February 10, 2024

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/best-of-intimacy/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:37] Women, cannabis, and sex

[00:05:39] Ben's pre-sex energizers

[00:06:19] How to have more sex in your marriage

[00:09:16] Erectile benefits of nitric oxide tablets

[00:14:14] Why nitric oxide supplements work better when dissolved in the mouth

[00:16:08] The correlation between stress and libido 

[00:17:24] Susan Bratton on libido in men and women

[00:21:28] Libido, desire, and arousal are three concentric interlocking circles 

[00:24:42] The “thrust in time” technique

[00:26:48] Orgasm techniques from Susan Bratton

[00:33:26] The correlation between breathwork and sexual performance

[00:41:09] Wine and health

[00:45:00] Is wine better for sex?

[00:49:35] Sexual intercourse before exercise

[00:54:48] Closing the Podcast

[00:56:03] End of Podcast

[00:56:25] Legal Disclaimer

Ben:  My name is Ben Greenfield. And, on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

Susan:  And, that's kind of the opposite of the way a lot of people have sex, they think about sex as intercourse, and that's kind of the main event and they probably don't kiss much. I always call it they grab a boob and stick it in. That's kind of what the basic having sex is like for most people where I'm like, “Here's how to make love and have crazy amounts of orgasms together.”

Ben:  Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

Welcome to a very special episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Maybe a PG 13-ish rated episode for which I feel like I should probably talk in a low and sultry voice because this is the best of intimacy and biohacking sex. First of all, let's get the goodies out of the way. All the shownotes for everything you're about to hear are going to be found at BenGreenfieldLife.com/BiohackingSex. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/BiohackingSex.

And, I have decided to gather the best of the best episodes that I have done in the past to optimize libido, orgasms, hormones, sexual performance, pelvic health, and the like. Of course, proceed at your own risk with earmuffs for the kids, if necessary, if you happen to be listening to this in the minivan on the way to soccer practice or wherever you happen to be. But anyways, I have all sorts of fantastic information to optimize your sexual experience and your sex life in today's show. So, we're going to jump in, but just a quick preview of what you're about to hear, we will be discussing getting better erections naturally, how cannabis can enhance the sexual experience, how to have more sex in your marriage, how nitric oxide could actually work in a very unique way, and how to use it scientifically optimizing libido in men and women, how to thrust in time, I'll let your imagination go where it wants to go with that, the correlation between breath work and sexual performance, wine for better sex, does having sex before exercise impair performance and a whole lot more.

Let's do this. And again, the shownotes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com/BiohackingSex.

In this first snippet, how cannabis and women can enhance sexual experience and how to have more sex in your marriage taken from Q&A 431. Here we go.

Something interesting related to cannabis. This was an article that came out on Project CBD on women and cannabis. Well, it turns out that in women, and especially older women for whom sometimes libido tends to wane a little bit, some of the research on cannabis shows that it is one of the best, especially in women–not so much in men, because in men, it can be a little bit estrogenic. It can be reduced libido a little bit, reduced drive a little bit, and that's because it's kind of a female plant cannabis is and has these estrogen-like effects. But in women, the effects on orgasm length, pleasure during sex, libido, and everything you'd be looking for from my kind of sexy standpoint is very much enhanced via the use of cannabis, particularly prior to any type of erotic stimuli. It has what's called a bidirectional biphasic effect on sexual functioning, and even in small doses can increase sensitivity and arousal.

And so, internally, I guess pun intended in this case, I have supplied my wife with a vape pen and a cannabis-infused lube. And she has absolutely just, again pun intended, just exploded in terms of her sexual desire and her sexual pleasure in response to the use of cannabis. And this is coming from a woman, my wife, who's really not interested in much of this stuff at all. But she actually really, really likes to take a hit on a vape pen now prior to sex. And this paper backs up the fact that in women, especially–and again, not in men. She'll take a hit and I pass it up because for me, I feel better just basically having all senses turned on otherwise. But for women, especially, cannabis can be amazing for sex.

And so, if any women are out there want to enhance libido, enhance orgasms, particularly multiple orgasms, orgasm length, et cetera, these cannabis sex lubes, or even more of like the sativa-based vape pens–and there are certain strains that are quite good, like there's one called love potion. There's another one called voodoo. There's another one they developed called, brace yourself, the purple panty dropper. And these are specifically designed for women's sexual enhancements. And yeah, when it comes to juicy sex, it seems that cannabis seems to turn things up quite a bit.

Jay:  Yeah. It's like men, go get your ladies some CBD. Ladies, get your men a nice juicy ribeye and you're good to go, man. 

Ben:  Yup, exactly. Whereas for me personally, sometimes I'll just basically do something that is a little bit more elevating prior to sex. Sometimes I like this kava stuff. It's a little bit more energetic strain of Kava. Sometimes I just like to have an afternoon cup of coffee, sometimes any type of blood flow precursor like beet root. I have a bunch of recipes in “Boundless” for different pre-workout stacks, pre-sex stacks. So, I tend to go for something more energetic, and I think that works out better for men. But for women, there you have it.

