Your Brain on Sex

Although people tend to think that sex and orgasm occur in the genitals, the intense feelings generated during sex, including the sensation of orgasm actually originate in the brain. Neurochemical changes occur in the reptilian or primitive brain. This is the part of your brain that commands your impulses, drives and emotions.

Dopamine, the feel good chemical, is released in your brain when you do anything enjoyable, whether it is eating, making love, or accomplishing something. Dopamine is the neurochemical which fuels cravings. So when you think you are craving sex, what you actually are craving is the dopamine that is released in your brain when you have sex.

Orgasm offers us the largest possible dose of dopamine, in a legal form. Researches have discovered that brain scans of people having an orgasm resembled brain scans of people having a heroin rush. And just like the heroin addict, people can experience an orgasm hangover, or a low when dopamine levels drop after the high of orgasm.

After sex there is a release of prolactin in the brain. In men this may manifest as rolling over and snoring shortly after intercourse. As the level of prolactin rises the level of dopamine diminishes. And we go from feeling over the moon, to feeling let down.

High prolactin levels are associated with weight gain, decrease in libido, mood swings and depression. Excess prolactin in women has been associated with anxiety and hostility; and in men it has been associated with impotence.

This explains how great sex can often be followed closely by relationship tension and even despair. Our partner suddenly seems irritating and thoughtless, rather than attractive to us.

The dopamine and prolactin combination can cause relationship friction. But there is something that can help hold couples together. The neurochemical Oxytocin, the cuddle or bonding hormone, is the hormone that bonds us to our children for life. It can also bond us to our partner.

Truly making love, as apposed to having sex, keeps oxytocin levels high. The sex manual, Intimate Sex: Manual for Lovemaking will help you reach that pinnacle. Unlike dopamine, which leads to craving more dopamine; you never develop a “tolerance” for oxytocin, the more you produce the more receptive you are to it and the more loving you feel toward your partner.

Oxytocin has been found to reduce craving, to have a calming, mood lifting effect. It has also been found to increase sexual receptivity and counter impotence. If you feel you are on a roller coaster ride in your relationship and you are starting to wonder if the sexual highs are worth the relationship lows that follow, then it is time to get off the roller coaster and learn to “make love.”

Susan Derry
Professional Counselor & Life Coach

Co-author of Marriage Prep: Beginnings a downloadable marriage preparation course.

Co-author of Intimate Sex: Manual for Lovemaking, a sex manual for couples

Offers a free Nurturing Marriage Ezine