Why Good Sex Matters Quotes

“anhedonia,”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“If 40 percent of our happiness resides in what we decide to do with the cards we are dealt, why not take advantage and harness the power of our attention, and deliberately and intentionally focus on how we get to be happy, satisfied, and complete right here and right now. One overarching way to begin to create your new way to be is through the lens—and the tools—of what I call operational intelligence.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Many of us convince ourselves that if we get the right relationship, the right job, the right house, the kids, the car, the hot tub—all of the possessions and accomplishments that we think we need and want—then, we will be happy. Ahh. But what actually ends up happening is that we suffer from what’s known as the hedonic treadmill: we habituate to our new gains, and our happiness returns to our relative baselines fairly quickly. We each have a general set point of happiness (which is determined 50 percent by genetics, 10 percent by our circumstances, and 40 percent by the decisions we make and how we reinforce or adapt the genetic loading we are born with). The good news is that this set point can be modified or adjusted by consciously making decisions or choices—especially when it comes to managing our core emotional systems. Another piece of good news is that the hedonic treadmill also works in reverse. We similarly adjust to negative events, even those that are really upsetting, and return to our relative set point of well-being. We humans are above all an adaptable species.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“The bottom line is that play is good for your health. More play and more sex mean less stress and inflammation, and more protection from coronary heart disease (the disease that killed his dad). A healthy working PLAY system is integral to a healthy and robust pleasure system. The PLAY system is literally the source of our social joy chemicals. Our ability to experience pleasure and its reverse state of anhedonia is closely tied to rebooting our body-brain connection so that we let ourselves PLAY. It sounds simple, and it is; but it’s also a profound human experience and emotion that is necessary for our health and survival.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Much research supports the notion that actively expressing our emotions with others yields great physical and emotional benefits—even decreasing inflammation which may be at the core of many illnesses.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“As we drop in to the realization that we can indeed access external resources through mobilizing our inner resources, we can loosen and soften attachment to things looking a certain way in any moment—whether it be outcomes with particular people or circumstances. Basically, the less anxious we become about specific outcomes, the more relaxed, resourceful and resilient, and creative we can be. How does this play out? We become able to recognize that if one love relationship is not going to last in spite of our best intentions and efforts, then we will eventually find satisfaction and partnership elsewhere. If our dream job doesn’t pan out, we trust that there are many other possibilities that may actually provide enhanced opportunities in the long run. If a friend disappoints us, we can take it less personally and look for support from those who are truly available. This reframing dials down our anxiety about needing something or someone to be a certain way and permits us to be more present and appreciative of what is, which becomes a recipe for cultivating a secure attachment style in which we feel that our needs are okay and that the world will generally help us meet them.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Anxious or preoccupied attachment shows up as, “my relationships aren’t safe and secure.” “I need my connections to be okay in order for me to be okay.” Such a setup often means that women and men will choose the needs of the relationship or partner over the self—a style that results in a person not standing up for their own needs. Learning how to voice your own needs is an important feature of healthy relationships. On the contrary, developing habits for relationship success involves learning that not taking a stand for ourselves is as much of a relationship offense and often, over the long run, as destructive as the more dramatic offenses of lying and cheating.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“On the other side of the spectrum, overparenting, where the caregiver, responding to his or her own issues, is not attuned to what the child actually needs, can also wreak havoc with the tonality of the child’s PANIC/GRIEF and CARE systems. As we will see, in general, imbalances in the CARE system can contribute to shutting down SEEKING and in its wake, LUST. Let’s take a look at how these two systems must work in tandem to be optimally balanced for pleasure.