And, related to that, I've got one more for you. I discovered this guy named Adam Lane Smith. He's got some pretty good articles on his website, but one, in particular, is how to have more sex in your marriage. How to have more sex in your marriage, “How To Have Way More Sex In Your Marriage” is the title of this article that he wrote. And, I read the article. I tried the strategy that he outlines in the article and it works like gangbusters.

Jay:  I like that you're doing in-field testing of this stuff, Ben.

Ben:  Right, yeah. It's very important that I do personal research on this. So, basically, it all comes down to this. If you want to increase her sex drive by developing emotional intimacy with her through trust and respect, through making her feel more valuable and more useful, and more secure to keep coming back for sex based on this idea that emotional intimacy, especially for women, is a strong aphrodisiac. What you do is if you have a problem, guys, if you have a problem, you go to your woman and you share with her the problem that you are experiencing. You state what you're feeling about that problem. Like, “I'm really feeling confused about this, or frustrated about this, or lost trying to solve this issue.

You explain your solution. So, babe, what I'm thinking about doing is XYZ, and then you ask for feedback on that solution. So, what do you think? What do you think I should do? And I've been pulling this out on date nights, not just–I mean, it's not just for sex, also for conversation and for emotional intimacy. I mean, this isn't just so I can get laid. But basically, this idea of vulnerability seems to turn women into like happy sex leopards. And I don't know if we're offending women with this kind of chatter, but I would hope not. But yeah, guys, if you want your woman to be more turned on and more attracted to you, be highly vulnerable and take problems you're experiencing. Rather than annoy her by sharing problems, share your problems, state your feeling about the problem, explain your solution, then ask for feedback on your solution and it works. I read the article, I'm like, yeah, everybody knows it. But then I actually tried it intentionally, and yeah, it actually works quite, quite well.

Coming up next, the surprising truth about coffee and heart attacks, how sulfur can rescue your arteries, better erections naturally and a whole lot more were all discussed when I interviewed the natural heart doctor Jack Wolfson. And today, we're going to dive into what he had to share about getting better erections naturally.

Yeah, those salivary nitric oxide tests are pretty cool. I interviewed Dr. Nathan Bryan about nitric oxide a few years ago. And, after I did, he was like, “Well, you want to–you can test it.” And, he sent me some sublingual nitric oxide tablets which are amazing. I mean, I've used Viagra before and I've also dissolved those tablets in my mouth and for something for a test let's say for sexual performance, a couple of those nitric oxide tablets just dissolved in your mouth seem to induce the same type of erectile benefits of something like Viagra. And so, that's a pretty good clue that they're doing something as far as vasodilation and the reduction in the resistance of blood flow and an increase in nitric oxide when you consume them, but he also sent me those little test strips. I think they were they were salivary, like you mentioned, in the mouth and they turn a different color based on the amount of nitric oxide that you produce. Am I thinking of the same thing?

Jack:  Yeah. No, that's definitely what it is. And, let me tell you a little story. So, Viagra was not invented as an ED drug, and Viagra was supposed to be a blood pressure-lowering drug and a drug for angina. So, what happened was that the pharmaceutical companies know that increasing nitric oxide would be beneficial and potentially would be a new blood pressure drug, raise nitric oxide, lower blood pressure. Obviously, we'll talk about ways to do that naturally. But, the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, they're doing the studies on this new pharmaceutical and they find that it's lowering blood pressure in men and women. But then, they also find that the men have this particular interesting side effect and some women had it as well as far as clitoral enlargement and blood flow and therefore better orgasm for the female. But, in the men, in particular, they noticed this very interesting thing where the men, they're looking for side effects; nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, cough, infections, whatever. But, the men start checking off this box for better erectile function, so Pfizer says who cares about another blood pressure drug, a new blood pressure drug, an anti-anginal drug, we've got Viagra. And, that's how Viagra was born. But, you're right, men are not deficient in Viagra, they're deficient in the things that would increase nitric oxide naturally.

But then, further to segue about pharma, when I was in the late 1990s and with some of my medical residency buddies and we're in the doctor's lounge and the reps for Pfizer would come in and they would just throw Viagra all over the table. And, they're like, “Here, guys, go try it out. Go do your thing. See what happens.” And, of course, start prescribing it for patients. So, it really was, I mean, the creation of a multi, multi-hundred billion dollar drug many times over. And, there's different options. And again, I'm not opposed to the use of those pharmaceuticals for a whole variety of measures, but again, pharma should always come at the end of the game, not at the beginning. The beginning of the game is all the things that we talk about; eat well, live well, think well, and the test, don't guess, and the biohacking strategies, evidence-based supplements. There's a time and a place for modern medicine. God bless the men and women who–I'm not here to trash them, but the men and women who work in emergency, in trauma, but for everything else, medicine's a total failure.

Ben:  And, I realized we're bouncing all over the place here, and don't worry, I got some stuff I want to come back to about the glycocalyx. But, to stay on this topic of nitric oxide, I've always had better results with nitric oxide supplements, whether it's beet powder or these dissolvable nitric oxide tablets. I don't know if I should be doing this, but I've chewed on the Calroy one, the Vascanox Calroy one for nitric oxide. I feel I get a better release when I'm chewing or dissolving nitric oxide precursors in my mouth.

