might be eased by eating less late at night, according to a new study.

The research included 44 volunteers, aged 21 to 50. For three days, they were given unlimited access to food and drink during the day. But they were only allowed to sleep four hours a night.

“Adults consume approximately 500 additional calories during late-night hours when they are sleep-restricted,” senior author David Dinges, director of the unit for experimental psychiatry and chief of the division of sleep and chronobiology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, said in a university news release.

On the fourth night, about half of the participants continued to have unlimited access to food and drink. The other half were restricted to water from 10 p.m. until they went to sleep at 4 a.m.

At 2 a.m. on each of the four nights, the participants underwent tests to measure their memory, thinking skills, sleepiness, stress level and mood.

On the fourth night of sleep restriction, those who fasted had better reaction times and fewer attention lapses than those who ate, the findings showed.

Also on the fourth night, those who ate had much slower reaction times and more attention lapses compared to the first three nights. The people who fasted didn’t show a decrease in performance, the investigators found.

The study was scheduled to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle. Findings presented at meetings are generally viewed as preliminary until they’ve been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

In another study to be presented at the meeting, the same team of researchers found that adults with chronic lack of sleep have a reduced metabolism. The researchers suggested that people may need to compensate for this loss of calorie-burning power by increasing their physical activity levels or reducing their calorie intake to prevent weight gain after sleep deprivation.

This study included 36 healthy adults aged 21 to 50. Their resting metabolic rates — how much energy their bodies use when relaxed — was measured after normal nights of sleep, and after five nights of sleeping just four hours a night.

Resting metabolism decreased after sleep deprivation, the study found. The good news is that it returned to normal after a night of recovery sleep, according to the study.

“Short sleep duration is a significant risk factor for weight gain and obesity, particularly in African Americans and men,” study senior author Namni Goel, a research associate professor of psychology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, said in the news release.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about sleep deprivation.

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More Evidence That General Anesthesia May Affect Young Brains

By Tara Haelle
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 8, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Having general anesthesia during surgery at a very young age may be linked to poorer brain development, new research suggests.

Children who had received general anesthesia during surgery before they turned 4 years of age later scored slightly lower on listening comprehension and parts of an IQ test, compared to children who had never had general anesthesia, the researchers found. The children’s overall IQ scores, however, remained within the normal range.

“It is difficult to see whether this decrease had any functional effect for an individual child,” said study author Dr. Andreas Loepke, a professor of clinical anesthesia and pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

But, he added, “these concerns make it obvious that a lot more research is needed to better understand the effects of anesthetics on brain development.”

The findings, published online June 8 and in the July print issue of the journal Pediatrics, echo those of earlier studies that have pointed to a similar link.

Loepke and his colleagues compared 53 children who had undergone surgery using general anesthesia before they were 4 years old with 53 children who had never been exposed to general anesthesia. Each child from the first group was matched to a child in the second group according to age, sex, socioeconomic status and being left- or right-handed.

All of the children underwent IQ and language development testing as well as imaging with an MRI. The scores for all the children in both groups were within the normal range.

But the children with a history of surgery had listening comprehension and performance IQ scores that averaged 3 to 6 points lower than the kids without surgery. Performance IQ refers to several combined components from an overall IQ test. A score of 100 is considered average.

In addition, those with a lower performance IQ and listening comprehension had slightly less gray matter in two areas at the back of their brains, the researchers found.

“The very receptors that anesthetics act on to produce unconsciousness during surgery are also important for stimulating neurons to form proper connections and to survive,” Loepke said. “Anesthetic exposure may interfere with normal brain development.”

However, one expert cautioned, this small study only shows a link between lower scores and a history of general anesthesia. It cannot show that anesthesia caused brain development problems, said Dr. Raafat Hannallah, a pediatric anesthesiologist at Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C.

“Studies in children have limitations that prevent experts from understanding whether the harmful effects, if any, were due to the anesthetic drugs or to other factors, such as the surgery or related illness,” Hannallah said.

