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It's no surprise that there are benefits to sex, but now a new study has come out saying that sex can do something else: cure migraines. Published in Cephalalgia, the journal of the International Headache Society, the study found that more than half of migraine-suffering participants who had sex experienced an improvement in symptoms, and 20 percent were completely cured of their headache. According to the researchers, it's all about the endorphins released during sex:

"Our results show that sexual activity during a migraine attack might relieve or even stop an attack in some cases, and that sexual activity in the presence of headache is not an unusual behavior. Sex can abort migraine and cluster headache attacks, and sexual activity is used by some patients as acute headache treatment."

But headaches aren't the only thing sex cures; here are six more:

• Cramps: Having sex can help with period pain. Orgasms cause the uterine muscles to contract and release brain chemicals that act as a natural pain reliever, immediately relieving menstrual cramps.
• Colds: Regular sex has also been shown to have immune-boosting effects that can cure the common cold. Intercourse raises immunoglobulin A, an antibody that fights the cold virus.
• Morning sickness: Oral sex can cure morning sickness? Yes, according to Gordon Gallup, a psychologist at SUNY-Albany. He says that the best way to cure morning sickness during pregnancy is with semen from the person who got you pregnant. Gallup believes that a woman's body rejects the father's semen, causing sickness, so if you build up a tolerance by ingesting it, you can prevent the stomach problems.
• Insomnia: After sex, your body releases the hormone oxytocin, aka the "cuddle hormone," which makes you sleepy. And women produce more oxytocin than men.
• Hiccups: Dr. Francis M. Fesmire came up with two cures for hiccups, "digital rectal massage" and orgasms. He said, "An orgasm results in incredible stimulation of the vagus nerve. From now on, I will be recommending sex — culminating with orgasm — as the cure-all for intractable hiccups."
• Depression: Sex has been proven to help mental health thanks to numerous studies. James Coan, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, says, "When you have sex, you release feel-good hormones, including oxytocin and endorphins." And a recent study found that oral sex can help, too, since semen contains chemicals that elevate mood, increase affection, and contain antidepressants.

If you want to have a positive impact on your body image, you might have a better luck trading chick lit in for high-fashion magazines. A study released recently found that book characters can negatively influence body image, while another found that Hollywood's standards aren't as powerful as you would think.

Researchers at Virginia Tech looked into the impact chick lit can have on a woman's body esteem and found that when a protagonist expresses negative feelings about her body, it has a negative impact on the reader's own concerns about her weight. Reading modified passages from Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin and Dreaming in Black and White by Laura Jensen Walker, the study participants felt less sexually attractive themselves when they read about slim women and more insecure when reading about a character with body insecurities.

Meanwhile, at Texas A&M International University, researchers concluded that exposure to television and social media do not predict eating disorders or dissatisfaction with your own body. Rather, peer competition and not Hollywood's narrow beauty ideal leads to negative body image, suggesting young women compare themselves more harshly to their friends than their favorite celebrities.

On the surface, these two completely independent studies seem to find opposite conclusions about the impact of media on a woman's body image. One says characters in books have an impact, while the other says it is our real-life peers, not the images we see in the media, that influence how we feel about ourselves. But looking at them together, the findings could indicate that unlike celebrities or television characters, women relate to characters in literature similarly to how they relate to their real-life peers. I think we just found a topic for a new study.

We're happy to present this article from our partner site Yahoo! Shine: 

We scoffed earlier this year when we heard that "The Rules" — the 1995 dating guide that encouraged women to be passive and pleasing and play hard-to-get — was making a comeback. But new research shows that the rules may be right after all: playing hard-to-get actually works.

Related: Study Shows Men and Women Can't Just Be Friends

Published in the European Journal of Personality, the data from hundreds of people in four different experiments showed that college-age men and women who played hard to get ended up with a higher-quality partner.

"We all would want honesty in dating, but this is never going to happen," the study's author, Peter Jonason, who teaches psychology at the University of Western Sydney in Australia, told NBC. "We are not overtly lying, but we're always trying to marry up."

A little skeptical? Read on to find out why playing hard to get might actually work.

Here's something you might expect: providing women free contraception leads to fewer unexpected pregnancies, and thus, a lower abortion rate. But in a new study published last week, researchers were actually surprised by how much the abortion rate dropped among women who were offered access to a range of free birth control methods.

Most women in the multiyear study, completed by Washington University in St. Louis, opted for long-lasting and low-maintenance methods like the IUD implant, which many women previously couldn't afford due to a relatively high upfront cost. About 75 percent of women in the study opted for the reliable IUD, which does not require women to remember to take the pill every day. Among the women and teens enrolled in the program, the abortion rate dropped by as much as 78 percent — from the national rate of 20 abortions per 1,000 women to 4.5 to 7.5 abortions per 1,000 women in the study.

Contraception, including the IUD, is now covered for free under Obamacare, and doing so should have something in it for everyone. In addition to helping with family planning, preventing unwanted pregnancy saves insurance companies money and also reduces the abortion rate, something that could appeal to pro-life Americans. "I would think if you were against abortions, you would be 100 percent for contraception access," said Dr. James T. Breeden, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, following the study.

Yet, you can likely recall controversy surrounding the free birth control mandate in Obamacare. Religious leaders and conservative politicians, who are also pro-life, were the most outspoken against requiring employer-funded health insurance plans to cover birth control. It would be logical to assume that they'd support free birth control, since common sense (and now a study) dictates that it has the ability to cut the rate of unexpected pregnancy, and thus abortion. But it was clear from the contraception debate, which saw Rush Limbaugh calling Georgetown student Sandra Fluke a "slut" for advocating for birth control coverage under plans provided by religiously-sponsored universities, that for some, sexual politics is not just about abortion. It's also an opportunity to shame women for having sex in the first place, promote retro gender roles, and keep Americans politically divided along "pro-choice" and "pro-life" lines.

Romantic comedies, reality TV dating shows, and soap operas are all filled with dramatic relationship ups and downs. And watching these unrealistic portrayals of romance might not be an inconsequential guilty pleasure. A new study found that the more people buy into portrayals of romance on TV, the less committed they are to their relationships. But it's not because these fictional love stories make them long for the perfect relationship. In fact, those who have a higher belief in TV portrayals of romance believe relationships are more costly, and are more likely to consider alternatives, like a new partner or being single.

The study referenced reality TV shows like The Bachelor or The Hills, soap operas like Days of Our Lives, and movies like Pretty Woman or The Notebook. Participants who agreed with statements like "Television helps me understand what I can expect from my romantic relationships," or "Television presents romantic relationships as they really are in life," reported less commitment to their current relationships. These respondents said relationships are more costly, thanks to a loss of freedom and the unattractive qualities of a mate. But it's not necessarily all bad news. Since people who believe in TV romance expected higher costs associated with being in a relationship before they entered one, they did not report lower relationship satisfaction. In other words, the perceived downsides of being in relationship met their lower expectations.

If you think you're immune to the influences of fictional romance, the study's author, Jeremy Osborn of Albion College, points out that we Americans immerse ourselves in media images and "most people have no sense of the ways those images are impacting them." For many of us young women today, our early exposure to romance came from shows like Sex and the City — which surely portrayed the single life as an attractive and exciting alternative to a steady relationship. These fictional portrayals could influence us more than we think. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Weigh in below.