Beyond breathwork: could orgasms regulate your nervous system?

If you're someone who feels stuck, lacks energy, often overthinks, procrastinates, self-sabotages and gets really anxious or annoyed in the face of stress, then a more regulated nervous system could change everything for you. But it’s not all about breathwork and meditation – regulating your nervous system can be a lot more fun.

Resilience and nervous system regulation

Nervous system regulation is something that's getting a lot of airtime at the moment. The nervous system plays a big role in resilience coaching because it’s really difficult to be resilient if your nervous system is continually booting you into fight/flight/freeze, and you feel you can’t do anything about it. The main reason for that is the destabilising effect of being in your stress response for too long. So, the more we can do to stay regulated, the better. 

And this is knowledge you can use to change your life. I don’t want to be dramatic or anything, but I’m not joking. You live in your nervous system every single day. You go to work in it, you look after your children in it, you go on holiday in it, and you care for others in it. All your interactions with the world – and with yourself – happen through it. 

And yet most of us ignore it unless we get to a place where we can’t do that anymore – when we are burning out, or when anxiety becomes uncontrollable. You don’t have to start paying attention to your nervous system, but there are some huge advantages in doing so.

The advantages of working with your nervous system

For starters, you’ll stop thinking that being overwhelmed, stuck, frozen or dissociative has anything to do with laziness or some kind of personality flaw, and you’ll start to feel like you can do something about it.

You’ll also be able to stop procrastinating, avoiding things and worrying so much about what others think. And the big one – you’ll actually be able to start living your life instead of feeling like you’re constantly at the mercy of what happens to you. You’ll feel like you have more control over your reactions, especially in the moments when life gets intense. And you’ll have more space for joy, connection and peace.

So, there are huge benefits to getting to know this part of you. And what we’re talking about here is the autonomic nervous system, which is where you’ll find your sympathetic nervous system (your stress response) and your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and digest response.

What is nervous system regulation?

There’s a perception that it means being calm. But that’s not the case. A regulated nervous system is not one that is perpetually calm. Your nervous system is supposed to be in motion throughout the day, through both sympathetic and parasympathetic. A truly regulated nervous system is one that can return to a state of connectedness and ease quickly after a stressful event passes. It’s a system that acknowledges something happening, responds and then settles. 

The problem is when we get stuck in our stress response, and we don’t return to that parasympathetic state. That’s when we become dysregulated. 

Many of us are also in a place where our stress response is habitually switching on in situations where we don’t need it. For example, if you’re being chased by a lion, your sympathetic nervous system can save your life, and that’s what it’s for. But when you’re opening a difficult email, all it will do is create that pounding heart, sweaty-palmed, cloudy-headed feeling that makes it really hard to think clearly, or respond to whatever is being said in that message.

Your stress response switches off parts of the brain

And that’s the big point to note here – when you’re in your stress response, you lose access to the part of your brain that does things like get perspective on a situation or help you solve problems (the prefrontal cortex), or write exactly the perfect response to that rude email.

It goes offline because blood flows instead to parts of your body you might need to fight, flight or freeze, which is not good because we need that part of the brain to find solutions.

The mistake so many of us make is not knowing this is what’s happening physiologically. And because we don’t know, we’re sitting there with our brains functioning at less than normal because our stress response has been triggered, and yet trying to use that not-really-functioning-brain to think our way out of whatever is happening.

It just isn't going to work. That’s why when you start using your nervous system in those moments, everything can change for you.

Women's nervous systems

It is also worth mentioning the fact that this is a massive topic where we still lack a lot of insight. Especially because a lot of the theories and the research they are based on typically relate only to the male nervous system. 

Hormones affect nervous system regulation, particularly through estrogen and progesterone acting on neurotransmitters. Estrogen is neuroprotective, boosting serotonin and dopamine, and when it drops off a cliff (just before your period and during perimenopause and menopause), it can cause autonomic dysfunction.

A lot of what is communicated as fact about the nervous system doesn’t take this into account. And we’re all a little bit in the dark with it due to a lack of research on women’s nervous systems.

Regulation doesn't have to be still and calm

One thing that is very clear, though, is that it’s time that we did away with the idea that nervous system regulation only means breathwork and meditation.

This is what the bulk of regulation advice seems to focus on. Sure, they might work for you, and there are benefits to the more calming activities, but regulation can be more movement-based and dynamic.

In fact, sometimes you just need to move:

Dancing

Dancing can reduce cortisol, boost feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, and help to release stored tension. For some, it can be more effective in moments of heightened emotion or stress than trying to do anything that involves sitting still.

Boxing

Boxing is also a powerful nervous system regulator because it provides a physical outlet for stored stress, reduces cortisol, and helps bring you into the present and pull you out of overthinking. Because you’re doing high-intensity, rhythmic movements and focused breathing, the autonomic nervous system balances, moving you from chronic fight-or-flight into a more regulated state.

Orgasms

And then of course there’s orgasms. Orgasms are a fantastic source of oxytocin. They give the body a moment of total relief – a big cortisol drop and that huge oxytocin hit. 

Pleasure in general is very regulating for your nervous system. It is good for us, because the pleasure centre of your brain doesn’t just release oxytocin but also dopamine, serotonin and endorphins. Think about how much more capable, decisive and effective you feel when you’ve got those in your system. 

You have to feel your feelings too

Something that is often overlooked with nervous system regulation is the most fundamental element of it – feeling your feelings and not suppressing them. You can do breathwork and meditation until you’re blue in the face, but if you’re ignoring or suppressing your emotions, then that basic trust that you need to have with your nervous system just isn’t there, and regulation is hard without self-trust. 

Feeling your feelings, honouring your needs – these are more important for nervous system regulation than finding the breathwork tool that will calm you down for a bit. 

What this really all comes down to is the relationship that you have with yourself. Once you start to discover how big an impact your nervous system has on your daily experience of life, you’ll also notice just how much of that daily experience you can influence in the right direction by incorporating more regulating experiences.

But you’ve also got to build that underlying foundation of self-trust. Awareness of your nervous system. Learning about your own emotions. And moving away from any habitual thoughts and behaviours that are about trying to avoid or suppress how you feel. All of that has to happen if you want to be more regulated.

The real power of any kind of change with the nervous system is using tools of any kind in moments when you’d normally spiral or ruminate or just sit and get anxious. If, instead of doing those things that escalate your stress response, you start new behaviours that create safety instead, it will open up a new world of resilient coping that you probably never thought possible. And there's no reason why orgasms can't be your way into that.