Now, this is interesting because I think it was Dr. Nathan Bryan, when I interviewed him, who talked about how people who use mouthwash regularly or who nuke the biome in their mouth don't have the bacteria present in the mouth that would allow for the conversion of nitric oxide precursors from foods like arugula or beetroot, et cetera, to be able to be converted into nitric oxide in the body. And so, I think the same thing has been said for, I don't know if it's Dr. Bryan who said this but I think fluoridated toothpaste was another one that you want to be careful with. 

But, is there something to this idea of when you're using something even Viagra, for example, the dissolvable troches, not necessarily Viagra but sildenafil or tadalafil or the active ingredient in Viagra seems to work best when you dissolve it in your mouth. So, what's going on as far as–and this might just be myth or my own perception but a better response to nitric oxide supplements or pharmaceuticals when you dissolve them in your mouth?

Jack:  Yeah. Well, I mean, kind of two different things right there. And again, your understanding of that is totally spot on. And yeah, when you destroy the oral microbiome, the gut microbiome, all bets are off on all this stuff. So, we rely on the oral microbiome in order to turn food-based nitrate into nitrite. And, if you're deficient there, what's so beneficial about the Vascanox product is that it is potassium nitrite. So, you're kind of bypassing that one step of oral conversion nitrate into nitrite. In addition, you're getting all the potassium which has an infinite number of body benefits. We always talk about magnesium and other supplements. We invariably forget about potassium and the importance thereof. And actually, Vascanox is a great source of potassium inside the potassium nitrite. So, that's going to be beneficial there. 

And then, this also, it's very important to have the acidic stomach in order to convert the nitrite into nitric oxide and therefore absorb. Now, why don't people have acidic stomachs? For all the reasons that you already know why people have low stomach acid levels, from all the different pharmaceuticals, from the fluoride that inhibits the proton pump, from high chlorine, from the antibiotics. I mean, so many different things that destroy all of that. Invariably, having a good oral microbiome, not using mouthwash, all the things that we do inside of eat well, live well, think well, everything helps everything.

Now, in the case of sildenafil, what the troches would do is that it just allows for faster absorption. It's not better efficacy but it's going to be potentially quicker because that doesn't require any kind of activation process. It purely is a bioavailability. And, I think a lot of ways it's a marketing ploy because nobody wants to take Viagra an hour before sexual activity. They want to take it immediately and then be sexually active. 

But, I mean, listen, I do want to say one comment to everybody as it relates to the stress that everyone is under and sexual libido and erectile function that it is much more likely to be a brain issue as opposed to a circulation blood flow issue. The brain has to be optimized in a variety of ways. When you're metaphorically getting chased by a tiger, in our paleo days, we're getting chased by a tiger, you don't stop to check out the scenery, you don't stop to check out the beautiful woman when you're running away from a tiger because those people have been naturally selected to be dead, they were eaten by the tiger. When you are running constantly on this crazy stressed life that everybody lives; geopolitical issues, when's the next pandemic, what's going on with my job, who this, that, all these things that are going on in our lives, constant stress, high sympathetic tone equals no libido, no erectile function. Why is sex always better on the weekend, on vacation? Stress levels tend to be down. Focus on that as opposed to what's the next kind of way to hack the system because you got to fix this system up top first.

Sex expert, Susan Bratton, is a very dynamic and engaging personality as you're about to hear. She specializes in libido in men and women. She has a whole host of different eBooks that my wife and I have gone through. We actually have them all printed off and they happen to be in the special drawer in our bedroom. And, Susan talked with me about orgasm enhancement, blood flow, nitric oxide, red light therapy, yoni steaming, prostate massage and a whole lot more. So, here we go

Susan:  So many people are like, “Ah, my hormones. There's something wrong with my hormones. I don't have any libido.” And, like, “Mm, it's actually probably not your hormones. Although if you took some testosterone you'd be hornier than ever.”

Ben:  Yeah.

Susan:  But, it's your physical body and your physical energy are the other side of the same coin of your libido. So, I practice sex. I have sex dates. I have research partners. I have lovers. I have my husband who is my muse. And, all of those, you said, “How do you make it sexy when you're trying a new sex position and you got a book laid out in bed?” I think that for a lot of couples getting the ideas from me of, “What should we do to keep our sex life fun, what could we be learning, what's new for us?” is what I spend my time doing. You said I sent you a bunch of little books. I always think it's the little hinge that swings the big door with regard to sex. It shouldn't be something overwhelming. Like one juicy position that you've never tried, and here's why it's good or one technique or when I sent you those books, I actually put them in order for you, and I said, “First, do ‘The Soul Mate Embrace,' then learn ‘The Sexual Soulmate Pact,” which is how to ask for anything you want or need or talk about anything in the bedroom with total confidence.”

So, I've written, I don't know, 35, 40 books, but they're always small books because I think that when you give people techniques, whether they're communication techniques or pleasuring, sex positions, intercourse techniques like “thrust in time,” that one, that “Thrust in Time,” that little technique that — and most of my books are free. I have advanced orgasm skills that are what I charge for online programs where people learn actual orgasm technique, but little techniques like “Thrust in Time” or sex position, seven positions or things like that, those are things that the minute you get it and you try it like you did with “Thrust in Time”, you had an instant win. You were like, “Oh, she really liked that. That's now part of my repertoire. That Susan Bratton knows what she's talking about. What else does she have?” So, what I do is I get up and I work out and then I write sexy things.

