You may do intermittent fasting, optimize your diet, take your supplements, and prioritize sleep. But there’s one powerful longevity tool that almost no one in the wellness space is talking about. What if the secret to living longer, reducing inflammation, and protecting your heart wasn’t in a bottle or a biohack, but something your body already knows how to do?
In this episode, Dr. Diane Mueller, a board-certified sexologist with dual doctorates in naturopathic medicine and acupuncture, reveals the surprising science behind how orgasms can add years to your life. Dr. Mueller explains how oxytocin (the hormone released during orgasm and cuddling) protects your cardiovascular system, resets your stress response, and reduces inflammation. If you’re looking for evidence-based strategies to enhance your longevity while also improving your relationships and quality of life, this conversation will change how you think about pleasure and health.
Listen now to start prioritizing pleasure for longevity!
Oxytocin, a hormone released in abundance during orgasm, deserves a place in every longevity conversation alongside fasting, exercise, and clean eating. Dr. Mueller shares practical strategies for overcoming low desire, understanding how women’s arousal cycles work differently from men’s, and why scheduling intimacy isn’t just okay. It’s essential.
Oxytocin offers cardiovascular protection by increasing nitric oxide synthase, which dilates blood vessels and lowers blood pressure while protecting heart muscle cells. Oxytocin also has anti-inflammatory effects, reduces anxiety and depression, and can actually reset your HPA axis (the system that regulates your stress response and cortisol levels). When you optimize oxytocin through regular orgasms, you’re addressing multiple root causes of disease and dysfunction that accelerate aging.
Estrogen increases the number of oxytocin receptors in your body, which means that as estrogen declines during perimenopause and menopause, your body’s responsiveness to oxytocin also decreases. This contributes not only to changes in libido but also to increased anxiety, cardiovascular risk, and other symptoms commonly attributed to hormone imbalance. While bioidentical hormone replacement therapy helps restore estrogen and testosterone levels, adding pleasure practices and potentially intranasal oxytocin supplementation can address the oxytocin decline specifically, offering additional cardiovascular protection and emotional balance during this transition.
Pleasure and presence are deeply connected. You cannot fully enjoy pleasure without being mindful of sensations, tastes, smells, and tactile experiences in the moment. Start practicing pleasure outside the bedroom by choosing one daily activity (drinking your morning coffee, lifting weights, eating a meal) and spending 1-5 minutes being fully present to the sensations without multitasking. This trains your nervous system to experience pleasure more deeply, which translates to more satisfying intimate experiences. For couples, scheduling regular date nights with 5-10 minutes of non-sexual touch, massage, or simply holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes helps you reconnect without the pressure of performance.
When you’re burned out and stressed, sex can feel like just one more thing on your to-do list rather than a rejuvenating practice. Chronic stress and adrenal dysfunction create a physiological state where your body prioritizes survival over reproduction, naturally suppressing desire. However, oxytocin works on a positive feedback loop. Unlike most hormones in your body that work on negative feedback, pleasure actually stimulates more pleasure. Scheduling intimacy and creating space for it in your calendar (just like you do for the gym or meal prep) ensures that your relationship gets the attention it deserves, and once you start, the oxytocin response helps you want more of it.
Listen now to start prioritizing pleasure for longevity!
Dr. Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, is a board-certified sexologist with dual doctorates in Naturopathic Medicine and Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. She is the founder of the sex education center: MyLibidoDoc.com and hosts ‘The Libido Lounge’ podcast, where she helps monogamous couples create more passion, desire, hotter sex, and better communication.
Free Libido Quiz: Find the root causes (and solutions) for low libido: https://t.ly/NeKEx
Free e-book: Revive Your Love Life: 5 easy steps for mindblowing orgasms and romance: http://hotterlife.com
Sex Type/Libido Code: LibidoCode.com
Orgasm Perception Quiz https://mylibidodoc.com/orgasmic-perception-questionnaire/
Get your Libido Back Video Ebook: https://mylibidodoc.com/libido-video-ebook/
Lube Guide: mylubeguide.com
YesNoMaybe Checklist: MySexDoc.com
Reignite Intimacy And Sex Through Curiosity, with Dr. Elliot Kronenfeld
Spice Up Your Lovemaking, with Susan Bratton
Live Longer & Reverse Aging, with Dr. Kara Fitzgerald
Unlocking Longevity: Transform Your Health with a Fasting Mimicking Diet, with Dr. Joseph Antoun
Longevity and mTOR: What the Science Says, with Dr. Robert Lufkin
Aging with Vitality and Strength, with Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum
Reversing Aging: The Power of NAD+, with Dr. Nichola Conlon
Hormones for Healthy Aging, with Dr. Daved Rosensweet
Slow Aging by Optimizing These Redox Reactions, with Dr. Monisha Bhanote
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