Here’s how to get even more out of your orgasms.
At this point in American history, it’s hard to think of many topics more taboo than politics — but sex might just be one of them.
Pretty much everything that falls under the umbrella of sexual pleasure is stigmatized, from orgasms to genital anatomy to masturbation. And while this is detrimental to our society for countless reasons, there’s one in particular you might not be thinking of: brain health.
Your brain plays a major role in your sex life, whether you realize it or not — and the sex you’re having plays a major role in your brain health, too. In fact, orgasms might just be one of the best activities you can engage in to stimulate your brain, even better than chess or sudoku.
We spoke with three experts about how your sex life stimulates your brain and why understanding your own sexual pleasure (and then allowing yourself to experience that pleasure without shame or guilt) is a vital — dare we say life-saving — endeavor.
How does your sexuality and arousal connect to your brain health?
First things first: There’s a difference between sexuality and sexual pleasure.
The latter has to do with physical sensations taking place as the result of a chemical reaction in your body (more on that in a minute), and the former is arguably more complicated, in that it’s the result of so many factors, most of which are external forces taking place outside of your body — and therefore entirely out of your control.
“Every aspect of our sexuality is represented in our brains because our brains are the center of our experience of our world,” explains Meredith Chivers, Ph.D., a sexologist and clinical psychologist. “How we respond to sexual cues and experience sexual arousal is related to a whole host of brain, psychological, and social/cultural processes.”
According to Dr. Chivers, these processes include, but aren’t limited to: what we pay attention to and how it impacts us; the emotion responses we have to sexual cues; what our culture and society at large teach us about sexuality; how we process those learnings and apply them within our own romantic lives; and what our partner’s sexuality looks like and how it manifests within a relationship.
In other words, sexuality is actually a highly intellectual aspect of your life. But what about actual, physical arousal? What happens when you do find a way to cut through the noise of your life and get turned on?
In terms of how arousal works in the brain, it has to do with something called the somatosensory cortex.
“This is the region of the brain that allows us to feel touch, temperature, and pain sensations from all over the body,” says Nan Wise, Ph.D., a neuroscientist, sex therapist, and relationship specialist. “Each part of the body is wired with sensory nerves that send inputs into the spine and then up to the brain, where they register in the somatosensory cortex. This is basic science,” she adds, “but until recently, we haven’t paid much attention to how this pertains to sex.”
Introducing a part of your body you didn’t know existed: “the brain’s crotch”
In the past several years, a number of groundbreaking studies on brain health and genitalia have yielded fascinating results.
“In a 2020 study, we found that for both men and women, the sensations from the genitals are processed by a specific place within the somatosensory cortex … which we informally nicknamed ‘the brain’s crotch,'” Dr. Wise says. “We learned that physical stimulation of each region of the genitals — in women, the clitoris, vagina, or cervix; and in men: the head of the penis, the shaft of the penis, testicles, scrotum, and rectum — activates a slightly different but adjacent and overlapping part of the genital sensory cortex. It’s ground zero for sexual sensation.”
The result of this research proved an essential hypothesis: The more stimulation a person receives in multiple areas of their genitals, the bigger the area of the brain they’re able to light up. This, in turn, gives the brain more opportunity to process these sensations and register them as pleasure.
“And just for the record,” Dr. Wise adds, “although nipples aren’t considered part of the genitals, stimulation of the nipples in both men and women activated the same region in the brain, which provides a scientific explanation of why nipple stimulation can feel sexy.”
If the idea of your brain having a crotch hasn’t already blown your mind, this next bit of information will: According to Nicole Prause, Ph.D., a neuroscientist researching human sexual behavior, addiction, and the physiology of sexual response, your body contains “special C-afferent fibers in the skin that are uniquely activated by slow stroking of another human.” This, in turn, activates your social and emotional processing areas of the brain.
So as it turns out, you don’t even need intense foreplay to start activating areas of your brain. Just lying down with your partner and cuddling could do the trick.
Is there proof that experiencing sexual pleasure keeps your brain healthy?
If you needed another reason to schedule your next date night, consider this: Having sex (and more specifically, experiencing sexual pleasure) is very, very good for you.
“Genital stimulation and orgasm result in tons of blood flow to the brain,” Dr. Wise says. And as we know, increased blood flow in the body is nearly always a good thing.
In fact, it’s so good for your brain that it might actually be a better intellectual exercise than your go-to board game. “When results [from our 2013 study about sexual pleasure and brain health] were first reported in the media, some described orgasms as better for brain health than crosswords or sudoku,” Dr. Wise says.
The results of that study (along with the results of much more research on the topic) show that genital stimulation doesn’t just activate the part of your brain which makes you feel pleasure — it also activates your emotional centers, your motor and frontal cortical regions, and more.
“What that means in plain English is that sexual stimulation and orgasm are associated with many brain regions involved in sensation, movement, reward, and pleasure, as well as the regions involved in problem-solving, memory, language, and impulse control,” Dr. Wise explains.
In fact, sexual pleasure has such a powerful impact on our neural pathways that it can sometimes work as a painkiller.
“Sexual arousal causes a strong opioid response that is helpful in managing pain experiences,” Dr. Prause says. She notes that it can also help with sleep quality, too. “Orgasm causes a strong prolactin surge,” she says, “which is a somnolent that can help people fall asleep at night.”
If you want to really maximize the brain health benefits of having sex, one way to do it is by working to engage as many parts of your body (and your genitals in particular) throughout the process.
Dr. Wise has a simple but effective way of thinking about this: “You want to try to activate as many pleasure keys as possible on your genital keyboard,” she says. “The more genital regions you stimulate, the more likely big sensations will register in your sensory brain.”
How can you build a stronger relationship with your own sexuality?
It’s one thing to know that sexual pleasure is good for your brain health, but it can be quite another to feel confident enough in your sexuality to be able to take advantage, so to speak, of that mental activity whenever you want.
For those who want to enhance their relationship with their sexual pleasure (or change it entirely), here’s one important tip for reorienting your perspective: Allow yourself to treat your sex life as something vital, rather than something superficial or less important than other aspects of your physical health.
“The first step is recognizing that the ability to experience pleasures in and out of the bedroom is not a luxury, but a necessity for a well-functioning brain and overall well-being,” Dr. Wise says. “When we can’t experience satisfying pleasures, sexual or otherwise, our physical and mental well-being suffers.”
It’s not uncommon for people to view sexual pleasure, orgasms, and other topics beneath the sexual-wellness umbrella as frivolous or not worth serious consideration. But as Dr. Wise notes, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“Educating ourselves about sexuality and the critical role pleasure plays in healthy living is key,” she says. “Both men and women can become more educated about their sexual selves.”
Want even more must-read insights on how to keep your brain at its best? Check out our entire Inside Your Mind series right here.
