Great sex is your birthright; you came into existence as the result of sexual intercourse, and your body is designed solely for sexual pleasure. You have special receptors in your brain, vagina, and clitoris—and throughout your entire physiology—that have no other purpose than to give you erotic satisfaction. But even though you were born with the capacity for great sex, it's not a given. You have to nurture your capacity for it, allow it to grow and flourish, and nourish it with care and loving attention. Your capacity for sexual pleasure is intimately connected to every aspect of your health. To enjoy sex, you need a healthy mind and body, freedom from pain and discomfort, and the energy to act on your desires. Of course, if you're chronically ill, tired, depressed, feeling burned out, struggling with difficult sexual issues, or harboring negative feelings about sex, that's not a big deal.
But the relationship between your sexuality and your health is far more dynamic than the obvious correlation between your ability to experience erotic sensations and your overall well-being. There are myriad connections between your capacity for pleasure and the countless choices you make every day. Everything about your lifestyle — including your state of mind, what you eat, how you exercise, and how efficiently you eliminate toxins — can affect your capacity for sexual pleasure. Over time, you can fully unleash your potential for great sex with the right choices, or you can diminish it with unhealthy ones. Just as people who let their health slip away for many years can lose the natural function of an organ or system, it is possible to slowly undermine your natural capacity for sexual satisfaction with lifestyle choices that continually torpedo your libido. Great sex can be yours for as long as you live, but you must choose it again and again with a lifestyle that supports it. The choice is yours; Choose it or lose it.
Not only does abundant mental and physical health increase your capacity to enjoy sex, but sex, in turn, gives you numerous health benefits. In fact, an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away: Sex reduces stress, burns calories, boosts your circulation (bringing nutrients and fresh oxygen to your tissues), and releases "feel-good" oxytocin and endorphins, as well as prolactin (which promotes calmness and lowers blood pressure). And sex has many other potential benefits, too: It may help strengthen your immunity; aid in pain relief (including menstrual cramps and migraines); lower the risk of heart attack, endometriosis, and preterm delivery in pregnant women; promote frequent menstrual cycles; stimulate your vagina's natural lubrication; and prevent urinary incontinence. Some research even suggests a link between the frequency of sex and longevity.
Health and sex are, in a sense, mutually reinforcing: the greater your health, the greater your capacity to enjoy sex; and the more you enjoy sex, the greater your health. Health makes you sexy, and sex makes you healthy! In Part I of this book, you will explore the four cornerstones necessary to nurture your capacity to have great sex: your mind and spirit, diet, exercise habits, and the ability to detoxify. We begin with your mind and spirit because they are uniquely important; all the choices that affect your sexual destiny emanate from your mind, after all. Through the power of choice making, your mind will be the key determining factor for every single tool you discover in this book for building your health and libido. If your mind and spirit are not healthy, many of the benefits you reap will be for naught.
The state of your mind is also connected to your capacity for sexual pleasure in myriad other ways. Not only does your ability to fully enjoy sex require a healthy mind and spirit, clarity of consciousness to pursue your passions, and freedom from unhealthy emotions, but each position you experience can have a profound effect on your physiology and resistance to illness, as well as your capacity for great sex. Your capacity for sexual pleasure is inseparable from your mind—in a sense, pleasure is nothing more than the awareness of pleasure—which can make your mind the ultimate measure of pleasure. In this chapter you will explore ways in which you can engage your mind and spirit to enhance your health and transform your life—especially to create or maintain a healthy loving relationship and a fulfilling sex life. By tapping into the strengths of your mind and spirit with ideas, tools, and techniques, you can expand your possibilities for enjoying great sex naturally.