Loepke also mentioned other factors that can occur during surgery that might have unknown effects, such as inflammation, pain or the underlying medical problem being treated.

“Hence, our study cannot conclusively identify any of these factors to be the cause for the reported findings,” he said.

In addition, skipping surgery may lead to similar or worse concerns about brain development, Loepke pointed out.

“Surgery is only performed to save lives or to prevent serious health complications,” Loepke said. “So not performing these crucial surgeries may put the child at greater risk for developmental complications than the theoretical risk linked to the anesthetic exposure.”

The majority of children in this study underwent surgery for ear, nose or throat conditions, especially hearing conditions. General surgery and urology comprised the other two common surgery types.

“Concerns regarding the unknown risk of a surgical procedure and anesthetic exposure to a child’s brain development must be weighed against the potential harm associated with canceling or delaying a needed surgical or diagnostic procedure,” Hannallah said. “The child’s doctors, including the physician anesthesiologist, are best able to provide this advice.”

For those children who need surgical procedures, anesthesia and surgery today are “safer than ever,” Loepke added. “Survival is much improved even for critically ill babies and procedures that were unthinkable just two or three decades ago,” he said.

At least two previous studies, one from Australia and the other from the Mayo Clinic, also published in Pediatrics in 2011 and 2012, also found a potential link between anesthesia in young children undergoing surgery and language deficits.

Researchers are continuing to study both animals and children to learn more about whether anesthetics have any effect on brain development, Loepke said, but these findings should not be used to delay a necessary procedure.

“Bottom line, kids do not undergo anesthesia for the fun of it,” Hannallah said. “They do because they need a surgical or diagnostic procedure to keep them healthy or cure an existing condition. This should not change based on current knowledge.”

More information

For more on preparing children for anesthesia, visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

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Large Majority of Americans Still Backs Death Penalty

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 8, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Despite recent headline-grabbing legal challenges and reports of “botched” executions, most Americans still support the death penalty, according to a new HealthDay/Harris Poll.

The online poll, of more than 2,000 adults, found that 61 percent said they believe in the death penalty, while only 17 percent oppose it.

Opinions were more mixed, however, when it came to a relatively new death-penalty issue: In the past few years, some drug companies have been refusing to supply the chemicals used for lethal injections — which has left several states scrambling for replacement drugs and, reportedly, botching several executions.

Twenty-seven percent of Americans said they supported the drug companies’ stance, while 30 percent opposed it.

Many people — 43 percent — had either never heard of the issue, or did not know what to think of it.

But whether Americans are aware of it or not, the drug companies’ actions are having an impact, according to Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at NYU School of Medicine in New York City.

“The real point is, the companies’ refusal to ship drugs is leading to abandonment of capital punishment,” Caplan contended.

He pointed to Nebraska’s decision, just last month, to abolish the death penalty. “That was fueled, in part, by (the state’s) inability to get the proper drugs,” Caplan said.

The current drug shortage got its start several years ago. In 2011, the sole manufacturer of the anesthetic sodium thiopental — part of the drug cocktail used in lethal injections — stopped producing the drug. That decision followed months of pressure from death-penalty opponents.

Soon after, the European Union banned the export of a range of drugs that could be used in executions.

In the years since, some drug-makers elsewhere in the world have followed suit, and U.S. states that allow lethal injections are now on the hunt for alternative drugs.

As a result, some states have used untested drug combinations, which has led to several reports of botched executions in which condemned prisoners suffered before dying.

With states essentially experimenting with new drug cocktails, Caplan said, executions are now being met with “constant legal challenges.”

Some states are reportedly toying with the idea of reviving old-fashioned execution methods. In March, Utah passed legislation making firing squads the back-up option if the state is unable to obtain lethal-injection drugs.

