Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

The brain is not only the command center for sex, it’s also a generator of pleasure. These two functions—enabling sex to happen and setting us up to actually experience pleasure from sex—are inextricably linked in both the brain and the body.

the brain was also having a very powerful experience. In fact, my research was showing that as genital stimulation led up to orgasm, numerous brain regions involved in processing sensations, emotions, rewards, and pleasure were becoming highly activated, with more and more brain areas lighting up, until at the apex of orgasm the brain looked like a

By looking through the lens of how our brains are wired for pleasure, we will learn how to reclaim our innate, biologically wired capacity and need for joy, fun, exuberance, curiosity, and humor in all aspects of our lives.

We’ve been told by sex experts that the cause of an inability to enjoy sex is sexual dysfunction, brought on by age, hormonal disruptions, or other diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, or depression. And yes, these conditions all play a role in sexual shutdown. However, the underlying causes for sexual dysfunctions that im

I’ve always known instinctively that good sex is tied to happiness and well-being and bad sex or the absence of sex is a likely trigger of unhappiness, and this connection between good sex and happiness was showing up in my practice. The people who report having healthy or satisfying sex lives feel better, manifest less depression and anxiety, and

Further exacerbating this connection between pain and pleasure is our difficulty with tolerating any measure of negative feelings. At the first sign of pain, we take an aspirin. At the first sign of emotional discomfort, we may be told to take an antidepressant. In fact, as a culture, we are encouraged to not feel too much of anything. In reality,

My studies indicate the brain is so widely and strongly activated by orgasm, infusing nearly all regions with oxygen, that orgasm may serve as the best possible “exercise” for the brain. My research also suggests how the inability to experience this release robs us of a crucial way to destress and keep our bodies, emotions, and brains regulated and

Driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine, our SEEKING system is meant to cue us to feel enthusiastic about going into the world to pursue what we need and want through experiences. When this system becomes overstimulated and hijacked by chronic stress and attention overload, a domino effect occurs, disrupting all the systems at once, making us hyper

My life’s work has taught me that the ability to notice, experience, and tolerate the sensations in the body that accompany the thoughts in the mind is critical to empowering wholeness and well-being. We dwell so much in our thoughts, our interpretations of our experiences, our strivings, and our expectations that we register very little of what is