Game Changers

Sex Is an Altered State

This section of the book starts with a bang (get it?). The truth is that sex was not actually one of the game changers’ top recommendations for performing better. Though many guests did bring up the topic of sex over the course of our interviews, few spoke frankly about how much it matters. Maybe they were afraid that people would judge them as hedonistic or shallow. It’s certainly true that many people carry shame and embarrassment about sex. Some people are taught at a young age that it’s dirty or “bad” and certainly not something that they should talk about in public.

So sex is missing from the data, but there are enough echoes of it throughout my hundreds of interviews that I would be remiss to ignore it. Certainly it’s one of the three most important things you do, and whether you are a man or a woman it directly impacts your performance in ways you may not realize. Sex affects your hormone levels, your neurotransmitters, your brain waves, and your overall happiness levels, each of which in turn has a direct impact on your ability to perform as a parent, partner, friend, employee, and any other roles you may have or aspire to fill.

As you read earlier, we are hardwired to do three things in order of importance: fight (or flee), feed, and . . . the F-word that this chapter is about. These are the behaviors that keep you alive and ensure that you will help propagate the species, so your body prioritizes them above all else. That means your body produces the most energy to support these instincts. The entire point of being Bulletproof is to master these motivations so that you can redirect the energy behind them as you see fit. Sex is one of the three reasons your body thinks it is alive, so it is a powerful motivating force that can either suck up a ton of your energy or, if you follow the advice in this chapter, supercharge your performance.

Law 15: Stop Thinking with What’s in Your Pants

If you’re a man, you need to learn to redirect your sexual energy into being a better human being. Your body uses huge amounts of energy to make sure you help the species reproduce. Instead, put that energy to better uses. Doing so will help you to be happier, live longer, and kick more ass. Your stress will go down and your energy will go up when you teach your body that the world won’t end if you don’t have an orgasm, just as it won’t end if you skip a meal. A craving is a craving, and any craving will take you off your game until you master it.

In 2011, researchers at New York University learned some interesting things about sex and violence. They injected light-sensitive proteins into the brains of male mice and then used fiber-optic technology to stimulate the proteins. Specifically, the proteins were injected into the hypothalamus, a region of the brain involved in certain metabolic processes, including hunger, body temperature, and hormone regulation. When they put male mice together in a cage and triggered this part of the hypothalamus with a flash of light, the mice suddenly turned violent. Out of nowhere, the mice that had previously been completely docile attacked other mice or whatever objects were nearby.

There was only one activity that prevented these violent urges: sex. When the researchers lit up the same part of the brain while the mice were having sex, nothing happened. But interestingly, once the male mice ejaculated, they went back to being easily provoked. The researchers looked at the mice’s individual neurons and found an overlap between the neurons that were active during fighting and during sex.¹

This may have been the first time scientists were able to see on a neuron-by-neuron basis that the same part of the brain is involved in violence and sex. When you think about it, it makes sense that the same part of the brain controls two behaviors that keep the species alive. Being able to fight off predators obviously keeps you alive. And having sex ensures that the species will continue to live. But that’s no excuse for any behavioral overlap between sex and violence, and it’s why it’s so powerful to channel your sexual energy to positive ends. Psychologists and spiritual masters call this “sublimation”—the act of consciously transforming sexual or any other urge into creativity or physical action. Boxers and other professional athletes have long been known to forgo sex before a competition. Muhammad Ali reportedly refused to have sex for six weeks before a boxing match, and some teams at the World Cup even institute sex bans for players before competition.²

I first came across this idea in the seminal book Think and Grow Rich, published by Napoleon Hill in 1938. This classic book, which was perhaps one of the first business and personal development books ever to be published to acclaim and success, includes an entire chapter on transforming male sexual energy into productivity. Hill’s book was based on observations because he didn’t have access to neuroscience, but his ideas and techniques have been really helpful to me. He claims that a man’s sex drive is the most powerful force he possesses, and several of the high performers I’ve interviewed agree.

John Gray, for example, is the author of perhaps the best-known relationship book of all time, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. Over the last several decades, he has researched the impact of hormones on sex and relationships. In fact, the first time I met him, I was shocked to discover that he’s almost as much of a biohacker as he is a relationship hacker.