In the HealthDay/Harris Poll, most Americans (81 percent) said they were aware there was controversy over the use of lethal injections. But few let it sway their opinion of the death penalty: 11 percent said it bolstered their support of capital punishment, while 13 percent said it strengthened their opposition to it.

In addition, 80 percent of Americans still believe lethal injections are an “acceptable” way to carry out executions. Fifty-two percent endorse the use of poison gas, 44 percent are for the electric chair, 36 percent are for a firing squad, and 27 percent are for hanging.

A significant 59 percent to 18 percent majority believes it’s ethical for medical doctors to participate in or supervise executions, the poll found.

“It seems that controversial reports of botched executions using injections have done little or nothing to reduce support for capital punishment or the use of injections as the preferred method of execution,” said Humphrey Taylor, chairman emeritus of The Harris Poll.

But while U.S. public opinion may be holding firm, change is happening elsewhere.

Drug companies aren’t the only ones refusing to aid executions, for example. In March, the American Pharmacists Association issued a policy discouraging pharmacists from providing drugs for lethal injections.

In doing so, the group joined other medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and American Board of Anesthesiology, that already discourage their members from participating in executions.

And few doctors do take part, Caplan said. “Most states use executioners, with a doctor only determining the death of the prisoner — not giving lethal doses of any sort,” he said.

The poll also revealed that men are more likely than women (66 percent to 56 percent) to support the death penalty, as are Republicans compared to Democrats (79 percent to 52 percent). Support for the death penalty also depends on levels of education — just 50 percent of those with post-graduate education favor it compared to 65 percent of people with a high school education or less.

The poll, conducted online between May 7 and 11, surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,013 adults age 18 and older.

More information

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has statistical information and publications about capital punishment in the United States.

To learn more about The Harris Poll, click here.

To view the poll’s data tables and methodology, click here.

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Summer Motorcycle Season Is Here, Stay Safe

SUNDAY, June 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — More motorcyclists are taking to U.S. roads, increasing the need for safety precautions, experts say.

Eighty-four percent more motorcycles rolled down American roads in 2007 than in 1998, and about 2.3 million motorcycle injuries were reported in 2013, according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Both riders and car drivers need to take steps to reduce the risk of motorcycle crashes, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the Orthopaedic Trauma Association warn.

“As an orthopaedic trauma surgeon, I see people with devastating injuries such as fractures and head trauma as a result of motorcycle accidents,” said Dr. Theodore Miclau, president of the trauma association.

“Motorcycles are smaller than other vehicles on the road and so it’s often difficult for motorists to see them. For this reason, it’s important for motorists to not only keep an eye out for riders but be extra cautious and listen for them as well,” Miclau said in an academy news release.

Other recommendations from the two organizations:

• If you’re distracted while driving a car, pull over in a safe area and deal with the matter.
• New motorcyclists should take a safety training course, and experienced riders should take refresher courses.
• Always wear a helmet that is Department of Transportation approved, fits securely to your head shape and size, protects the face, and has adequate ventilation to keep you cool and reduce visor fogging.
• It’s best to have a motorcycle with anti-lock brakes, which prevents the wheels from locking up when braking. This reduces the risk of a fatal motorcycle crash by 31 percent, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
• Try to avoid riding in bad weather. Slick roads can make turning and braking more difficult.
• Wearing high-visibility protective gear — including jackets, pants, boots and gloves — will make it easier for drivers to see you from a greater distance and in poor weather.
• Always adhere to the speed limit, obey traffic laws and never ride after drinking.

More information

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has more about motorcycle safety.

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Poison Ivy’s Gonna Get Ya…

SATURDAY, June 6, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Poison ivy, oak and sumac are common outdoor hazards, but there are a number of ways to prevent exposure and reduce your suffering if you do come into contact with these plants, an expert says.

“Millions of Americans every year develop an allergic rash after being exposed, and these poisonous plants are pretty much everywhere in the United States except Alaska and Hawaii,” Renee Miller, from the Tennessee Poison Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said in center news release.

