Hormonal Heaven
Hormonal Heaven
How big a priority on a scale of one to ten is passion in your
relationship right now? One of my clients recently expressed a
concern that she was missing the lovemaking with her partner so
much. It was almost as if she felt guilty about it, as if her
fascination was somehow unhealthy.
One of my Swami yoga teachers taught me years ago that our
bodies are like chemistry sets. Our mood is largely dependent on
our chemical balance at whatever point in time and different
things fire off different chemicals. You're probably aware that
a confrontation will fire off adrenalin in your body leaving you
feeling uneasy and a little unsafe setting up the 'fight or
flight' response mechanism in your body. Well this got me to
thinking about sex and how great it generally feels, and at this
point the Swami and I part company, as all Swami's are
theoretically celibate.
In her fantastic book "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow",
Adrienne Burgess conducted a ton of research. She found that sex
fires off a phenomenal cocktail (hmm, no pun intended) of:
Dopamine which gives a sense of well being, phenylethylamine
which generates a feeling of excitement, serotonin for emotional
stability, norepinephrine for that 'I am a god' feeling and
oxytocin for an easy come down which leaves you feeling all safe
and cuddly. That list may look kind of familiar to some of you;
quite a few of those are also in good quality chocolate - that
explains a lot.
This is why love generally arises out of sex. Couples who seem
to have sexual problems just have too many requirements for sex
to be right. Often they feel sex should only arise out of love
and they won't have sex when they're feeling exhausted, unhappy
or distant. The fact is oxytocin is a powerful hormone that
promotes bonding, which means that the chances of us having
highly erotic or romantic sex increase when we're prepared to
have, at other times, less than perfect sex.
Happier couples have sex more often than unhappy couples. So
what is the deal with that chicken and egg thing?