According to John, a relationship is a system between two people, and a lot of relationship problems stem from hormone imbalances between the men and women in that system. He insists that we can dramatically improve both our sex lives and our relationships if we start paying more attention to and honoring those differences.

Women’s sex hormones naturally ebb and flow over the course of a month much more than men’s do. Most premenopausal women ovulate around day 12 of their cycle. There is a surge of estrogen at that time because of the evolutionary imperative to procreate. So from day 6 to day 12, a woman is more hormonally inclined to want to have sex. John calls this period around ovulation the “love window.”

How can estrogen be stimulated, if not through a woman’s natural hormonal cycle? Gray suggests that one way is through pair bonding. When a woman feels that her partner is meeting her needs (outside of sex), her body is wired to release estrogen. The idea isn’t that women are needy and incapable; it’s that they can kick ass and still benefit from extra nurturing during hormonal shifts. According to John, a woman’s biological operating system needs to know that there is a dependable mate in order to want to have sex and potentially make a baby; it is an evolutionary imperative. The same is true of all mammals: they won’t reproduce if the circumstances aren’t safe.

John explains that during the beginning of this “love window,” a woman will often feel that her husband is ignoring her. Maybe he’s just a jerk, or maybe her shifting hormones are influencing her perception of his behavior. (Or maybe he really is ignoring her!) John says that as her hormones surge and her body releases an egg for fertilization, she is wired to want to feel a sense of connection and support. John suggests that a male partner plan a special date right at the beginning of the “love window.” If a woman feels cared for, her body will release estrogen; if a male partner feels good about meeting her needs, his body will release testosterone. It’s important to note that age and hormonal health play an important role here; postmenopausal women and men with a low testosterone level (like I had in my twenties) won’t experience hormone fluctuations in the same ways.

If everything goes well during the love window, there is a higher likelihood of the couple having sex. This is when, biologically, a woman is likely to find her mate the most desirable and when she has the potential to have her best possible orgasm. If she has a mind-blowing orgasm, the man’s testosterone levels can double because he’ll feel like a hero. (We guys are pretty predictable.) But after his ejaculation, his testosterone level will decline. It will then build back up over the course of a week, when it will again reach its highest point.

John recommends having sex once every seven days to optimize both men’s and women’s hormone levels. That means no masturbation, no porn, none of that—just abstinence all week and then sex on the seventh day. This is especially important for men who have a low testosterone level, which unfortunately includes more and more men these days. We now know that around a quarter of all men over the age of thirty have a low testosterone level.³ Just as you may have obeyed the voice in your head that tells you to eat too much, too often, is it possible that there is another voice in your head telling you to have sex too often? Maybe.

John says that many couples experience problems immediately after sharing an intimate connection. They have a wonderful time together and feel so close and bonded, but all of that connecting makes a man’s estrogen level soar and his testosterone level plummet. Remember how feeling independent stimulates testosterone production? Well, unfortunately that means that the man retreats to rebuild his testosterone level. He sequesters himself and becomes consumed with an activity that has nothing to do with his partner. According to John, this behavior is fairly predictable from a biological point of view. When a man pulls away, he’s rebuilding his testosterone level. (Although sometimes he might just be a jerk.)

It’s important to understand how your sex hormones push your biology, even if you have no desire to follow any of this advice. They drive a major source of your urges. Christopher Ryan, a coauthor of the bestselling book Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships, has changed the way thousands of people view relationships. He says that the idea of monogamy is more cultural than genetic and that human sexuality looks more like the sexuality of our primate relatives the chimps than we’d like to admit. Yet Chris doesn’t suggest that we should necessarily avoid monogamy. Instead, he says, monogamy is a decision, not an instinct. He draws a corollary to one of our other hardwired imperatives: eating. Being a vegetarian is not an instinct; it’s a choice. For most people, it doesn’t necessarily come naturally, and it doesn’t mean that bacon won’t smell good anymore. (As a former raw vegan, I can tell you that he’s right about that. I can also tell you that the heritage-breed piglets on my farm absolutely love to eat the kale I dutifully choked down when I was a vegan.)