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“It’s important to keep in mind that our defenses originate as nonconscious and automatic—both anger and fear were originally meant to be mechanisms of protection. However, as we’ve evolved into more complex beings, and as the original biological imperative has taken on psycho-social layering, our defenses often just get in our way. Indeed, these defensive responses can trigger one another and exacerbate additional emotional imbalances. The result? A cascade effect of nonhelpful responses that further erode our relationships and our capacity for pleasure. Katie was suffering from an outdated FEAR response and Kara was suffering from RAGE that was getting in the way of PLAY, CARE, and LUST. Again, these basic core emotions are powerful forces that live within us and our memories. Unless we notice them and connect to how they are playing out or emerging in our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and body responses, they will continue to interfere with our access to and experience of our pleasure system. And, when it comes to FEAR and RAGE, these defensive emotions can easily wreak havoc on all aspects of our lives.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“As Panksepp and others have noted, the ability to constructively and productively express anger (what is cognitively layered over the RAGE system) is key to emotional balance. Neither RAGING with anger nor bottling it up is healthy for an individual or his/her relationships. With cultivated self-awareness you can employ your higher-level brain to help you make the necessary shifts so that neither fear nor anger will block your path to pleasure. If you think you are prone to an inner voice saying, “Danger, Will Robinson, danger,” you may just have an overactive fear response. If you are often withdrawing from social occasions or work challenges for fear of rejection, this may be the case as well. On the other hand, you might find yourself raging like Kara, always on the defense, waiting for a fight or to be taken advantage of. Regardless, these fear and rage responses are often cognitive distortions that “ooze up” from the midlevel mind, where they are embedded memories that are no longer even accurate and, if left to fester, will indeed rob you of pleasure.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“We want to remember that we have the opportunity to regulate our emotions using the advanced skills that can be honed via our higher brain centers, especially as we develop more insight and understanding of how the emotional basement and midlevel minds work. Top-down thinking can either inflame or soothe RAGE; the difference becomes a matter of how well a person can harness his or her parasympathetic system (the calming system). RAGE can be redirected constructively, or it can explode destructively.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Many people who have never had their feelings validated or accepted by caregivers have not internalized their own ability to self-validate. For most of her life, the only way Kara felt validated in her anger was when she could assign blame, which also enabled her to feel justified as a victim. One thing Kara needs to do in order to get out of her RAGE cycle is to consciously learn that she is entitled to feel whatever it is she feels, even if the cause isn’t obvious or doesn’t make sense—that this is a basic human right. But for Kara, like many people struggling to let go of this internal vision of herself as a victim, she does not believe that she is intrinsically deserving, worthy, and entitled—as she would have learned had the parenting she’d received been more consistent and attuned. Her early experiences of being a victim of inadequate parenting set up a pattern such that the only time she feels entitled to taking a stand for herself is when she feels wronged by others. Had Kara’s feelings been both heard and validated by a consistent caretaker, not only would she have grown up to feel more deserving, she would have likely developed more skills in identifying and satisfying her own and others’ emotional needs in a relationship (see “Good Sex Tool: Active Listening,” part 2 validation exercise, page 147). As her therapist, the challenge is to help her feel safe with me, so that she can truly experience and feel what underlies the rage, which I surmise to be fear.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“The first step is to see how her anger began with a purpose. In her case, it served as an armor that protected her when she was a child and no one was appropriately taking care of her needs. Getting angry both warded off potential advances from a revolving queue of questionable “stepdads” and also enabled her to proclaim her needs, on the rare occasions someone was actually listening. But now, this anger habit is no longer serving her. Up until this point, it’s been easier and safer for her to feel anger and present the defensive attitude of “I am going to fuck you before you fuck me.” In fact, it’s entrapping her. She needs to update her emotional responses so that they work for her in the here and now. Like many people stuck in RAGE, Kara is conflating being angry with feeling victimized. Somewhere along the way, Kara learned that she needed to make someone wrong in order to feel justified or entitled to feel angry.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Indeed, Kara has had good reasons to be angry, and that anger most likely helped her survive the rough road she has traveled. But now the general baseline of her RAGE system is set at a high simmer, ready for a rolling boil. It’s taking a toll on her relationships, her work, her sex life, and her connection with her kids. And it’s also taking a toll on her health: she has recently been diagnosed with hypertension and prediabetes. Though it got her to seek therapy, her sexless relationship is only the tip of the iceberg. Her defensive emotional system needs to be harnessed and directed toward allowing her to experience any kind of healthy pleasure—and all kinds of healthy pleasure—for the sake of her overall health.