Ben:  By the way, I'll give you an opportunity here in a little bit to explain what thrust in time actually is because I'm sure everybody's wondering right now. And, don't worry, Susan and I are going to get into talking about some of the toys and positions and the logistics and the ins and outs, pun intended again, of some of this stuff.

But, but, but, I have to ask you, I guess, Susan one of the things that I'm curious about, and this is relevant I suppose to just what comes before sex and is a little bit more of a big picture question. I had originally thought about asking you like, “Well, how often should you have sex? And, what's the average number of times per week that a married couple like my wife and I have sex?” But, as you noted to me, it's going to be highly variant, and we never want to guilt trip people into thinking that they got to do it one or three or seven times or whatever because that's what your neighbor is doing. But, I am curious about the difference between males and females particularly when it comes to arousal patterns because I think a lot of people don't really understand that. And, I'd love to hear you get into that a little bit. 

Susan:  So, there is a big difference between male and female desire and arousal, and even libido. I like to think about libido, desire, and arousal as three concentric interlocking circles like a Venn diagram where libido is that body-based energy that you have. When your gut microbiome is good and you're making all your hormones and you're making all your neurotransmitters, so you feel good and you have plenty of system resources, then you have desire for sex. When those are minimal, your desire for sex goes down. So, a lot of times when people think it's their hormones, half the time, it's their gut microbiome that's the problem, they're not operating well. 

And then, desire is really when people say, “Oh, your brain is the biggest sex organ.” Desire is, “How do I feel about myself? Do I feel beautiful? Do I feel sexy? Do I like the way my genitals look? Do I feel turned on by life?” And then, arousal is how we get turned on. The way our body gets into turn on and gets really turned on, and that actually comes back to blood flow as much as it comes back to any of the things you're thinking. And, the one thing that I think people really don't understand about turn-on and arousal is that when men get turned on, they get turned on pretty quickly. They have the benefit of something called hemodynamics. It even sounds masculine, but it just means blood energy, the flow of your blood. And, the chambers and the penis, they're like a straight shot and the blood runs in. They think turning on any thoughts and their penis goes boing, and they're turned on and they're ready to go because every day you get a really nice bath of testosterone that makes you horny. 

Where for women, they're female-bodied, people there in this 28-day cycle or so, 30 days, 40 days, whatever it might be, 21 days. And so, they're going up and into estrogen out so they're more turned on at different times of the month though they could get turned on at any time of the month. But, we have the same amount of erectile tissue in our vulva but it's a pachinko game or an English muffin where there's all these nooks and crannies that the blood has to flow into.

Women actually have three erectile tissue systems in their vulva. They've got the clitoral system, the perineal system, and the urethral system, and they're all spongy tissue, and they actually wrap around the vagina like a big bracelet of erectile tissue. 

And so, a lot of people, a lot of sexperts will say, “You've got to touch the clitoris to give a woman an orgasm.” It's like, “Well, you think you're talking about the tip of the clitoris.” And, yes, that's nice, but when a woman's vulva, when all that erectile system is activated and full of blood, it's expanded, it's literally bigger like we get an erection. And, when we get an erection, we have more surface area sending more pleasure signals to the brain, making it easier for us to orgasm, which is why that thrust in time, which we will describe. We promise, we promise.

That thrust in time technique, what it does is it remembers, it knows that when you're making love to her and you're having penetrative sex that her entire vagina is surrounded by erectile issue and you don't actually need to directly stimulate the tip of the clitoris because if you get her, I'm going to use another word, yoni, Y-O-N-I, which is a cute word for her vulva. Because vulva sounds like malva, malva. It's kind of like not a sexy word for a woman's genital system, but yoni is a pretty word and lingam is the penis. So, yoni and lingam are cute words we could use for our genitals that sound nice.

And so, when her yoni gets all plump and fluff and engorged with blood, you literally don't even necessarily need to touch the tip of the clitoris and she can have orgasm after orgasm after orgasm after orgasm. So, the problem is that when an XX person and an XY chromosome person get together, a female and a male get together and he's already turned on and ready to go and she's not yet fully aroused, engorged, and erect and they have intercourse really early and without enough foreplay, turn-on, arousal, massage, pleasuring sensation, she can't have an orgasm from intercourse and then she thinks, “Oh well, I can't have an orgasm from intercourse.” And, he goes, “Well, I guess she can't have an orgasm from intercourse, so we'll do some other stuff.”

Ben:  Yeah.

Susan:  Instead of understanding that it's actually just she needs more time to get aroused and get all that blood flowing to her genitals.

Ben:  By the way, if you enjoyed that episode particularly the part about prostate health, you may want to go and check out a video that recently got released on Instagram showing me doing a very cutting-edge biohack, I suppose you would call it, for prostate health. The video is a little edgy. I'll warn you there are needles and methylene blue and ozone and the like involved, but I will link to that in the shownotes if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/BiohackingSex.

