The deliberate pursuit of pleasure improves the quality of a woman's life, increase her longevity, reverses chronic illness and diseases and can change the physiology of her body and patterning in her life.

Pleasure can and should be playing a large role in each of our lives. Understanding the science of why pursuing a life of joy, ecstasy, connectedness and pleasure is literally the best health regime you can pursue for longevity (and a life worth living). We each of us have our own self-healing ability which can be tapped into with great ease and no training or knowledge via our pleasure state of being. Pleasure literally can flood our body with all the healing chemicals and processes that the body needs to keep itself young, vibrant and vital. 

Every person has within them the mechanism for pleasure as per their own self-healing ability in line with nature's principles and it isn't about sexualisation or objectification. It is about the most important promotion of health and vitality for the body.There is so much science to support the pleasure-health connection and we will lay it all out in this article. 

In case your definition of pleasure has been considered only sexually, let's remind you here that pleasure encompasses all aspects of life and living. Warm connections, such as those found via loving partnerships, deep friendship or good collegiate relationships all have great effect on longevity, health and wellbeing. 

The Harvard Study of Adult Development commenced in 1938 is the longest longitudinal study on health conducted so far (80 years) and has over that time recruited offspring of the original participants and more recruits over time. The major finding of this study is that the people with the warmest personal relationships are the happiest and healthiest. This conclusion is found from studying hundreds of people over the course of their lives (80 years to date, from adolescence to old age). Warm relationships were found to have a physiological impact to health and results in more acute brain function, stronger bodies with lower occurrence of chronic illness and disease, stronger cardiovascular health, lower instance of diabetes, less inflamation, and more.

That means that relationships get into our bodies and into our brains. They alter our cellular structure via the down regulation of the nervous system, promotion of nitric oxide and other neurotransmitters and promote oxytocin. The data shows that there is a lower occurrence of disease, and a faster recovery from disease or illness when people have warm connections with others.

 

“The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,” said Robert Waldinger. Robert is the current director of the study,  a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. 

Other studies have validated the Harvard study's findings. There are hundreds of examples, but here we choose two. Choi et al in their 2020 study found that social isolation might be the most important factor in major depressive disorder. People who have friends and close confidants are more satisfied with their lives and less likely to suffer from depression. Holt-Lunstad et al found in 2013 that people are also less likely to die from all causes, including heart problems and a range of chronic diseases when they have warm, close connections and relationships.

The best working theory on why warm relationships have a positive correlation with better health and wellbeing is the impact reduction it has on stress. Pleasurable interactions with friends, loving partnerships and family connections have a stress reduction and stress regulation effect, literally moving us out of fight or flight, down-regulating our nervous system, reducing cortisol, adrenaline and inflammation in the body.

Relationships don't have to be partnered, intimate relationships either. Friendships, collegiate relationships and family relationships can all count as warm, close relationships that aid in the promotion of health.

Another important aspect of the pleasure-health relationship is Nitric Oxide.

 

In a pleasure state, a woman's body produces massive amounts of nitric-oxide, which is produced by the endothelial lining of the blood vessels during states of joy, ecstacy and pleasure. Nitric oxide is the ultimate neurotransmitter that balances, releases and controls all the others, such as dopamine, serotonin, and beta endorphins (the same neurotransmitters so many women try to balance or boost via psych meds like Prozac and Paxil). A neurotransmitter is a signaling molecule secreted by a neuron to affect another cell across a synapse. Synapses are crucial to the biological computations that underlie our perception and thought. They allow the nervous system to connect to and control other systems of the body. These neurotransmitters are crucial for mediating feelings of pleasure, reward, and social bonding. Without these, those warm relationships are hard to maintain and foster.

Nitric oxide also exerts neuroprotective effects in the brain. Nitric oxide, produced through pleasure actually helps the brain to remain in and continue to exist in a stasis of pleasurable well-being, by maintaining optimal brain health and function. It does this by oxidising the brain defending it against stress, inflammation and neuronal damage. Pleasure promotes health both psychologically and neurologically and promotes the cyclical nature of that health balance by its very nature that pleasure begets pleasure.