If you are monogamous, no matter how much you love your partner, you’re still going to be attracted to other people. That’s part of being human. And just because you’re attracted to other people or fantasize about other people, that doesn’t mean that there’s a problem with your relationship or with you; it simply means that you’re a Homo sapiens with hormones.

You may be surprised to hear that Chris’s beliefs intersect with John Gray’s. Chris says that when monogamous men have sex with a new partner, their testosterone levels increase. So cheating actually makes men feel good about themselves on a hormonal level. If you choose to be in a monogamous relationship, using John’s techniques to intentionally keep your testosterone level high might keep you from feeling tempted to stray and preserve your relationship. How many top executives are taken down by inappropriate relationships or destructive behaviors? Not the best way to change your game.

As a biohacker, I had to test some of those theories on myself. My lovely wife, Dr. Lana, wasn’t a fan of testing out Chris’s beliefs, but we did experiment with some Taoist sex practices. As my journey into biohacking led me to explore Eastern philosophies, I found that ancient Chinese Taoists—some of the world’s original biohackers—recommended transforming sexual energy into immortality. They even had a formula for how often men should ejaculate to maintain youthfulness:

(Your age – 7) / 4

That yields your ideal number of days between ejaculations. Who said that algebra wasn’t sexy? A man who wants to live forever, they say, should ejaculate only once every thirty days and keep his orgasms to less than an hour each (?!). Then again, I haven’t met an immortal Taoist that I know of.

I tested this out a few years ago, when I was thirty-nine years old. According to the Taoist equation, my ideal number of days between ejaculations was eight, remarkably close to John Gray’s recommendation. I followed this equation for almost a year and tracked how often I had sex (or masturbated), how often I ejaculated, and my perceived quality of life using a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = everything sucks, 5 = everything is normal, 10 = everything rocks). I incorporated everything into the score—how satisfied I felt with my career, my energy, my relationships, and my health.

Yes, this is a little bit embarrassing, but I’m going all in and sharing the results here to show the importance of mastering your lust to power your performance. If the idea of seeing data about my sex life (free of juicy details) turns you green, feel free to skip ahead to the next section. I promise I won’t be offended, but you will be missing out on some really interesting and at times surprising results that will probably apply to you. The whole point of this is that your body is funneling huge amounts of energy into sex, and you could use that energy elsewhere.

For the first phase of the experiment, I followed the magic Taoist equation and went eight days between ejaculations, which is very similar to John Gray’s every-seven-days philosophy. That doesn’t mean that I turned into a monk. I did still have an active sex life; I just didn’t ejaculate. After an initial few days of frustration, that energy had to go somewhere, and with a little effort it overflowed into the other parts of my life. Soon I noticed my life satisfaction levels going up as I tracked them each day. And as time went on, the frequency at which I was having sex increased even though I ejaculated less. The less I ejaculated, the more I wanted to have sex. Duh. My perceived quality of life went up even more when I had more sex, too. Those Taoists were definitely onto something.

Graph of my daily life satisfaction, showing drops after orgasm in 8-day cycles

For the next phase of the experiment, I decided to go all in on the immortality thing and try thirty days between ejaculations. That was difficult and required starting over a few times after some . . . accidents. (Hey, I’m human.) But the results were amazing. I saw a huge increase in my life satisfaction levels, my sex drive went through the roof (again, duh), and I was phenomenally productive and full of energy. The biggest surprise to me was that I got a lot more attention from women, both my wife and others, though of course I acted on it only with my beautiful and brilliant (and incredibly patient) wife, Dr. Lana. Surprisingly, my satisfaction with life was higher on this regime.

Graph of my daily life satisfaction, showing that it continues to grow when I only ejaculate every 30 days, but drops after orgasm

The final phase of the experiment was to go thirty days with no sex at all. I call this one “Monk Mode.” That was more challenging, and I don’t really recommend it unless you’re looking for a remarkable test of willpower. After a few false starts, I did become happier and more productive as the month went on, but the results were less significant than during the previous thirty-day challenge. I also saw some pretty terrifying shrinkage after thirty days—about 20 percent. Use it or lose it, I guess. Thankfully, everything returned to normal after a few weeks of Taoist exercises designed to counteract shrinkage (and lots more sex). Phew!