Oils in the plants’ leaves, roots and vines get into the skin almost immediately after contact and bind with proteins, causing an immune system reaction that leads to extreme itchiness.

“If there’s a risk for exposure, wear long pants, long sleeves, gloves and boots,” Miller said. But she noted that rubber gloves won’t protect you because the plant oils are soluble in rubber and will get through the gloves to your skin.

It’s also important to remember that you can get the itch-inducing oils from clothes and pets that have had contact with the plants.

If your skin comes into contact with these plant oils, wash as quickly as possible with soap and lukewarm water.

“If you wash within the first 15 minutes after exposure, 100 percent of the oils can be washed away. If you wait an hour, zero percent can be washed away,” Miller said.

A rash caused by poison ivy, oak or sumac typically appears within 24 to 28 hours, but can appear sooner or later. If you do develop a rash, there are a number of things you can do to be more comfortable.

“Once an exposure has occurred, topical steroids and antihistamines are the mainstay for treatment,” Miller said.

“Prescription cortisone can halt the reaction if used early. Unfortunately, once the vesicular stage [with small, fluid-filled blisters] has started, treatment with systemic steroids is the only effective solution. Oatmeal baths and cool showers may also be helpful,” she said.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about poison ivy, oak and sumac.

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Injuries From High Heels on the Rise

FRIDAY, June 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Is it time to give your high-heeled shoes the boot? Injuries related to the perilous but fashionable footwear nearly doubled in the United States in a recent 11-year-period, new research finds.

U.S. emergency rooms treated 123,355 high-heel-related injuries between 2002 and 2012, say researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. More than 19,000 of those injuries occurred in 2011 alone.

Sprains and strains to the foot and ankle were the most common complaints, and most patients were in their 20s and 30s, the study found.

“Although high-heeled shoes might be stylish, from a health standpoint, it would be worthwhile for those interested in wearing high-heeled shoes to understand the risks and the potential harm that precarious activities in high-heeled shoes can cause,” said the study’s lead investigator, Gerald McGwin, an epidemiology professor in the UAB School of Public Health, in a university news release.

Previous studies have found that walking on high heels causes discomfort in the lower leg, ankle and foot, McGwin and his colleagues noted. High heels also inhibit movement of the ankle muscles and reduce step length and overall range of motions. They can also cause people to lose their balance.

“Some historians suggest that high-heeled shoes have been around for nearly 300 years, and that medical professionals have been warning wearers about the dangers of such shoes for the same amount of time,” McGwin said.

For the study, published online recently in the Journal of Foot and Ankle Injuries, researchers examined data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System.

More than 80 percent of the high-heel injuries were to the ankle or foot. Slightly less than 20 percent involved the knee, trunk, shoulder, or head and neck. And about one in five of these accidents resulted in a broken bone, according to the study.

“Our findings also suggest that high-heel-related injuries have increased over time, with the rate of injury nearly doubling from 2002 to 2012,” McGwin said.

“We also noted that nearly half the injuries occurred in the home, which really supports the idea of wearing the right footwear for the right occasion and setting,” he added. “Also, to reduce the time of exposure, we recommend that those wearing heels be aware of how often and for how long they wear them.”

More information

The American Osteopathic Association provides more information on the health risks of high heels.

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Fetal DNA Test May Also Help Spot Mom’s Cancer, Study Finds

FRIDAY, June 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Noninvasive genetic testing of fetuses may also detect early stage cancers in their mothers, a new study says.

The testing — normally used to determine whether a fetus has chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome — involves analysis of DNA from the fetus that’s found in the mother’s blood.

A team of Belgian researchers set out to improve the accuracy of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) so it could detect a larger number of chromosomal abnormalities in fetuses.

While testing the improved version, the investigators found genetic abnormalities in three women. The researchers couldn’t link these abnormalities to the genetic profiles of either the mothers or their fetuses.