Next up, Susan's back with how to thrust in time. I've done this. I do this. It works pay attention. It's going to change your life.

Susan:  The last thing I just created is called “Your Sex Life Bucket List.” And, actually when you and I spoke at a conference recently, my keynote was on this. I walked the whole audience through how to come up with their sex life bucket list, which is what you do when you want to have novelty and variety in your sex life, especially in a long-term monogamous sex life. You want to keep learning new things. 

And so, I walked the whole audience through 48 different types of things that they could experience from the different types of orgasms they could have, to different types of orgasm techniques they could do, to different types of sex positions. There were all kinds of ideas because that's what people need. They're like, “What do you want to do?” “I don't know. What do you want to do?” “Well, if we had our sex life bucket list and you did your assessment and I did my assessment and then we merged them when we made a little list, we could just see what looked fun and we'll try that the next time we're having a lovemaking date.”

And so, the sex life bucket list is really fun, and thrust in time is one of those sex techniques that helps you have an orgasm from intercourse because you learn from me that it's just a learned skill and you're like, “Oh, my god, okay, I'll learn it.” So, what thrust in time is, and it's at ThrustInTime.com, it's free, it's a download, you can read it, both read it, and then you kind of know what you're doing. It's basically an ancient Daoist practice that I brought up to the 21st century. And, it comes from the Daoist who did teach semen retention. I found that there are about 5% of men for whom semen retention is really good, and about 95% of men who are like, “I really like to ejaculate.” And, I'm like, “You do you.” Everybody's different. Sex is a bell curve. So, this is not a semen retention, what this is is a stamina technique for men because one in four men would consider themselves premature ejaculators they come before they want to. And, many men just simply want more stamina. They want to last longer. They don't think they have a problem, but they just want to go and go and go and go and really, really, really satisfy their woman. And, they understand that it takes her a while to relax and get in the groove and start to come.

And, once a woman starts to come, she can keep coming and keep coming. I can come for an hour straight. The only reason I stop is because I need to get some water and take a break and just take a rest. So, we have this unlimited ability to orgasm. And, that's what this technique gets you into is this experience where she's just coming and coming and coming from penetration, and it's counting technique, it's a stroke technique. It has both the what I would call the shallow or short strokes. They're not fast though, they're slow and long deep strokes, but not super deep and not slammy and not hard. I'm talking about you are smooth. 

And, the idea is that you do, it's based on 10s. So, when you enter her, you barely enter her and that introital sphincter, the opening to her vagina is a round sphincter muscle, and it's where women experience the most painful part of sex if they're having painful sex. And so, it's something where as the masculine, you're just full speed ahead and you want to plunge inside her. But, the problem is that that's a lot for her, and so as the masculine, you need to slow way down and almost tease the opening with just the most delicate little like, “Hello, knock, knock, knock. I'm here. Let me in.” so that she relaxes an open. So, you're not forcing your way in, she's almost pulling you in. You're at the opening and you're creating this desire for her to want you inside her where she opens and takes you in. And so, you do these really slow, nine little shallow slow strokes, and then you give her one nice long deep stroke and then you pull it out. And then, you do eight shallow strokes and then two nice deep strokes.

And then, by the time you get to four and five or five and four and you give her those really nice deep, she's going to be begging you for more, and you're not going to give it to her. And, pretty soon you're just going to stay on the pattern, three and eight and three and seven and eight. And, at some point, she's going to have an orgasm just from penetration without any other if you've got done a good warm-up. And, there's one thing I want to say about the warm-ups. Touching the clitoral structures from the outside using your fingers, your tongue going down on her, giving her yoni massage, using a vibrator to get all that tissue really going, all of those things are really good. But, there's also everted clitoral erections. Everted means from the inside out. And, that's where nipple stimulation and kissing come in. That's why making out hot kissing and breast play, not just nipples but full breast play and nipples licking, touching, squeezing. Those two things are fantastic foreplay because they're actually getting her turned on from the inside out. They're giving her an internal clitoral erection. 

And then, when you go down to the vulva itself and you're massaging and kneading and stroking and sliding, and then you've got your tongue in there and then you've got tongue and fingers, before you ever get to anything like thrust in time or penetration, she is all nice and warmed up and plump and engorged and she's got her erections, and then you do thrust in time and she just wants it. She's ready. And, that's the opposite of the way a lot of people have sex. They think about sex as intercourse and that's the main event and they probably don't kiss much. Yeah, I always call it they grab a boob and stick it in. That's what the basic having sex is like for most people where I'm like, “Here's how to make love and have crazy amounts of orgasms together.” 

Ben: Next, we're going to dive into the correlation between breathwork and sexual performance. As you listen in, I recommend that you check out, and I will link to this in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/BiohackingSex, two different apps. One called the Breath Source and one called Othership. Both have partner-based breath work sessions that my wife and I do that I highly recommend you check out. A transformative experience with your partner if you combine breathwork with lovemaking and foreplay.