That experiment certainly didn’t make me want to go into Monk Mode all the time, but it did make me far more conscious of how I felt after ejaculating. I found that I had a two- or three-day “ejaculation hangover,” during which I was less energetic and engaged in whatever I was doing and my satisfaction with life was lower. When I had fewer ejaculations, I was having a lot more sex, and I liked everything about my life better, which is not what I had been expecting at all. Over the course of the experiment, I experienced my highest levels of satisfaction when I was having a lot of sex but ejaculating only once every thirty days.

That really surprised me, but there is plenty of science to explain those findings. After ejaculating, men experience a sharp increase in the hormone prolactin, which extinguishes their sex drive and makes them want to take a nap.⁴ Women also produce prolactin after having an orgasm, but not at the same levels as men. Prolactin counteracts dopamine, the “feel-good” hormone, which explains why a lot of us guys feel a little bit depressed hours after completing the act.

Elevated prolactin levels decrease men’s testosterone levels, which is one of the reasons studies show that abstinence for three weeks increases testosterone levels in healthy men.⁵ Meanwhile, having sex without ejaculating also increases testosterone levels, in this case by up to 72 percent.⁶ That might explain why women seemed so interested in me during my experiment—they could sense my elevated testosterone levels and off-the-charts desire for sex even though I wasn’t consciously doing anything to attract them. Or perhaps it was because of changes in my pheromones. If only I’d known back in school that my lack of a sex life could actually be a source of power and even a turn-on for women!

It’s important to note that the Taoist teaching is that a woman finishes orgasm “undiminished,” so this is an experiment for men only, and women who have tried this universally report a bad experience, as their oxytocin levels plummet. (See the next law for more on this.) For men, it’s much easier to follow the program with the support of a loving partner who will back off at the right time to help you stick to the rules. I have no data to show whether the rules are different for gay couples, but I suspect this stuff applies to anyone with a penis.

When I first reported on this research, many Bulletproof Radio listeners privately told me that they had tried it with astounding success. Several couples said that it had radically improved their relationship. One guy in his late twenties reported receiving a $30,000 raise sixty days after starting. Another guy finally got enough energy to launch a company he’d wanted to start forever and grow it quickly. And not so strangely, the year I ran those experiments, I was a new father working full-time as a tech executive while moonlighting to start Bulletproof. All that energy had to come from somewhere, and harnessing my body’s desire to propagate the species helped.

Later on, you’ll read about how porn and masturbation are sure ways to wreck these results. Sure, they’re fun, but they’re not frequent habits of people who change the world. If you can’t go at least thirty days without either one, you’re not in charge, and you’re wasting energy.

Action Items

If you are a woman, identify your love window and see if John’s findings are apparent in your life. Share the dates with your partner, and ask your partner to set up a date.
If you are a man, see if John’s testosterone comments ring true for you. If you are with a woman, ask her when her love window starts, and set up a date!
Chart your sexual activity along with your overall life satisfaction to see how your orgasms affect your energy, happiness, and productivity.
If you are a man, boost your testosterone level by having less frequent orgasms, doing high-intensity exercise, reducing your sugar intake, increasing your intake of healthy fats, and even (nicely) retreating from your partner when necessary.

Recommended Listening

John Gray, “Addiction, Sexuality, & ADD,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 222
John Gray, “Beyond Mars & Venus: Tips That Truly Bring Men and Women Together,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 414
Christopher Ryan, “Sex, Sex Culture & Sex at Dawn,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 52
Neil Strauss, “Relationship Hacks for Dealing with Conflicts, Monogamy, Sex & Communication with the Opposite Sex,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 406

Recommended Reading

John Gray, Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship Skills for Today’s Complex World
Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships

Law 16: Never Underestimate the Power of a Female Orgasm

If you’re a woman, regular orgasms are one of the keys to showing up fully in your world. When you orgasm, every hormone tied to happiness and performance goes up, your immune system improves, and you get younger. Having orgasms is a skill that can unlock new levels of happiness and even altered states. Changing your game is easier to do when you learn to master your orgasms.

