Eat Play Sex, Episode 8 – Inability to Feel Affectionate? May be Oxytocin Deficiency
Hey lovers and warriors!
Welcome to Episode 8!
Be sure to check back every Wednesday (#humpday – how appropriate) for a new episode, and head over to iTunes to subscribe!
We appreciate and LOVE reading your reviews, it’s how we decide future topics! To leave us a review for the podcast, CLICK HERE. Then click on ‘View in itunes’ under our picture square. Your itunes app will open, then click ‘ratings and reviews’ and VOILA, you can drop a love note there! OR if you’re on your smart phone, I know it sounds ridiculous (itunes did it, not us), but open your ‘podcast’ app, then in the search bar type ‘Eat Play Sex’, then click on our image under ‘Podcast’ headline, then you’ll see ‘reviews’ in the middle tab, then ‘Write a Review’.
Thankfully, our goal is to make your sex hormones, dream body and sex life more convenient and enjoyable than THAT process…but regardless…We appreciate hearing from you more than you’ll ever know!
Got a question you’d like us to answer? Email us at sexmatters@eatplaysex.com
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
‘O’ is for the only one I see…and Oxytocin. Kiran is BACK to share the symptoms of oxytocin deficiency, how it’s impacting your relationships, and how you can NATURALLY improve your feelings of connectedness through intimacy. Do you get anxious and tense up around physical affection? Do you struggle with poor communication? Or how about engaging sexual interactions as more mechanical than connective?? You won’t want to miss this episode!
Here’s what you’ll hear from this episode:
- Signs and symptoms of oxytocin deficiency
- How your gut health relates to oxytocin production and your ability to socially bond with others
- Fermented foods and probiotics for more connected moods
- Obesity’s relationship with low levels of oxytocin production
- Strategies on how YOU can support your own oxytocin production
THE SKINNY ON OUR SEXY EXPERT
Kiran Krishnan is a Research Microbiologist and has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition market for the past 17 years. He comes from a strict research background having spent several years with hands-on R&D in the fields of molecular medicine and microbiology at the University of Iowa. Mr. Krishnan earned his Bachelor of Science degrees in Microbiology at the University of Iowa; his undergraduate education was followed up with post graduate research in Molecular Biology and Virology. He left University research to take a position as the U.S. Business Development and Product Development lead for Amano Enzyme, USA. Amano is one of the world’s largest suppliers of therapeutic enzymes used in the dietary supplement and pharmaceutical industries in North America. Kiran also established a Clinical Research Organization where he designed and conducted dozens of human clinical trials in human nutrition. Kiran is also a co-founder and partner in Nu Science Trading, LLC.; a nutritional technology development, research and marketing company in the U.S. Dietary Supplement and Medical Food markets. Most recently, Kiran is acting as the Chief Scientific Officer at Physician’s Exclusive, LLC. and Microbiome Labs. He has developed over 50 private label nutritional products for small to large brands in the global market. He is a frequent lecturer on the Human Microbiome at Medical and Nutrition Conferences. He is an expert guest on National Radio and Satellite radio and has been a guest speaker on several Health Summits as a microbiome expert. He is currently involved in 4 novel human clinical trials on probiotics and the human microbiome. Kiran offers his extensive knowledge and practical application of the latest science on the human microbiome as it relates to health and wellness.
WHY YOU’LL LOVE THE SHOW
Real life stories and expert interviews to help you improve your sex life, by addressing mental blocks, nourishing your body, and balancing your hormones. This podcast will feel like you’re sitting down for coffee with your two best girlfriends to chat about the most erotic and embarrassing things you’re dying to share and get advice about. The best part? They’re the experts. Sex expert, Dr. Cat Meyer with hormone and detox expert, nutritionist Diane Kazer reveal to you what works (and what doesn’t) in the most entertaining way, encompassing all things sex and sex hormones such as self-love, sex toys, bedroom play, body shame, libido, frisky food, PMS, hormone balance and anything else sex-blocking you from the sex, life and body you deserve and desire. Each episode will give you simple steps and sexy strategies you can implement NOW to leave you feeling empowered, courageous, playful and motivated. Eat Play Sex is YOUR guide to all things sexy, healthy, and fun to rock the body of your dreams and help you get back in the playground with those you love. Because…#sexmatters
ABOUT US & HOW WE CAN HELP
LEARN MORE ABOUT DR CAT
LEARN MORE ABOUT DI
Intro: This is episode eight of Eat. Play. Sex. Here’s a hot highlight for what’s to come.