I've found that sometimes the relaxed exhale that occurs after that is similar to when you're doing let's say progressive neuromuscular relaxation to say achieve better sleep onset and you're squeezing the toes then relaxing them then squeezing the calves and relaxing. And, the post-contraction relaxation seems to be more pronounced than a relaxation without a contract action that occurred before it. And so, I sometimes find I can relax much more deeply into the exhale hold if it's followed by some kind of a rural intense contraction on the inhale hold. So, that's one reason.

The other reason is I have found there to be a direct transfer between focusing on and being aware of and contracting and relaxing the pelvic floor musculature including all the muscles around the perineum, the urinary sphincter, et cetera, and orgasmic quality. Meaning when I've gone through a period of time where, for example, recently I just got done with three months of daily breathwork while preparing for free diving and spearfishing trip and the side bonus of that was that for about the last two months, my orgasms have been extremely long, extremely powerful and obviously very pleasurable. And, I think that there's something to be said for the transfer between breathwork and sexual performance or particularly the activation of the pelvic floor muscles and some of those ejaculatory muscles for a guy. I would imagine someone the same could be said for women as well. But, have you ever looked into the transfer between breathwork and sexual performance?

Travis:  Yes. As far as the working of the perineum, his name is not on the top of my head at the moment, you probably know who he is, but he's a Japanese gentleman that teaches about–

Ben:  Yeah, Mantak.

Travis:  Mantak, yeah.

Ben:  The guy who wrote the “Multi-Orgasmic Male” same guy?

Travis:  Yes. Yup, same guy.

Ben:  Yeah, fantastic book, by the way.

Travis:  It is. And, he talks about getting masturbation up to the point of ejaculation but not allowing yourself to ejaculate and then doing it over and over and over and over. And, I've done that practice actually for 30 days to strengthen my perineum and also understand what he was talking about of retaining that energy. And so, the perineum and the sphincter muscles, what's cool about them, and this comes back to the orgasm so we'll get back to that. But, when you squeeze your perineum on an inhale hold, so you'll hear breathe in, pull the belly button into the spine, squeeze the perineum or root lock and it pushes the coccyx bone up into the cerebral spinal fluid, pushes the cerebral spinal fluid up the spine into the back of the brain stem, puts pressure on the pineal gland and the pineal gland holds what we know of as the god molecule, which is dimethyltryptamine. And, there's little rhombohedron crystals surrounding the pineal gland and crystals carry energy. Our entire body is made of tiny crystallines but there's special rhombohedron crystals on the pineal gland and they separate and they cause a piezoelectric effect when they come back together that allows it to leak ever so tiny little particulates of dimethyltryptamine.

And Ben, I've done a lot of plant medicine journeys. I think you have experimented with that too. And, we have to take two or three or four doses of ayahuasca because that dimethyltryptamine is not coded to our body, but the dimethyltryptamine that's in our body, in my opinion, is coded to our body that's why it takes such small amounts to have an absolute euphoric transition to that god molecule. And, I think that when we are working the perineum right during orgasm, we're activating some of that same power when we're in that ejaculatory state.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's pretty powerful. I have a few thoughts based on what you said. First, do you guys yet have any couple's breathwork sessions in the Breath Source app? And, the reason I asked is my wife and I have a few 20, 30-minute-long ones that I have on my phone that we'll occasionally do kind of as foreplay or as a way to connect at the end of the day in a quiet place in the evenings, typically in the bedroom, legs intertwined or sitting close to each other's laps, breathing in and out of each other's mouths, noses, doing locks and holds together, et cetera. And, it's amazing as a partner practice, but I don't think I ever asked you if you guys have a couple sessions in the Breath Source app.

Travis:  We don't and we absolutely should. So, I'm going to have to recruit you and Jessa and start that for us.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. I guess that's my one complaint about the coaching during such a session is you do feel a third person is there in the bedroom with you. And, I would apologize profusely for anyone who'd have to put up with my voice particularly while you're trying to get it on with your lover. So, I don't know how comfortable I'd be with that, but if it's just for coaching people and then they can break off and do it on their own, that's great. 

And then, the other thing you mentioned, the reduced ejaculation frequency for increased drive, aggressiveness, energy, et cetera in males, I don't think I talked with you about this, but gosh it's probably six or seven years ago now that Men's Health recruited me to do about a six-month foray into all the things that a man could do to improve his sexual performance both ancient and modern; stem cells and PRP into the nether regions, to gas station dick pills in all manner of different herbs, all the way down to the reduced ejaculation frequency. And, I also did a 30-day stint as part of the immersive journalistic aspect of that article, which they published entitled “New Year, New Dick.” It was their January edition.

And, I must say that the aggressiveness that you find when you're engaged in that practice is almost annoyingly high as far as your energy your drive. I mean, it works as promised but remember, we're not talking about not getting an erection or not having sex, we're literally talking about doing all of that but not ejaculating, which as many guys can probably imagine, can kind of leave you a little frustrated and pent up afterwards. I almost didn't like it. It was almost too much for me. I was just like, “Gosh, I got going to stop again,” but it definitely is an act in self-discipline and seems to cause that energy drive as well. 

Is wine better for sex? You probably always wanted to know the answer to that question. It turns out it's surprising. It turns out I've addressed that and we're going to dive into the Q&A in which I did so from Q&A 460. Is wine better for sex?