After spending all that time thinking about my own orgasms, it seemed only fair to interview some of the top experts on women’s orgasms, so I sought some out. The first was Emily Morse, a doctor of human sexuality and the host of the wildly popular podcast Sex with Emily. Dr. Morse’s show is mission driven: she started it to get the word out about the power of female orgasms and to help everyone have the best sex of their lives.

As Dr. Morse shares in her interview, she comes from a very liberal family, so you might not expect her to have any hang-ups about sex. Her mom even told her, “Talk to me about sex if you have any questions,” but Dr. Morse didn’t have any questions because no one in her family talked about sex! When she got to college and started having sex, she didn’t think it was all that exciting. Then she heard some of her friends talking about something called an “orgasm” and asked, “What’s that?” This is all too common, and it is one of the reasons this chapter exists.

Now Dr. Morse travels around the world to sex conferences to learn about the latest and greatest developments in the world of sex and helps women incorporate those developments into their own sex lives. The issue she sees more than any other is low sexual desire in women. Many of the women she meets feel frustrated and hopeless, but Dr. Morse has found that a great way to boost female libido is through something as simple as increasing blood flow.

To feel desire and have an orgasm, women (and men) need their blood to flow down to their genitals. “Big gun” erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra can solve this problem in both men and women, but there are also safe and natural solutions for women without drugs. Dr. Morse recommends mindful masturbation to stimulate arousal, CBD-infused clitoral massage oils that relax and stimulate arousal, or any other clitoral-stimulating pleasure products.

Kegel exercises are another simple solution. They exercise the pelvic floor muscles—the ones you would use to stop the flow of urine. Both men and women experience benefits from tensing and holding those muscles for ten seconds at a time for a few minutes a day. Men experience better ejaculatory control and stronger orgasms. Who doesn’t want that? Women also experience stronger orgasms, urinary continence (no more peeing when you sneeze), and greater sexual desire.

Next I sought out Dr. Jolene Brighten, a functional medicine naturopathic doctor specializing in women’s health. Dr. Brighten told me that when women have at least one or two orgasms a week, they feel better and live longer. According to her research, women who have regular orgasms have better overall immune system modulation and lower inflammatory markers. This makes sense since the stress hormone cortisol, which decreases in women after they orgasm, causes inflammation. This means that more orgasms lead to less stress, less disease, and less aging—but only for women. Almost all the advice in this book applies equally to men and women, but definitely not when it comes to orgasm frequency. (Yes, it’s technically possible for men to orgasm without ejaculating . . . it’s just very rare without advanced practice.)

Women’s orgasms support healthy hormone levels, relieve stress, and can unlock altered states of consciousness.⁷ While frequent orgasms tend to lower testosterone levels in men, they flood the female body with estrogen⁸ and oxytocin.⁹ Oxytocin has earned the nickname “the love molecule” because it fosters social bonding, trust, relaxation, and generosity. That buzzy, warm afterglow a woman feels with her partner after having sex is thanks to oxytocin. Estrogen enhances the effects of oxytocin, too.¹⁰ The two work in synergy when a woman orgasms, creating a cocktail of feel-good bonding and relaxation.

On top of that, women get a postorgasm increase in the neurotransmitter serotonin that boosts mood even more.¹¹ Basically, more frequent orgasms do the exact same things for women that less frequent ejaculation does for men. If that’s not an argument for the idea that there’s a Mother Nature out there controlling things, I don’t know what is.

Action Items

If you are a woman, your orgasms are the key to a healthier and longer life and a not entirely unpleasant way of achieving those goals.
If you are suffering from low libido, make sure to do Kegel exercises regularly to boost sexual desire.
If you are a woman’s partner, pay attention to her pleasure so you can grow old together.