Kiran Krishnan: The vast majority of men that suffer from any form of erectile dysfunction—and there are many different versions and levels of erectile dysfunction—don’t have a physiological issue with their penis.
There’s nothing wrong with your penis. There’s nothing wrong with how it’s actually functioning. The blood flow, the vasculature, none of that is actually wrong. It’s a hormonal and mental issue.
The antithesis to the boner is stress hormones. And we’ve evolved this way because the last thing our ancestors needed when they were running away from a mammoth was a boner.
And so the flight or fight response—
Dr. Cat: That’s a really funny picture.
Kiran: I mean, you could break it off. You could hit a tree. You could trip on it.
Dr. Cat: Oh, my god. This is getting better.
Diane Kazer: Let’s chop down a whole forest running away from a mammoth with my boner.
Kiran: Exactly!
Diane: Wood, that redefines morning wood.
Kiran: Yes, exactly. And maybe that’s where it comes from.
Intro: This podcast is for mature audiences, 18 and over, and for entertainment purposes only. Please contact your healthcare provider before pursuing any of our topics discussed.
You’re listening to Eat. Plax. Sex with your Queens of Climax, Dr. Cat and Di, the place to get play, sex and nutrition talks straight to your ears.
Side effects of this podcast may include more lovemaking, hormone harmony, spontaneous sex, exception orgasms, less sugar cravings and more sex cravings. In rare cases, listeners experience a strong desire to try new sexual positions and lube with organic edibles.
If you experience moods happier than usual, contact your Facebook friends immediately.
Diane: Kitty cat.
Dr. Cat: Meow.
Diane: What’s going on, girl?
Dr. Cat: [growls]
Diane: I don’t what sound unicorns make, but I’m going to have to make one up.
Dr. Cat: They go neigh with glitters spraying everywhere. So it’s like a horse’s neigh, but glitter.
Diane: Yes, but glitter doesn’t really have a noise.
Dr. Cat: Wait, no. Have you ever gotten a glitter bomb?
Diane: That’s cute.
Dr. Cat: That is the sound of glittering falling.
Diane: That’s the sound of lovemaking and oxytocin.
Dr. Cat: Oxytocin.
Diane: Yes.
Dr. Cat: The O hormone.
Diane: The O hormone. And you know, the last time we spoke with someone about oxytocin related to love and sex, I think it was so popular that we’re bringing him back.
Dr. Cat: Bring him back to O.
Diane: O for O.
Dr. Cat: O for O.
Diane: Yes, oxytocin for orgasms.
Dr. Cat: Tee-shirts.
Diane: Yes, tee-shirts.
Dr. Cat: O for O, I know where we could put the O’s.
Diane: Yes, that would be a really cute tank top. I don’t think we can get in an airplane though.
Dr. Cat: We can make matching shorts on the back.
Diane: On the butts?
Dr. Cat: O for, the letter for, or the number four, O, on the butt. It will be cute.
Diane: It’s such an important part too of, not just our sex lives, but our love lives—and our contentment and confidence in self-lives.
So today is going to be one of those things that you’re like, “How did I get even wrangled into listening to this,” but realizing that it is one of the most important things that we are missing in nutrition and medicine and sex and everything. Life!
Dr. Cat: Just life. Oxytocin is the hormone also known as the cuddle hormone. It’s my favorite hormone. If I had a favorite hormone, which I do, it’s the oxytocin, because I love cuddles.
Diane: When was the last cuddle session you were in?
Dr. Cat: Last night. Literally, last night, and it was the giant-est cuddle puddle you ever did see. There was probably about, I don’t know, 40 of us. Actually, I’m exaggerating. There are probably 60. I’m kidding! I’m kidding.
But really, it was a lot of us. We were piled on top of each other just snuggled in. It was really precious. And it’s all my closest friends. So of course, we’re all loving, petting each other and sweet-talking and singing. We were actually singing. We were all kumbaya-ing together. It was amazing.
Diane: You know what’s so sad is that when I hear things like that or when I see people having cuddle sessions—
Dr. Cat: You want to be invited.
Diane: Listen… the heart part of me wants to be invited, but then there’s this block. There’s this mental block. And I look at that and I go—ugh, the fear of touch. Where did that even come from, where I’m afraid to be vulnerable?
And I think, “Okay. Well, I know some of it stems from when we were little kids, and how we’re touched by our mother, how we’re touched by other family members,” I think about my grandparents, I watched my grandparents not touch each other, or not very much PDA, and then I hear some people like, “Oh, you’re hippies. You guys are hippies, touching each other like that.” And I think, “No. I want to be a part of that.”
