Exams are fast approaching, midterm season never seems to end, assignments keep on piling up, and you have friends to entertain! So you’re stressed right? We all are. But there are many ways to de-stress during the school year and you might already be doing one of them. Sex!
Okay so let’s start at the beginning. What exactly happens when you’re stressed at a biological level? Well, stress is pretty important. It’s what has kept us alive and is what keeps you going in threatening situations. The stress response (aka ‘fight or flight’ response) allows us to either get rid of a threat or get away fast. This releases adrenaline, which raises blood sugar and blood pressure. After a few minutes the stress hormone is released (cortisol), which allows blood sugar and pressure to stay raised until you have reached safety. In people who suffer from chronic stress there is too much stress hormone and not enough happy hormones (serotonin, dopamine and others).
So to treat chronic stress you need to decrease the stress hormone and increase the happy hormones. One way to lower the stress hormone is through aerobic exercise. Other ways to lower the stress hormone include yoga, drinking black tea, laughing with friends, listening to music and way more! But back to that aerobic exercise. Sex can be considered aerobic exercise. Meaning that it can lower your levels of stress hormone. In addition to that, sex raises your levels of happy hormones. Really anything that makes you happy increases the happy hormones.
So in short if all of that went over your head stress increases the bad stress hormone and decreases good happy hormones. Sex can decrease the bad stress hormones and increase the feel-good hormones.
This hormone imbalance is the cause of all stressful behaviour including stress eating, nervous habits like biting nails or grinding teeth and anything else you might do when you have an exam tomorrow.
In one study, people who had sex daily for two weeks had lower blood pressure than those who abstained all together. It was even lower than those who went solo during the two weeks. This is partially because of the love hormone or oxytocin which is released when you connect with another human being. It in itself lowers blood pleasure and breathing rates and triggers feelings of compassion. In another study, with rats, cortisol levels were lower in rats that had sex daily for two weeks than rats that had sex once during the two week span. So consistency really is key here.
And remember safe and consensual sex is the best sex!
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