Recommended Listening

Emily Morse (Sex with Emily), “Orgasms, Kegels & Sexology,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 233
Emily Morse, “Hack Your Way to a Better Sex Life,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 373
Jolene Brighten, “On Women’s Health, Post–Birth Control Syndrome, and Brain Injuries,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 415
“Hugs from Dr. Love” with Paul Zak, Bulletproof Radio, episode 334

Law 17: Go Off Script During Fairy-Tale Sex

Sex is a gateway to flow states and the altered states of high performance. To access these states, you must have the courage to seek experiences that push your boundaries. When you get sex out of your head in order to allow your body to seek what it wants, you can tap into deep levels of freedom, healing, and creativity.

Okay, so orgasms do different things for each sex. But there’s a spiritual side to sex that goes deeper than just orgasms, so I set out to find guests who have studied how to use our sexual potential to reach altered states of flow in which your body and mind can do more than you might think. The first stop was to call “Mistress Natalie,” a New York dominatrix who works with high-powered executives. Fortunately, she works out with a sports trainer friend of mine, so it was easy to find her. (Apparently spanking can cause repetitive stress injury and muscle imbalance unless you practice functional movement exercises!)

This was definitely an interview I could not predict. Mistress Natalie uses a lot of varied bondage, discipline, submission, and masochism (BDSM) practices to help willing participants access a state of flow. Though it’s easy to write off BDSM as some weird fetish, Natalie says that her clients find their work with her therapeutic and at times transformative. In fact, she was so inspired by the therapeutic value of BDSM that she went back to school to become a life coach. Her unique “Kinky Coaching” uses BDSM along with several biohacking principles as tools to elevate a person’s mental and physical state.

The key is that Natalie’s work takes sex into the unknown. We all know how most fairy tales begin (“Once upon a time”) and end (“They all lived happily ever after”), and the same is true for most sex. The standard expectation is that sex begins with foreplay, proceeds to penetration (in most cases), and then (ideally) ends in climax. This formula generally works, but it does have some shortcomings.

According to Natalie and her clients, it makes sex repetitive. You’re doing the same thing every time, which can become less and less rewarding. The second issue is setting climax as a goal. When you focus on getting to the end of something, you tend to miss out on the buildup and fail to fully let go and allow things to unfold naturally. It also sets up an expectation that both partners will climax, which means you can “fail” at sex if you or your partner doesn’t have an orgasm. That’s a fast track to shame, performance anxiety, and lots of other problems. No one wants to feel as though they’ve failed at sex.

When you remove the goal and go off script, however, you become liberated to get out of your head and focus on the connection between you and your partner. It also allows you to ask for whatever it is you really want, even if you haven’t asked for it before. That matters because from your nervous system’s perspective, sex is a matter of life and death. If you’re not getting what truly fulfills you sexually, a subconscious part of you can feel starved. Going off script and having the courage to ask for what you want enables each time to become unique, so you can also start to enjoy the very idea of sex as much as the climax, just as you enjoy the experience of a fine meal, not just the fullness you feel when you’re done eating. In the case of Natalie’s clients, this experience happens in the mind as much as in the body. Natalie never has sex with her clients. A lot of them wear a chastity belt (yes, that’s a thing) the entire time she’s with them. The power dynamic of their interplay forces them to see themselves in a different light and is ultimately therapeutic. As I said, there was no way to predict where that interview would go.

It’s the psychological work necessary to push limits that most often puts Natalie’s clients into a state of flow. Natalie explains that in her line of work a state of flow is known as the “sub space.” After a session her clients feel the effects for days. They are relaxed and have more focus and clarity. To Natalie, BDSM and all the other unusual parts of her practice are just another way for someone to push his or her boundaries to access a flow state.

There is still a lot of judgment of consensual practices like BDSM, but Natalie compares it to activities such as skydiving and ultramarathons—anything that physically forces you out of your comfort zone and pushes your limits can flip a switch in your head, releasing a powerful neurochemical cascade. What helps someone get into this state is completely individualized. Who’s to say that it’s any more of an aberration to choose humiliation or bondage over jumping off a bridge with a cable attached to your back? Different strokes for different folks.