Dr. Cat: I’ve heard this multiple times from not only clients who are now exploring the more sexual, positive communities, but even from friends who come to me, and they’re like, “I get anxious when there are cuddle puddles.” I’m not kidding.
Diane: I do.
Dr. Cat: And there are so many things that are going on there: a) touch is incredibly intimate and vulnerable because it’s somebody who we may perceive that they’re feeling everything that we’re feeling b) touch is a sensation. So if we’re already somebody who is on edge, or feeling a lot of feelings, whether it’s emotional or physical, or we’ve got a lot of things going on inside our bunny, and we can’t turn off, somebody touching can be overwhelming because it’s, one, sensation—too much more than we could handle.
Diane: I never thought about it like that, Dr. Cat. I talk about this in life with regard to stress, and the need to love on our gut, and our liver, and our endocrine system so much because we have so much information in our lives, and already in our minds, of our past, our anxiety about our future. Maybe it’s just too much information. It doesn’t have so much to do with the fact that we don’t want to be touched; it’s just too much stimulus.
Dr. Cat: We’re constantly in a state of contraction. In any day, we’re in a constant fluctuation between expansion and contraction. So if we tense up, we’re contracted in the body. So if we think about adding more sensation to that, it can be overwhelming. I can’t process this sensation as well.
And even on top of that, we just struggle with learning how to relax. We have trouble relaxing into another person. We have trouble relaxing into somebody else’s touch.
And then we’ve got all these mental processes going on in our head going, “Oh, my god. They’re going to touch my belly, and my belly is too soft,” or, “This is going to happen,” or, “I don’t know where to put my hand,” or, “Is this touch too much? Are they going to start thinking that I’m going to want to have sex with them if I’m cuddling with them?”
There’s a lot of it. It’s keeping us from actually being in the moment and enjoying all of that juicy sensation.
Diane: Yes, starting with ourselves.
So today, we’ve got Kiran, again, to talk about oxytocin as it stems from the gut which is something that we would never think about. But we’re going to go deeper with that.
As a reminder, this is partly we touched on with our interview with Kiran before. He’s our microbiome friend. We’re going to talk about this.
Now, is this you? I want you to really stop. If you’re driving, or if you’re something, and you’re not paying attention, stop. Pay attention.
Dr. Cat: Turn off the treadmill. Stand there and listen.
Diane: There are a number of symptoms for oxytocin deficiency including poor communication, an element of irritability, an inability to feel affectionate, more anxieties and fears than normal, sexual interactions that are more mechanical, just to fulfill a basic need, difficulty achieving orgasm, bigger appetite for sugar-rich foods, feeling little joy from life, disturbed sleep, or muscle aches.
Are any or many of those you?
Now, Cat, I know that I can say working with a lot of the clients and patients that I see that this covers the majority of what most people come to me for. They don’t come to me for one thing. It’s a lot of these things. Would you agree?
Dr. Cat: Do they tell you that they can’t communicate?
Diane: Communicate?
Dr. Cat: Communicate.
Diane: Yes, difficult like brain fog-ish, like I just can’t convey what I feel, like I can’t even articulate it, let alone have the confidence and courage to speak it.
Dr. Cat: I even want to add to that. Poor communication even means—if we think about oxytocin as being the cuddle hormone, if we have a lack in that, we’re going to be more internal. We’re going to be more in ourselves. We have difficulty with being able to empathize and connect with and feel into other partners.
So, of course, that’s going to impact our ability to communicate our experience to them or to understand their experience to us.
Diane: Absolutely! So, we are going to—in comes, with the cape on, Kiran Krishnan of MegaSpore and PeakBiotics. Welcome to the show again, our best, favorite, microbiome expert.
Kiran: Ta-da-rah…
Dr. Cat: I was going to do that too. Yes!
Kiran: Good to be back with you two. It’s great to hear your conversation. I love listening to you guys. And thank you for having me.
Diane: It’s our pleasure. Literally, our pleasure. So, based on everything that we’ve just said, what just kicked off in your head that people need to hear about what we just said?
Kiran: So many things. You guys inadvertently covered so much of what is important about being human, maybe even in some ways without even realizing it. Just all of the talk about touch, and then all the symptoms that you listed out based on which could be caused by oxytocin deficiency and how easy it can actually be to increase your body’s levels of oxytocin.
