The Health Benefits of Love!

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent,

protects you from age.

- Anais Nin

How Love Keeps Us Healthy
Love doesn't only keep us happy-it helps to Create Health!
What are the health benefits of love, intimacy, sex ?

1. Love Lowers Stress, Reduces Pain, and Promotes Sleep!
According to a study from the University of North Carolina, Hugging dramatically lowers blood pressure and boost blood levels of oxytocin (a relaxing hormone that plays a role in breastfeeding and orgasms). Daily frequent hugging has a similar effect of many leading blood pressure medications. Kathleen Light, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at UNC. What is interesting is that men did not get the blood pressure benefits from frequent hugging, although they do get the same health gains from steady sex as we do from snuggling. Having sex and orgasms increases levels of the hormone oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, which helps us bond and build trust. "Oxytocin allows us to feel the urge to nurture and to bond," according to Light.
In a study published in the Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, As the hormone oxytocin surges, endorphins increase, and pain declines. So if your headache, arthritis pain, or PMS symptoms seem to improve after sex, you can thank those higher oxytocin levels.
The oxytocin released during orgasm also promotes sleep, according to research.
Getting enough sleep has been linked with a host of other good things, such as maintaining a healthy weight and blood pressure.

2. Having Sex Improves Cardiovascular Health
A 2007 study from the University of Pittsburgh: Women in good marriages have a much lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those in high-stress relationships.
In a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, scientists found that having sex twice or more a week reduced the risk of fatal heart attack by half for the men, compared with those who had sex less than once a month.A 2002 study from the University of Bristol in England found that men who had sex two or more times a week cut their risk of having a fatal heart attack in half.

3. Sex Strengthens Immunity!

According to a University of Iowa study: Ovarian cancer patients who had satisfying, connected relationships had more vigorous "natural killer" cell activity (i.e. white blood cells that kill cancerous cells, strengthen the body's immune system.) at the site of the tumor. And a recent study from the National Cancer Institute found that men who ejaculate frequently may be protecting themselves against prostate cancer. The recommendation was 21 ejaculations per month! Whoa!

A couple of other health benefits:

Sex burns calories! Dependent on the vigorous nature of the love-making, one ½ hour session burns about 85 calories. If you multiply this by 42 half-hour sessions, you will burn 3,570 calories, more than enough to lose a pound. (And you can always double up, that's 21 hour long sessions!) whoo hoo!
Sex Strengthens Pelvic Floor Muscles
For women, Sex strengthens your Kegels or pelvic floor muscles. When you have strong Kegels, you enjoy more pleasure, (and you decrease the risk of incontinence in later life).
Sex boosts self-esteem

Boosting self-esteem was one of 237 reasons people have sex, collected by University of Texas researchers and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. According to Gina Ogden, PhD, a sex therapist and marriage and family therapist in Cambridge Mass., "Great sex begins with self-esteem, and it raises self-esteem. If the sex is loving, connected, and desired, it raises it."

Soon maybe Doctor's will be prescribing hot steamy sex, and a romantic get-away just like they prescribe healthy diet, exercise, and rest! That's a pretty fabulous prescription! (Mmmm, Now to get the insurance companies to kick in....)

Happy Valentines Day,

~Chris