The scientists realized that the genetic abnormalities resembled those found in cancer and referred the women to cancer doctors. The women were found to have three different types of early stage cancer: ovarian, follicular lymphoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Without the prenatal testing, it’s likely the cancers would not have been detected until they were at a much later stage, according to the authors of the study.

Two of the three women were treated. The cancer in the third woman was slow-growing and didn’t need treatment at that stage.

Findings from the study are scheduled to be presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Genetics in Glasgow, Scotland, and published simultaneously in the journal JAMA Oncology.

“Considering the bad prognosis of some cancers when detected later, and given that we know that it is both possible and safe to treat the disease during pregnancy, this is an important added advantage of NIPT,” said principal investigator Joris Vermeesch in a society news release. He is head of the Laboratory for Cytogenetics and Genome Research at Leuven University in Belgium.

During pregnancy, some cancer symptoms might go unnoticed because they’re similar to problems normally experienced in pregnancy, Vermeesch said. For example, fatigue, nausea, abdominal pain and vaginal blood loss can be normal in pregnancy, but can also be signs of cancer.

“NIPT offers an opportunity for the accurate screening of high-risk women for cancer, allowing us to overcome the challenge of early diagnosis in pregnant women,” Vermeesch said.

These findings suggest this type of genetic testing might be used more widely, not just for pregnant women, as a diagnostic tool in the future. Researchers said larger-scale studies will be required to validate these results further.

More information

The American Society of Clinical Oncology has more about cancer during pregnancy.

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Jada Pinkett Smith on Husband Will: ‘You Gotta Trust Who You’re With’

Photo: Getty Images

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are essentially Hollywood royalty at this point. But being such a public family means constant scrutiny, not least about the state of their 18-year marriage. The two have long battled rumors about it—They’re splitting up! Never mind, they’re just rocky! Actually, they have an open marriage!—and on Wednesday, Pinkett Smith went on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show and opened up about what their union’s like behind the scenes.

Pinkett Smith (who’s starring in the summer movie Magic Mike XXL) emphasized the importance that trust plays in her relationship with Smith.

“You gotta trust who you’re with, and at the end of the day, I’m not here to be anybody’s watcher,” Pinkett Smith told Stern. “I’m not his watcher. He’s a grown man. Here’s what I trust: The man that Will is, is a man of integrity. He’s got all the freedom in the world…as long as Will can look in the mirror and be okay, I’m good.”

RELATED: 6 Steps to Rev Up Your Marriage

One way she’s able to feel safe and comfortable in letting him have that freedom is by being realistic—and being confident in their bond.

“I’m not the kind of woman who believes that a man is not going to be attracted to another woman,” Pinkett Smith said. “It’s just not realistic. And just because your man is attracted to another woman doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. That’s not what it means! And it doesn’t mean he’s gonna act on it, okay. Because if your man can’t really see another woman’s beauty how the hell is he gonna see yours?”

Terri Orbuch, PhD, author of 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great ($12, amazon.com), agrees with Pinkett Smith that the way to cultivate trust in your relationship is to start with yourself.

“You have to build self-confidence and self-esteem,” Orbuch told Health. “You can’t expect your partner to fulfill your needs without knowing them first, and communicating that to them.”

RELATED: Feel Confident At Any Age

Orbuch recommends starting by making a list of five to 10 qualities you like about yourself, and focusing on cultivating your own interests and friends outside of your marriage so you have some amount of independence, the way Smith and Pinkett Smith do.

“When you don’t depend on your partner for your friends or interests, you’re less likely to become jealous,” Orbuch explained.

The end result: You can better enjoy the relationship’s ride. And it sounds like Pinkett Smith is doing just that. As she said to Stern: “Thank God I have a husband who’s just a gangster partner.”

RELATED: 10 Ways to Improve Your Relationship Instantly

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