Nitric oxide also promotes cardiovascular and hematological health as it is synthesized by endothelial cells lining blood vessels, where it helps maintain vascular health and function. Endothelial cells are like the guardians of your blood vessels. They form a thin layer lining the inside of blood vessels throughout your body, from your smallest capillaries to your largest arteries and veins. Think of them as the smooth, protective lining inside a hose. Healthy endothelial function is essential for proper blood flow regulation, blood pressure control, and overall cardiovascular health. 

Applying the power of eros and pleasure in daily life gets you a far more potent and bioavailable level of these neurotransmitters than medical injections of them- and they are free. What's extraordinary is that it is a self-fulfilling cycle where pleasure begets pleasure.

Reclaiming the erotic power that is your Source as a woman is not about sex with lots of people or even about sex at all. Though, of course, it can be! It is about bringing your own divinely beautiful self to this earth in the most sacred part of your body and your life.

Oxytocin is released during positive social interactions, such as spending time with loved ones, physical contact and eye contact. Strong social connections have been validated to be associated with better physical and mental health outcomes. Oxytocin, often referred to as the "love hormone," is released during sexual arousal and orgasm, but also during positive interactions. Oxytocin has been found to have immunomodulatory effects, influencing immune cell activity and inflammation. Spending time with people you love, or doing things you love, and of course in intimacy, falling in love, being in love and more, all increase production of oxytocin.  

The brain's control system for hormones and the immune system is called the hypothalamic neuroendocrine system. It's like the boss of hormone release from the pituitary gland and is important for keeping the immune system in check. Another part of this system, called the hypothalamo-neurohypophysial system (HNS), is also key in linking the brain, hormones, and the immune system. Inside the HNS is a special group of cells that release oxytocin. These cells, found in different parts of the brain, help gather information from the body about things like stress, metabolism, and the immune system. They also play a big role in how the immune system grows and works. Oxytocin from these cells helps the thymus (where it helps teach the immune system how to work properly) and bone marrow grow, keeps an eye on the immune system to spot any problems, and helps it stay balanced. 

Oxytocin can also help calm down inflammation, heal wounds, and fight stress-related immune issues. These cells release oxytocin, which can directly talk to the immune system by turning on certain receptors, or indirectly by affecting other parts of the brain and the body's nervous system. 

So why is it so hard to do? Why are so many of us living in scarcity, lack, fear and ill health? 

There is much to gain when you can control a population easily through illness. Who has the most to gain on a population of disempowered, sick and cowdly people just trying to get through the day while dealing with chronic pain, chronic disease and illness and intergenerational trauma and abuse that affects mental and emotional wellbeing. If you answer that question, you will likely also answer why it is hard for you to live in joy.

Living in joy and pleasure, as you can start to understand is one of the most important ways for you to unplug from the industrialisation of sickcare. Your self healing ability is innate within you and it takes so little for you to activate it. Time in nature, time in joy, doing things you love with people you love, playing, frolicking and expressing yourself creatively and joyfully. Making love, enjoying your body, your beauty, flowers and more. This is all a way of pleasurable living that will start to flood your body with nitric oxide, and then all the other neurotransmitters in the process.  

Our society has sullied medical information surrounding pleasure, specifically women's pleasure, and has stigmatised it so much in our lives and silence our own body intelligence as a method of sickness management to , over generations, have us rethink and forget our own important role in health and wellbeing via pleasure centres.

So now that you understand how powerful you are as a fully empowered and fully capable self-healer, how does this all get implemented in your life so that you can not only live a more pleasurable life right now, but also increase your overall health, longevity and wellness in the process?

Pleasure also comes from owning and living your power. If you want to know where your true power lies, go to those places you've been taught to fear the most: Your orgasm, your period, your labour and birth and your menopause. These are all processes that involve and affect your femininity, your uterus, your pussy, your cunt (hate this word? Read the full account of its potent and powerful history and how and why you've literally been programmed to hate the most powerful part of your womanhood and the most powerful of self-healing parts of the body). 