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Next, scan your body (you might need to start by noticing that you have one!). What are you experiencing? Sensations? Anywhere specifically? Heaviness? Tightness? Tension? Pressure? Hot or cold?”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Together, we watch a very explicit instructional video about the coital alignment technique, a specialized version of the missionary position developed to help women more easily orgasm from intercourse. The video shows three young, beautiful couples in turn demonstrating variants of the technique—having hot, juicy intercourse along with tons of pleasure. While watching the video, Katie begins to laugh so hard, she cries. She is discharging old distress and shame. She leaves the session glowing. The laughter and the play-filled release has the power to wipe away the residual shame and negative associations—it’s orgasmic in and of itself.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“The good news is that in all of these cases, you can reverse anhedonia and restoke the SEEKING system. When your SEEKING system is revving again—neither over- or underactive—you will feel energetic, curious, motivated, and excited about life. And as the stories of Tim and Yvonne suggest, sex can get you there.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Women often have to “work” harder to light up their LUST—that’s why PLAY and connection are so important to have in the mix to offset the inevitable ebbing of spontaneous desire that accompanies what I call new relationship energy (NRE).”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“With addiction, an individual has to consciously (very high awareness) address the exponential seeking and striving in order to override the tendency that has now become automatic. The strength of the dopamine cry for the opiate receptors keeps a person who is addicted hyperfocused on one thing: that fix. And no fix is big enough. People who are addicted to gambling, food, sex, alcohol, or drugs share this same dysregulation—their neuromodulators are out of whack, which further reinforces neural patterns of behavior and emotion that are exceptionally difficult to interrupt. Think of the actor Robert Downey Jr., who was once asked during his bad boy druggie days what his favorite drug was. His answer was simply “more.” For people struggling with addiction, the spikes of dopamine continue to go up and up without learning because their reward system is no longer working the way it’s supposed to.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“The fact that pleasure is not simply a desire for a pleasing reward but also has important biologic functions is fascinating—indeed, I think it points both to how we might get unstuck from anhedonia but also why sex, in particular, is so important in all of this. In other words, as a mindful yet somatic experience, sex has the capacity to elicit the pleasure pathway and reboot the SEEKING system, jolting us out of anhedonia.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“When a pleasurable reward is predicted, phasic dopamine is released by an automatic process in the lower brain. Tonic dopamine (released and regulated by the PFC) refers to that “background” dopamine that “floats” around, trying to help regulate the firing of the phasic dopamine. The brain-body is in a near-constant enterprise of maintaining a balance between these seemingly opposite dopamine actions. When our SEEKING system is functioning normally, phasic dopamine regulates our motivation to go after pleasant sensations and stay away from unpleasant sensations or stimuli. If phasic dopamine is underactive, we have a low response to stimulation; if it’s overactive, it can cause impulsive or out-of-control SEEKING. In both cases, it’s tonic dopamine’s job to keep phasic dopamine in working order.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“To put it simply: the violation of our expectations, for better or worse, are often the source of our emotional reactions.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Underlying the motivation to obtain pleasure is our brain’s prediction or expectation of a pleasurable reward. In fact, the pathway to pleasure has been defined as having three distinct components, each with its own neurobiological mechanism and each representing a kind of phase in a sequence. First, the initiation is marked by a wanting of pleasure; followed by a liking of what was sought after (a kind of consummation); followed then by a learning. This last piece of the sequence ensures that the brain-body remembers the connection between the wanting and the liking and encodes this connection in the midlevel of the brain, enabling the prediction of reward in the future.