If you serve it to 100 people, I’d say 80 of them probably will suffer from at least one of the symptoms you just listed.
And then one of the simplest things you can do, which Dr. Cat was talking about, is touch. It’s a huge protentiator of oxytocin which would alleviate a lot of those symptoms.
So, we could talk about what kind of touch, and how it can be done. It doesn’t always have to be sexual touch of course. That can even lead to certain complications like you guys talked about with a lot of anxiety involved and all that. But there’s a lot of different benign touch.
Dr. Cat: Platonic.
Kiran: Platonic, yes. That can be between friends, between relatives, between even strangers in the street. That can be a huge protentiators of oxytocin.
And there are many other techniques too to increasing it even beyond that. So there’s a lot of cool stuff we can delve into.
Diane: Let’s go back a little bit with respect to—and I’m speaking for myself too. I’ve done a lot of work, and this is where yoga has really saved me because I had a fear of touch. I wouldn’t say an extraordinary fear that was driving my life, but it was one of those things where you think about the hook, and a lot of people, where there’s the shame or the nervousness or anxiety. So even just talking about it, just touch, brings me a little bit of anxiety.
So, which would be beneficial to start with, with addressing the gut and bacteria, and creating more oxytocin in the gut or physical touch, and maybe developing a fun little protocol that we can talk about?
Kiran: I think we first have to talk about how do we get your body healthy enough to make oxytocin when you trigger it. So there’s no point triggering it if your body is not healthy enough to actually make it. You’re just not going to get the kind of response.
So, I think, in terms of the chicken and the egg story here, the thing that has to come first is how do we reform the gut, how do we reform our endocrine system, and what are some of the things we need to change physiologically in order to allow our body to achieve, make, and utilize oxytocin at the highest levels. Then we can go on to how do you stimulate oxytocin production.
So, to me, that would be the most sensible way to go. You’ve got to fix your body first.
Diane: Okay, so what’s step one?
Kiran: Step one is your gut bacteria. There’s a significant amount of data now coming out that various specific of lactobacillus within the gut, within the large bowel, are actually responsible for production of oxytocin—not only the production of oxytocin, but also the metabolism of oxytocin.
So, one of the things that people have to understand with hormones is not only do they have to be made, but they have to be metabolized. And in the metabolic process is when you actually get the utility out of the hormone, or in many cases, you need to get rid of too much of the hormone through the metabolic process.
So, they started studying this in autistic children. One of the things that you find, characteristic within autistic children is low levels of oxytocin. And the low levels of oxytocin make them recoil from society. That’s why it’s very hard for them to form bonds and very hard for them to form the types of human connections that you see with kids who are not on the spectrum.
So, they end up recoiling, they end up going into their own world on the inside because they can’t be out in society.
They’re finding that oxytocin is the big issue here for these kids.
Now, the other thing that is a factor among all autistic kids is digestive health issues. In fact, in the vast majority of cases, the digestive health symptoms show up before the autistic symptoms do.
There’s a researcher at the University of San Diego that’s studying the microbiome in autism. There are a couple of researchers, I believe, out of Japan, that are studying the same thing. You can now send them a one-year-old stool sample, and they can tell you with a high degree of certainty, somewhere around 90%, whether or not the child is going to develop autism because it’s so related to the microbiome of the child, the types of bacteria they have within the gut.
There’s a very few genetic factors that have much impact at all. It’s all lifestyle and the gut and what’s happening in the gut bacteria.
So, that is the extreme example of what happens when you have an unhealthy gut, and then leads to a deficiency in oxytocin, and then all of the symptoms that can come with that.
Now, of course, the other things in autism are the depletion of serotonin, dopamine and all that as well, which are all important to what we’re talking about. I don’t want it to seem like oxytocin is the only thing playing a role in the condition, but it’s a major thing.
So now, there are some researchers that are trying to use fermented foods that were fermented with lactic acid bacteria, and treating kids with autism with these fermented foods. They’re seeing some really promising results, that we can bring them back into the social environment and have them less acting out in that recoiling way where they don’t form the bonds that kids normally do with parents, or siblings or even people that are around their home and their environment.
Dr. Cat: Wait! I have a question. Sometimes, Diane gets really awkward, and recoils, and just weird. So if I give her fermented food, will she perk up a little bit?
Kiran: I think it will help a lot especially if you could do it as a suppository.
Dr. Cat: What kind of fermented foods are we talking about for the suppository?
Kiran: Anything you want as long as it’s a suppository, and you’re doing it. She will stop the recoiling.