Alright, let's move on to another sex-related topic, wine. And, this was interesting, there was a study that looked at wine and the consumption of wine, particularly for sexual function. This one discussed women but was primarily, again, sorry ladies looking primarily at the fellas. Now, it's interesting because some of us consider wine to be an aphrodisiac, and I've always wondered well is that because it's actually a potent blood flow precursor, so much so that the cheap hack when I used to bodybuild was we drink red wine and eat dark chocolate backstage to allow for better vascularity or is it the relaxing component of red wine, is the fact that maybe you're in Paris at a fancy restaurant drinking wine on a hot date, and that's why red wine has the reputation as an aphrodisiac. I don't know what the answer is until I went through this study at least.

So, let's talk about this. So, red wine, alcoholic beverage, it's obtained from the fermentation of dark-colored grapes rich in phytonutrients. And, there is a lot in wine besides just water and ethanol. You've got organic acids, aldehydes, ketones, esters, minerals, lipids, what are called phenolics. So, there's a lot going on in wine and the beneficial health effects of red wine have been primarily associated with its polyphenolic content, very high amount of what are called flavonoids and non-flavonoids. So, we've got things like quercetin, myricetin, catechin, epicatechin which you'd also find in things like green tea, what are called hydroxycinnamates like caffeic acid, glutaric acid, hydroxybenzanate, a lot of stuff going on in wine due to its polyphenol content.

Now, the alcohol content of red wine has, of course, been a major issue of concern amongst many people, yet moderate alcohol consumption has also been associated with a cardio-protective effect and an increase in HDL, a reduction in your platelet adhesiveness. And, those are both responsible for the onset of atherosclerosis. So, it turns out that one to three glasses of wine per day may reduce cardiovascular risk. I know that some people will say that alcohol in any amount is bad for you. The studies being used to make that claim typically don't break out say drinking a glass of wine each night with dinner and being a teeter taller and having seven glasses of wine all in a row on a weekend. It's important that wine be consumed in small doses, any alcohol be consumed in small doses, a small hormetic dose so to speak. This would be the same as say running 25 miles on the weekend versus running 3 miles a day. Your body's going to be able to handle that far differently.

So, the polyphenols in red wine are incredibly high, especially if it has a lot of the skins, a lot of the seeds, if it's a very tannic wine. I always choose biodynamic or organic wine such as you would find from the countries of France or New Zealand or Italy. Those tend to be three safe countries that use fewer herbicides and pesticides that often also use dry irrigation methods that result in higher antioxidant content of the grape, sometimes lower alcohol content. You can find a lot of this information in the podcast that I did with Todd White who has a company called Dry Farm Wines. I've been a subscriber to their wine service for like 10 years. I think it's around six or eight bottles delivered once a month to my house all organic biodynamic wine. 

So, this study said, well, if wine's got all these things going for, what does it do when it comes to fertility, sexual desire, sexual function, spermatozoa, which is the name implies can be correlated with the quality of your sperm and just overall sexual function? So, they took all of the studies out there that have been done on red wine related to sex. And, I found some interesting things. So, first of all, red wine appears to, in a dose-dependent manner, affect your follicle-stimulating hormone, testosterone, and prolactin levels. And, this is a lot of studies that were done in male rodents but it appears that all of these could be beneficial when it comes to restoration of erectile function. They've also found that red wine can cause a reduced amount of the breakdown of nitric oxide, the same reason people would take say Viagra or sildenafil to increase nitric oxide where the polyphenols in red wine seem to allow for some smooth muscle relaxation, what's called the corpora cavernosa of the penis and also increased penile vasodilation.

Now, I don't know if I necessarily need to be drinking a lot of wine as I just got a massive amount of stem cells injected into my own nether regions. Nonetheless, in the absence of stem cells, red wine appears to be a pretty good idea when it comes to the polyphenol content and what that does to both your endocrine system as well as your balls when it comes to a better sexual function. They've also found that the antioxidant properties and polyphenols found in red wine are positively correlated to serum testosterone levels. This is interesting. Most people tell if you're going to drink alcohol, it will suppress your testosterone levels. But, in fact, they have shown, and again, most of the studies I will admit were in rodent models but that the low-to-moderate consumption of red wine actually resulted in an increase in testosterone levels and also seem to balance phytoestrogens or the phytoestrogens in wine seem to balance the body's estrogen levels. And, that influenced what's called steroidogenesis and also seem to cause a slight growth hormone response. So again, we're talking about low to moderate amounts, but that seems to be fantastic as well.

They did look a little bit at women and they showed sexual desire and vaginal lubrication to be higher in women who consumed around a glass of wine a day. And, it was actually better than women who consumed a whole lot of wine. So again, a little bit of a trade-off here when it comes to the amount of wine that you're drinking. If it's a giant fish bowl-sized glass of wine or multiple glasses or half the bottle, probably not. As a matter of fact, that appears to decrease female sexual function or the quality of female sexual function. But, in small doses, again, around a glass a day. It seems to be beneficial for women. So, hooray. Hopefully, I'm making a lot of fans with what I'm saying about wine here. And again, we're all talking about low to moderate amounts. And, this may vary from person to person depending on your ability to be able to metabolize alcohol. There are some genetic components here, but we're painting with a broad brush across a lot of studies. You should also note that chronic alcohol intake can reduce testosterone levels, impair spermatogenesis and decrease testicular volume.