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“They include physical benefits of sexual activity, such as enhanced overall longevity, reduced risk of coronary heart disease, and decreased risk of type-2 diabetes. Studies also have indicated lower rates of prostate cancer in men tied to more frequent ejaculations, and lowered rates of breast cancers in women who are sexually active. Being sexually active tends to enhance immunity, improve sleep, improve fertility, improve mood, reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, and help people manage chronic pain. And let’s not forget that sexual behavior can enhance feelings of well-being and self-esteem and smooth over rough points in a relationship by facilitating bonding. And obviously, all the other systems—SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, PANIC/GRIEF, CARE, and PLAY—all impact LUST. When any of the other emotional systems are out of balance, your LUST will be affected.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Panksepp and others believe that children deprived of sufficient opportunities for physical play are at risk for the development of hyperactive urges, distractibility, and restlessness that can easily be construed as symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD). Once diagnosed with ADHD, kids are often prescribed amphetamines, which in turn seem to diminish the urge to play. At the same time, when ADHD has been studied, abundant rough-and-tumble play seems to reduce the severity of the hyperactive symptoms. This is yet another example that, as a culture, we tend to endorse the pharmaceutical solutions that can actually end up discouraging the necessary behavior.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“With anhedonia, our CARE systems are compromised. We either withdraw from our important relationships or sabotage them, isolating ourselves further. Too little care prevents us from experiencing enjoyment with another person; too much care blocks our libido and stifles our ability to experience spontaneous play and enjoyment. Too much care for others can also undermine healthy self-care. Bringing this system into balance is crucial for good sex, as it is for the invitation of pleasure.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“When we are anhedonic, we might be SEEKING a whole lot of stimulation—and craving a ton of stuff—but what we are really, truly hungry for is what we actually need. And what we actually need is what evolution has wired us for—social contact, connection, and love. Real face-to-face, eye-to-eye, flesh-to-flesh communion with our conspecifics (a fancy way of saying organisms of our own species). This urgent biological need is one that far too many are going without.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“When it’s in balance, a PANIC/GRIEF system enables people to appropriately experience and tolerate the full range of their feelings, including the negative ones: ​sadness, disappointment, longing. Feeling all of our feelings is one of the surest signs of a high-functioning, resilient person. When it’s overactive, you might demonstrate an anxious attachment style, have difficulty separating from others, and in some cases, develop a panic disorder. An overactive PANIC/GRIEF system can be associated with trauma. When it’s underdeveloped, you might experience an inability to form and sustain close personal relationships and be avoidant or dismissive of people you know. This, as you will see, is also related to an inadequate or imbalanced CARE system.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“Having our earliest needs met with attunement, warmth, and reliability, we grow into feeling that our needs are okay, and that people will be generally happy to help us get them met. Early caregiving that isn’t so caring leaves lasting marks on this system such that the child is predisposed to insecurities and may cling in later years to loved ones, resulting in patterns that drive partners away, or even the avoidance altogether of deep sustaining relationships. Imbalances in this system often impact our “attachment styles.” A secure or insecure attachment style predicts how confident we become in our capacity to get our needs met in the world, with and through our relationships with significant others, which in turn affects our overall tonality of PANIC/GRIEF and CARE.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life

“RAGE is the raw substrate onto which anger, the more complex, cognitively infused emotion, is superimposed. RAGE circuits get turned on automatically—without learning—when an animal (or person) is pinned down, physically threatened, or their actions are restricted. Likewise, irritation to the surface of the body will elicit RAGE. So will blocking an animal or person’s SEEKING behavior (i.e., taking away his or her freedom to do what she/he wants!). RAGE is also associated with being hungry, thirsty, or even horny—essentially when frustrated in the process of SEEKING. One way to conceptualize RAGE is as a reaction to being cornered, threatened, or constrained from getting access to important resources. We can become enRAGED when frustrated in pursuit of a prize or deprived of something juicy and rewarding that was expected. Children experience RAGE activation when a new sibling comes along and steals their thunder—the roots of sibling rivalry. We can become enRAGED when rejected by a loved one or ostracized by a social network. It is essentially a drive to get what is in the way, out of the way—frustration triggers RAGE.”
― Nan Wise, Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life