Just thinking about sex is a powerful way to get into a state of flow. During weeklong intensive executive neurofeedback training sessions at 40 Years of Zen, we teach clients one surefire method to use if they get “stuck” trying to create a self-induced flow state during neurofeedback sessions. The easiest and most reliable way to get unstuck and move back into a flow state is to imagine a brief sexual fantasy. As soon as clients start to think about what really turns them on, their brain waves skyrocket, and they get unstuck.

The thing is, this works only if you think about what you really like, no matter what it is. Fairy-tale sex doesn’t do it for most people, but visualizing what really pushes your buttons always works, especially if you don’t judge yourself for it. I’ve had some of my highest recorded EEG levels at 40 Years of Zen while using this technique to break myself out of a plateau. And I’m not going to tell you the details of what I fantasized about!

Acknowledging the things that work best for you in the bedroom to yourself (and your partner) can help you tap into some of the altered states that unleash your best performance, even days later. If you are focused on a goal, however, you remain in an analytical state, which studies show blocks emotion and empathy.¹² That is not a recipe for good sex. When you shut off your analytic mind and tap into your intuition, you feel more empathy, joy, creativity, and calm and a sense of oneness with those around you. Now, that’s sexy.

The fact that sex can unleash flow states, creativity, and even spiritual states led me to look for experts on precisely how to unlock them. So I found a leader in orgasmic mediation, a “consciousness practice” during which one partner (who is usually but not necessarily male) strokes a female partner’s clitoris for fifteen minutes with no expectation other than experiencing sensation and a sense of connection between the two partners. This may seem out-there, but hey, I just shared a graph of all my ejaculations for a year with you. If you’re still reading at this point, you can handle this.

Eli Block, a lead orgasmic meditation instructor at OneTaste, a somewhat controversial company that teaches orgasmic meditation, says that one reason people come to this practice is that they want a sexual experience that’s completely outside of their heads. In his interview, he shared the (PG-rated) techniques he teaches. As people use the body as a mechanism to access flow states between themselves and their partners, they tune into each other’s sensations and become completely absorbed in the moment. This liberates them from a typical sex story line, and they report that being fully present with a partner is a powerful, transcendent experience.

Action Items

If (and only if) it appeals to you, try orgasmic meditation, BDSM, or anything else safe and consensual that your body truly desires to see if it helps you access a flow state.
Ask yourself what you really want in the bedroom and ask your partner for it, even if it’s scary.
Think about how you can stop making sex routine and introduce an element of the unknown to your lovemaking. The result is likely to be a more powerful connection with your partner and perhaps an otherworldly experience.

Recommended Listening

“50 Shades of Dave” with Mistress Natalie, Bulletproof Radio, episode 341
Eli Block, “One Taste, Orgasmic Meditation & Flow State,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 254
Geoffrey Miller, “Sex, Power, and Domination,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 138

Law 18: Use Sex to Get the Best Drugs

Having conscious sex with the right people creates neurochemicals that set you free and create a state of flow. Viewing pornography creates neurochemicals that make you an addict and block the flow state. Porn is the high-fructose corn syrup of sex. Choose wisely.

If orgasm can release feel-good hormones and neurotransmitters and sex can lead to altered states of creativity and high performance, what’s the downside? Answering this question led me to interview one of the original experts in hacking the brain, Bill Harris, who sadly passed away as I was in the final editing stages of this book. As the founder of the Centerpointe Research Institute, Bill is well known for creating brain upgrade programs for hundreds of thousands of people, and for donating tens of millions of dollars to charity. Thanks to my work with neurofeedback, I’ve had a chance to see Bill’s brain waves, and they’re truly advanced.

During a powerful interview, Bill explained that right before the economy crashed in 2008, he went through an awful divorce. He was under a lot of stress, and without even realizing it he found himself in a chronic state of fight or flight, making bad decisions. Within a short time frame, he got six speeding tickets and his license was temporarily suspended. After having a brain scan done by Dr. Daniel Amen, the game-changing psychiatrist and brain specialist you read about in chapter 4, Bill found that chronic stress had caused his limbic system, the emotional house of the brain, to become overactive.