Now, note that I said alcohol intake because if you isolate alcohol and give it to a human being in those doses, it doesn't appear to be beneficial. But then, when you combine it with the wide host of polyphenolic compounds in red wine, those appear to be protected against the actual effects of the alcohol. So, in a nutshell here or in a grape shell or grape skin, I should say, what it appears is that red wine intake seems to be beneficial for male reproductive function and sexual function in low to moderate amounts and the same seems to be able to be said for women at least when it comes to sexual desire and vaginal lubrication. So, there you have it. It turns out that when I was drinking red wine backstage when I used to bodybuild and found it to be incredibly vascular that it seems to have that same effect in the bedroom so to speak. So, everybody rush out and grab your low to moderate dose of red wine. 

Age-old question. You got that competition coming up, you got that hard workout, do you have sex or don't you? Well, you're about to find out in this snippet from Q&A 428.

Interesting study that came out just this month. This is the age-old question that I'm sure–especially, it seems like more men ask this question than women, although it's, of course, relevant to any female athletes and exercise enthusiasts as well. And that is the topic of sexual intercourse before exercise, and whether it has a helpful effect, a null effect, or a detrimental effect. And it turns out that a journal wound up doing a small study, admittedly small study with 50 men, physically and sexually active men. And what they wanted to study was whether sexual intercourse could harm athletic performance along debated topics and sports competitions were first invented. And also, a topic with a relative lack of solid scientific evidence, getting to see what I did there, solid scientific evidence. Oh, yeah. I'm going to definitely pun the hell out of this one.

So, anyways, these physically and sexually active men, what they did were weight training sessions, three different weight training sessions. All sessions were at the same time of day and they tested their maximum weight for five repetitions of the squat with total of five sets. So, five by five max rep squad. That's not a routine for anyone who's faint of heart. That's pretty tough to throw weight on your back that's close to your maximum weight. Do five reps, do five sets of that. But then they also measured their performance in that, either after participating in sexual intercourse the night before or abstaining from sexual intercourse the night before. And they actually measured the duration of the sexual intercourse with a stopwatch. I don't know if anyone would like to guess about how long the mean duration of sex was before I reveal it to you, but it was, drumroll, please, 13.8 minutes, plus or minus three and a half minutes.

So, that was the average amount of time that physically and sexually active men were engaged in sexual intercourse. I have no clue if that includes foreplay, if that's simply mean time of thrusting or what exactly they were measuring. But anyways, what they found was that the mean lifted weight when these gentlemen were abstinent was about 109 kilograms. And if you'd like to know what that is in pounds, just so you guys know the quick math there is you multiply by 2.2. And so, they were doing about 240 pounds or so. Now, after they had had sex, same workout, and they isolated for issues like being fatigued, et cetera, these guys were recovered all that jazz. So, it actually dropped, their maximum weight lifted, dropped, and dropped significantly by almost 10 pounds. So, to 107 kilograms, which I believe is–what's 107 kilograms come out to? Approximately for 109 kilograms was about 240 pounds. So, we had 235 pounds-ish, somewhere around there. So, 5 to 10-pound drop in squat performance.

Now, I don't know about you, but I would say that unless you're an elite athlete, if you have the choice between abstaining from sex or engaging in an enjoyable activity and your maximum squat dropping by 5 to 10 pounds, I don't know about you, but I'm just fine having sex if I can't do my max squat quite as heavy the next day. It wasn't that significant, especially considering these gentlemen were engaged in sex for about 13 minutes. If you are in your exercise session, for example, for the physical benefits that you might derive from it, the metabolic benefits, well, you could say, “Hey, I squatted 5 to 10 less pounds, but I also exercise for an extra 13 minutes last night.” So, it could be all awash unless you're a professional athlete.

But I mean, if you are one of those people doing, I don't know, triathlon, CrossFit, Spartan racing, anything else which you want to just show up and be just absolutely stellar the next day, maybe you should abstain, or–and here's where my mind goes. All the evidence that I've seen on increases in testosterone, increases in kind of like aggressiveness, libido, et cetera, seem to correlate to know ejaculation sex. Meaning, I wish they'd have tested a third group in which they had sex without ejaculation because if any of you guys have tried that, I guess it's an ancient eastern practice of a no ejaculation for like a month, which I did a couple of years ago. Oh my goodness, you feel like you want to just, pardon the expression, just like rip somebody's head off by the time you've gotten through the course of a month of that. So, maybe the rule is here, A, don't have sex if you really want to perform well and exercise the next day. B, do have sex if you don't care and you just want to enjoy yourself. And C, if you want to be an absolute animal, have sex, but fellas, don't ejaculate.

Alright, folks, I hope you learned a little bit. I hope your sex life gets better from what you've just learned and I hope you check out the shownotes where I've gathered quite a bit of additional helpful material for you. All of it is at BenGreenfieldLife.com/BiohackingSex. Thanks for listening.

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