Diane: I applausitory that statement.
Dr. Cat: She might more recoil from me. Kiran told me to. That’s not my idea.
Kiran: Like a bowel disorder, you have to. But it’s fascinating!
So, we know now that the gut is involved in this life-giving essential hormone. And we’ll talk later about what all the things that oxytocin does which is actually really phenomenal.
But the gut bacteria play a huge role. So if you have digestive disorders, if you’ve got your irregular cramping, bloating when you eat, if you have food sensitivities, meaning, you’re the type that says, “Oh, I can’t eat this kind of food, or that kind of food because it really…” those are all symptoms of some form of dysbiosis within the gut.
And at that point, it could be just that symptom, but there’s a good change that that’s going to lead into further problems like deficiency in production of oxytocin.
So first thing’s first, you’ve got to fix the gut. And then the question becomes, “How do you fix the gut?”
Well, there are a few things that you can do that are fairly basic, and most people can do. Number one is take a good probiotic. A good probiotic is one that will survive through the gastrointestinal system, that will get to the colon, that will get to the small bowel, and make actual changes to the microbiome.
We work with the spore-based probiotics, and we’ve been able to show that they actually create a functional change in the microbiome.
So that’s a really positive thing. That’s a great, great start to fixing the gut.
Then the next part is diet. Diets high in saturated and processed fats actually have been shown to reduce the production of oxytocin. And obesity is related to reduced oxytocin production.
So losing weight, changing the diet, increasing fiber, increasing plant-based phytonutrients, increasing both soluble and insoluble fiber, getting some lean protein, those are all really important things to reform the microbes within the gut, increase the production of things like short chain fatty acids, and increase the production of hormones like dopamine, serotonin and, of course, oxytocin as well.
And then as you’re doing that, if you are overweight, the weight will start to come down, and then that in itself will increase the utility in production of oxytocin because studies have confirmed, like I mentioned, that obesity is related to low levels of oxytocin production.
Diane: There’s so much I want to say. There’s so much I want to say with what you just listed there because I know people are probably—we’ve talked about the symptoms of what you might—if you have these issues, you may be oxytocin-deficient.
I hear the chicken and the egg thing. I also see that today, a lot of women, or just parents, aren’t spending much time touching their child, like you said, giving them the microbes, the healthy bacteria, and you mentioned the term, dysbiosis.
Just so you guys know, what dysbiosis means is there’s more bad bacteria than good bacteria. We want more good guys, and of course, antibiotics is one perfect way to create that awful scenario where you’ve got more bad guys than good, even though we’re told by doctors, “Oh, just get rid of this whatever infection by using antibiotics.”
I want to talk about two things right now, Kiran, because these are two things I see that’s super common. I perceived, potentially, it could be a reason why oxytocin levels are so low, and people have anxiety to connect, touch, make love, have orgasms, et cetera.
I know a lot of men since we started the show have been saying, “I have a lot of anxiety around sex, orgasming, connection.”
And we’ll get deeper into that with our other shows. But for now, I do want to make sure that we’re addressing the easier things, which would be getting more gut bacteria into your colon, good ones, reversing dysbiosis.
I want to talk about two things. Number one, and this is a selfish question too because my mom even though she says, “Oh, we touched you a lot as a little kid, when you were a baby.” But my mom has an anxiety of her touch. That gets passed down.
So I want to talk about that and then I would love to talk about antibiotics too, and how that is definitely destroying our oxytocin in the gut.
So we’ll start with number one. What can someone do if they were raised by, or someone who has a fear of anxiety around touch, or themselves, they didn’t get touched that much as a child, maybe not much attention? Let’s address that one first.
Kiran: So that’s a great question, and in fact, for those people that don’t know, I grew up in India. And to help answer this question, I’ll have to go back to my old gurus and sadhus in India that have been around for thousands of years, and they spend all their lives meditating.
Among the gurus in India, the people, the ultra-religious people that are trying to reach enlightenment, they do a practice called abhyanga. Abhyanga is a self-massage technique, and they’ve been doing this for thousands of years, knowing that there are huge physiological benefits to it.
For example, all you have to do is sit down for 15 minutes, 20 minutes a day maybe, get some meds online pharmacy oil, and apparently, certain types of fragrant essential oils are important.
So let’s say you love the scent of lavender. There’s something about the scent of lavender that really you just love that scent. Use a lavender-based oil and massage your own legs.