Your feminine body and these rites of passage in a woman's life hold the most immense power and potential for pleasure and they all involve the neurotransmitters mentioned above. You cannot birth your baby (project or womanness) into this world without nitric oxide, dopamine, serotonin, and beta endorphins. The feeding of your baby, the orgasmic explosion, the creative outpouring, all produce oxytocin. Women are designed to create and to feel great when doing so.  We are literally wired to feel pleasure in our womanhood, but the mind, the culture and our beliefs override this and we work against ourselves, our biology and nature so we don't allow ourselves joy. 

We also need to willing turn on the receptors in our brains and bodies to joy because during childhood and over the course of our lives, we've been raised and socialised to beleive that joy and pleasure is wrong, sinful, lustful, dangerous, or that we need to focus on school or work or money, and the list of reasons goes on. Whatever the reason and wherever the lesson that to have pleasure in our bodies and lives is wrong, override that and invite joy, pleasure and ecstacy into every quadrant of your life. 

If you have children, find ways to invite in free, unstructured play with them because they will elevate your to a frequency of pleasure and play that is so natural for them. Children are experts at producing joy and happiness and it is part of the reason they bounce back from illness so quickly.

If you have a loving partner, invite in more intimacy, erotic and loving pleasure. If you are alone, do the same but with yourself and your own energy. Allow yourself to indulge in orgasm, lovingly indulging your body in ecstasy and holding space for that nitric oxide to flood your body and heal each cell of your body with its power and healing. Allowing serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and beta endorphins to flood your pleasure centre and change your life, one day at a time, and commence that cycle of positive feedback to change your life, mood and health. 

Allow yourself time to indulge in creative pursuits or pleasurable activities. Whatever makes you happy. Carve out time, ensure your enjoyment is prioritised. Anyone who doesn't have time for themselves, their joy, their pleasure isn't prioritising their time correctly. Just ask yourself, how much time do you spend scrolling or zoning out in front of a screen? There is time, you have to decide how to use it. Ultimately, the less time you spend in joy, pleasure and ecstasy throughout your days, means the less number of days overall you will have to spend in your life on earth. This is the ultimate longevity hack and it will be rewarded as you age and when you start to reverse illnesses and conditions. 

Allow yourself more time to sit and walk in nature. Harmonising yourself, down-regulating your nervous system and increasing your mood enhancers in nature is a fast and easy way to invite in pleasure to your life.

Pleasure is free. You don't need to know anything or take a course to find pleasure in life. But you do need to put effort in and make time. But time invested in this pays dividends in longevity and life quality. 

Women, it is time we asked for more. It is time we gave ourselves more and it is time we reclaimed our joyful, pleasurable and creative lives to positively impact our own biology, but also in turn, to give so much more to this world around us. Pleasure, joy and ecstasy is the language of the heart. It is our native language and way of being. It is how our biology is wired and how our self-healing ability is activated and maintained. We are connected to all of us and the connections fuel our self-healing capacities to live longer, healthier lives. By disconnecting ourselves from our fellow woman, we are shutting ourselves down, limiting our self-healing and self-pleasuring abilities and reducing our lifespan, as well as making ourselves sick in the process.

Pleasure is so much more than just orgasm. Although, that is also a wonderful way to feel and promote joy, ecstacy and creative energy into our bodies and lives. A sensually alive and sexually confident woman can be felt. She turns heads walking down the street. She is magnetic and attractive to all that she claims in this world.

References:

1. Choi, K. W., Stein, M. B., Nishimi, K. M., Ge, T., Coleman, J. R. I., Chen, C. Y., ... & Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. (2020). An Exposure-Wide and Mendelian Randomization Approach to Identifying Modifiable Factors for the Prevention of Depression. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 177(10).

1. Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLOS Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316 
2. Li, T., Wang, P., Wang, S. C., & Wang, Y. F. (2017). Approaches Mediating Oxytocin Regulation of the Immune System. Frontiers in Immunology, 7, 693. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2016.00693 
3. Steptoe, A., Shankar, A., Demakakos, P., & Wardle, J. (2013). Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in older men and women. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(15), 5797-5801. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1219686110
4. Vaillant, G. E., McArthur, C. C., & Bock, A. (2022). Grant Study of Adult Development, 1938-2000. Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/48WRX9