Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life

by Emily Nagoski

You might also be more likely to want sex when you are stressed (“redliners”), whereas other folks are likely to find that their interest in sex plummets when they’re stressed (“flatliners”).

And in a culture where women have to spend so much time with the brakes on, saying no, it’s no wonder we have fantasies about abandoning all control, relaxing into absolute trust (turning off the brakes), and allowing ourselves to experience sensation.

Physical activity is the most efficient strategy for completing the stress response cycle and recalibrating your central nervous system into a calm state. When people say, “Exercise is good for stress,” that is for realsie real.7

When the going gets tough in a heterosexual relationship, it often falls to the woman to rein in her own stress response, in order to create space for the man to feel his Feels.