So just sit there on the couch, and put oil on your thighs, and in an up and down, and circular motion, you just massage your own thighs.
And in fact, there are two things working here. Number one, studies have shown that olfactory stimulation through scents that you really like actually do help increase oxytocin. And then the touch with oil does it in a huge way.
In fact, there are some studies that show that you actually increase oxytocin by about 30% with a 25-minute massage with oil, and it can be yourself or having someone else do it. And it reduces things like adrenal corticoid hormone, which is a major stress hormone, by over 24%.
Dr. Cat: So I often tell my women to, after they get out of shower, to do that with coconut oil because it helps them to drop down into their bodies and reclaim their bodies, as a result of losing that from overstress or working, or sexual trauma, or this or the other. But it helps them to really drop down into their skin.
Diane: I recommend that too for cellulite, beauty.
Kiran: And if you look at these gurus, their whole goal is trying to reach this, what we call a moksha in Sanskrit. They’re trying to reach this state of enlightenment in the brain, and oxytocin plays a really important role in doing that. So they’ve been doing this for thousands of years without, of course, knowing the biochemistry behind it.
But one of the things that can happen is if you’re not being touched enough as a child, then that touch is really important to trigger your pituitary glands to release oxytocin. Instead, you get a lot of release of adrenal corticoid.
So you actually end up with releasing more stress hormone than the happy hormone, the bonding hormone. And that’s why you can actually end up with an anxiety or an aversion to touch almost.
But you can reverse that yourself. I know it will be hard for some people to go and just start having someone else touch them. You can actually do this to yourself.
Most people wouldn’t think, “I’m not going to give myself an oil massage.”
Well, do it.
There is actually evidence that shows that it has a huge impact. But again, use a scented oil that you like, and that smells good. And then you can listen to music that you like what you’re doing it because the other thing is auditory stimulation also has been shown to increase oxytocin.
So you’ve got like an oxytocin trifecta going on there. We’re doing the smell, the auditory side with listening to music, and then doing the massage to yourself. You’ll be doing this 15 to 20 minutes a day in your own little space.
It will go a long way to alleviating that anxiety from touch, and bringing your pituitary glands and your gut’s ability to produce oxytocin back up.
Dr. Cat: Kiran, I want to know, and I think all of our listeners want to know, what kind of songs are on your sex playlist.
Diane: Yes, that’s a good question.
Kiran: I’m still stuck in high school with that. In high school, it was a lot of Boyz II Men.
Dr. Cat: Oh, my god. That was my first one.
Diane: [Singing] I’ll make love to you, like you want me to.
Kiran: I would say if you heard my sex playlist, it would probably be a lot of Boyz II Men. It’s early 2000s and late 90s slow R&B. It’s so good.
Dr. Cat: Sexy. I love it. Baby-making music, I love it.
Diane: You were just talking a lot about boosting oxytocin and the steps we can do as a female. Now, I’m going to speak for men, just from the standpoint of what I hear from also a lot of women, and Cat can probably add to this too.
But I feel like a lot of women are pretty courageous now when it comes to stepping forward, and speaking their mind about what it is that they desire. And there’s this era now where men don’t know what to do with women who are this sure of themselves.
They also do the same thing. They contract, they retreat—they’re a little bit afraid to speak their mind, and I feel there’s a lack of connection there even though everybody wants to feel loved. Everyone wants to be loved. Everyone wants to attract love.
But I feel like there’s this, from the men’s side too, that they could use a little bit of love.
So we just talked about women. What can men do, and how will that benefit them in the bedroom?
Kiran: That’s a great question. Men and, in fact, there’s scientific evidence for this, that listening actually helps increase oxytocin production.
Diane: I’m sorry. What did you say? Just kidding.
Kiran: One of the things that men are really not good at, if I can make a generalization, is that being that empathetic ear to people, whether it’s their friends, or whether it’s their girlfriends, wives, whoever it may be.
Having that capability to be patient, listen and be empathetic actually has a huge protentiator—it’s a huge protentiator of oxytocin.
Now, the other thing that they can do, if we’re talking about interaction with people, is giving. There’s some evidence now that actually giving, any kind of treating people, taking people out to dinner, or buying things, so just being generous in some way, donating money, actually can also increase oxytocin because it forces a bonding type of brain mapping in the body.
And then men can do the whole self-massage thing as well. That works equally well with men. It’s not exclusive to any one sex.
Men really have to engage with their body’s ability to feel pleasure without the ultimate goal of just ejaculation.
Dr. Cat: Yes, I love that.