Bill explained that when your limbic system is overactive, you are more likely to make dopamine-driven decisions. This means you are motivated to do things that cause your brain to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that triggers the reward center of the brain. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter of immediate gratification. When you are driven to get a hit of dopamine, you are more likely to seek things that feel good in the moment but are bad for you in the long run, such as sugar, processed foods, and even drugs.

What does this have to do with sex? Well, having sex is one thing that causes your brain to release feel-good hormones; watching porn leads it to release different amounts of each chemical than having sex with a partner does. Specifically, watching porn causes you to release more dopamine, while having sex with a partner causes you to release more oxytocin.

There is such a thing as too much dopamine. Our brains aren’t equipped to handle the kind of stimulation that online porn viewers now have constant and unlimited access to. Your brain responds to porn much as it does to cocaine, alcohol, or sugar, with a big rush of pleasure and diminishing returns over time.¹³ And just as with addictive drugs, porn seems to cause a tolerance to dopamine, meaning you require more and more of it to feel the same effects.¹⁴

As a result, it seems that the more you watch porn, the more stimulation you will eventually require to get turned on. A 2014 study out of Germany showed that regular porn viewers have smaller, less responsive reward pathways in their brains.¹⁵ A French study from that same year showed that 60 percent of men who regularly watched porn could not get erect with a human partner, though they continued to be able to get an erection while watching porn.¹⁶

Still think that porn isn’t addictive? A Cambridge University neuroscientist looked at brain scans of men who believed they were addicted to porn and saw significant changes to their brains’ gray matter that paralleled changes in the brains of drug addicts.¹⁷ This is pretty scary stuff, and I highly recommend ditching porn for a month to see if you notice any changes to your sexual desires and performance. It might be more difficult than you expect. If it is, it’s time to do it anyway.

The antidote to this problem came in the form of a profound interview with Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, an orgasm researcher at Rutgers University (pretty cool job). She credits the neuropharmacological effects she identified while studying orgasmic meditation with turning her entire life around. After growing up in a traditional Indian family and feeling constant pressure to be successful, she became a doctor and married a man who met her parents’ approval. But she was miserable. Throughout her entire life, she had lived inside her head, unable to really feel or experience positive or negative sensations.

It wasn’t until she discovered orgasmic meditation that she began to really go into her body and feel pain and pleasure, which she found terrifying at first. Over time, she grew more comfortable with herself and became able to fully receive pleasure and connect more deeply with others. That led her to her life’s work studying orgasms and helping other people experience oxytocin-based connection.

According to Dr. Lakshmin, yet another problem with porn is that unlike other forms of sex, it does not allow you to access a state of flow. Just as the brain responds to different types of sex by releasing varying amount of chemicals, it responds differently to partnered orgasms and solo orgasms. Namely, when you masturbate you don’t go into an involuntary state. It’s sort of like how you can’t tickle yourself no matter how hard you try. You need to have a partner to surrender fully.

Dr. Lakshmin claims that when you do access a flow state through conscious sex with a partner or the orgasmic meditation practice she researches, you can feel sensations more deeply, eventually getting the same effects from lighter and lighter pressure if you’re on the receiving end of an orgasmic meditation session. This increased sensitivity can even act as an antidote to the dopamine resistance caused by watching too much porn, and the person providing the stimulation can benefit from it, too. The nervous systems of both people attune to each other during the practice.

This connection has a direct impact on the brain. Dr. Lakshmin says that it actually calms the limbic system. Whereas Bill Harris opted for meditation to calm his limbic system and take himself out of a chronic state of fight or flight so that he could start making better decisions, Dr. Lakshmin calls orgasmic meditation “meditation on speed” because, she says, it works faster to train the limbic system to help you tap into your intuition and feel deeper and more powerful sensations.

Action Items

Try quitting porn for a month; if it’s difficult to do, quit it for another month.
Prioritize calming your limbic system through regular meditation, orgasmic meditation, or regular orgasms with a partner.

Recommended Listening

Bill Harris, “Make Bad Decisions? Blame Dopamine,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 362
Pooja Lakshmin, “Orgasmic Meditation & Sex Life Hacking,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 60
“Sleep, Sex & Tech at the Bulletproof Conference,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 327