Kiran: That’s the biggest fault that men end up having is that typically, the goal of sexual encounter is to ejaculate when there’s so much more beyond that. And in fact, I’ve talked to guys, and even guy friends, before and I say, “You know what? Actually, the first couple of times you’re with somebody, don’t even allow yourself to get there.”
Just canoodle a little bit. Just do some massage, do some cuddling, do some kissing, all kinds of things, all kinds of stimulation without the goal, and actually, with the specific goal of not ejaculating, not reaching orgasm.
Dr. Cat: I love that you say that because that also reduces anxiety for performance or anxiety surrounding ejaculation or erections.
Kiran: Absolutely. And being a guy, I even know the moment you start with physical activity, the moment you start kissing and doing all that, you’re thinking, 70% of your brain is focused on your penis. It is. It’s like kissing with one-and-a-half eyes open, and you’re looking down at your penis, and wondering what it’s doing and how it’s going to do.
Diane: Hey, how are you doing down there? How are you hanging?
Kiran: Are you ready to play? Are you ready to go?
It’s like this buddy relationship as if it’s a separate entity, and you’re worried about how it’s going to do its job.
Dr. Cat: Hey, bro. How are you doing?
Kiran: Dude. Come on, dude.
Dr. Cat: Get it up.
Diane: Literally. What’s your point?
Kiran: At the end of the day, I think men have to disconnect from that goal of being this amazing porn star, and ramming away at a woman for 50 minutes, and then ejaculating this massive load, when really, they should be focusing on all of the pleasures that go along with it way before that climax happens.
Dr. Cat: Enjoying the whole process of it, all the sensations. Yes, absolutely.
Kiran: It’s the bonding, the feeling and the touching. And if they can make a concerted effort to not try to ejaculate the first couple of times, they’ll find that they have much better experiences going down the road with that person.
Diane: I have to ask this now too because I can hear a lot of men already probably thinking, “Well, gosh, then how do I naturally just want to listen? How do I naturally just want to give?”
There’s a lot of people who have scar tissue around past experiences with being hurt, and never want to be hurt again. So they’ve developed these blocks.
So how can they just baby step toward this where they naturally want to be more giving, and it becomes more part of their nature?
Kiran: And I think, like you said, baby stepping is a key. Doing a small little thing every single day, making sure you’re holding the door open for the person behind you. That’s a simple gesture that a lot of people forget.
And that goes a long way because eight out of ten times, that person that you’re holding a door for is going to say thank you. We know that compliments and gratitude from other people are one of the things that can trigger oxytocin release as well.
And so doing things, if you will, even just to illicit a thank you, a gratitude from somebody else in a selfish way is still going to achieve the same goal.
You don’t have to be completely altruistic. You don’t have to be like, “I’m a saint, and all I care about is helping other people.”
No. Do it for selfish reasons. Say, “I want to help this other person because it makes me feel good. And they’re going to be so grateful, and their smile, and their gratitude towards me is going to make me feel good, so I’m doing it for me.”
So that’s another way to frame it for them.
Dr. Cat: And let me say one more thing to all my ladies out there. Please allow yourself to receive. Don’t block the door trying to give to you because look how it’s benefiting them. So let people do things for you.
Kiran: Absolutely. And in our society, we’ve developed these arbitrary rules where you go out, you take a woman out to dinner, and you’re expected to pay for it. And I’m totally fine with that. I’m old-fashioned in that way.
But the reason that came about was because of the way the different sexes communicate with one another. The male has, back in the day, in the hunter/gatherer days, being more physically dominant, the male had more provider capabilities. And the woman had more nurturing capabilities.
So you translate that two-and-a-half-million years later, and it comes down to dinner, and then the bill comes, and the guy pays for dinner.
Even though it can seem chauvinistic, it can seem old-fashioned, there is an element of biochemistry involved and benefit for him to do that, if that’s what he’s naturally inclined to doing.
So those are things to think about because there’s biology behind a lot of these behaviors that we find to be somewhat innate.
Diane: I want to close up the gap with both women and men because I do know a lot of men lately who have had issues getting hard, and even coming to the point of ejaculation.
And so I did want to note a study that I had dug up when it came to oxytocin because when Dr. Cat and I first came up with this topic, we’re like, “We can’t find anything on oxytocin related to the gut, related to health, related to orgasm. There is just not much out there.”
And that’s why we reached out to you because we knew that we could get straight to the point with the gut, and address a lot of issues because so many people are taking an individual drug or over-the-counter for each one of the symptoms that we started this show with. And rather than chasing symptoms, we want to get to the root of issues.
So we know that one of your top securities, men, we get that, that you take pride and being able to pleasure your partner, and to finish, which we just talked about. It shouldn’t always just be about that. But women, men want to make you happy.
There is this study that we talked about, and I want to get into the science, and into the gut, so people have this major take-away that gut health is extraordinarily important, and that oxytocin is one hormone. It’s extraordinarily important for love, connection, sex and fertility.
So what they found in the study is that oxytocin injected into the cerebral spinal fluid causes spontaneous penile erection in rats. Rat hard-ons.
Dr. Cat: Rats as in men rats, or rats with tails?
Diane: Yes, I think they were just rats with tails in this study, the furry ones. But what that did is it reflected actions in the brain, in the hypothalamus, specifically, and in the spinal cord, which what that means is it shows that the love hormone, oxytocin can have a huge role to cause erection during sexual arousal.
Oxytocin equals ejaculation.
Kiran: Boners.
Diane: Yes. Oxytocin equals orgasm.
Dr. Cat: I like the way that Kiran said boners.
Diane: Do it again. Oxytocin equals—
Kiran: Boners.
Diane: So what they found is that oxytocin increases sexual receptivity and can counteract impotence.
I know, for example, my roommate, and he’s very candid about this, went to the store and bought this over-the-counter, basically, amphetamine, that, yes, it worked to stimulate blood flow in his penis.
Dr. Cat: […]
Diane: Yes, but he had sex for hours. She was in pain. He didn’t sleep. And he returned the product and he said, “Listen, you’ve got to hear this episode that we’ve got with Kiran on oxytocin and how that is what truly what will get you your,” say the word.
Kiran: Boner. It’s such a great point to bring up because the vast majority of men that suffer from any form of erectile dysfunction, and there are many different versions and levels of erectile dysfunction, don’t have a physiological issue with their penis.
There’s nothing wrong with your penis, and there’s nothing wrong with how it’s actually functioning, the blood flow, the vasculature. None of that is actually wrong.
It’s a hormonal and mental issue.
The antithesis to the boner is stress hormones. And we’ve evolved this way because the last thing our ancestors needed when they were running away from a mammoth was a boner.
And so the flight or fight response—
Dr. Cat: That’s a really funny picture.
Kiran: You could break it off. You could hit a tree. You could trip on it.
Dr. Cat: This is getting better.
Diane: Let us chop down a whole forest running away from a mammoth with my boner.
Kiran: Exactly.
Diane: Wood. That redefines morning wood.
Kiran: Yes, exactly. Maybe that’s where it comes from. But see, the moment they engage in sexual—actually, it’s not even the moment, it’s hours before they potentially can engage in sexual activity, they’re already thinking about their boner and whether or not they can get it up.
And that thought alone creates a release of stress hormones, and stress hormones work against oxytocin.
So you can never in your body have high levels of oxytocin and high levels of stress hormone. It’s one or the other. And so they work antagonistically in that sense.
And so when you take the focus away from the penis, and what the penis is going to do, what it’s supposed to do, and so on, and you should communicate this with your partner, so that it’s not a performance thing. It’s an experience together.
It should be communicated with the person you’re engaging with, and really look at all of the other things that you can do together, which there are many, many things, outside of just trying to get a boner, and trying to ejaculate.
And then before you know it, all of a sudden, you’re going to have the biggest raging boner ever. And you’ll be very, very happy because like you said, once you bond with that person, and you experience that kind of bonding, that releases oxytocin, and that’s instant boner.
Diane: Boner and bondage.
Kiran: Boner and bondage.
Dr. Cat: This makes me think of the discussion we were having earlier with our penis. “Hey, bro. Are you raging down there?”
Kiran: Exactly. The thing is, what you want is you don’t want to talk to your penis. You want your penis to talk to you. You want to ignore him, and you want to focus on the woman, or the man, whoever you’re with. And then as you’re so into the other person, and what’s going on, that your penis, all of a sudden, is like, “Hey, what about me? I’m ready to go.”
Your penis is like, “Dude, get me involved in this whole shenanigans.”
Diane: I’m hearing the, let’s get to the point, people going, and we’ve got many points to show, so not saying what we’re talking about now is not important, but I feel like people are now going, “All right, tell me what to do. I’m inspired.”
We’ve talked about taking a good probiotic. We’ve talked about eating foods that are good for your gut. This is probably a foreign concept to some people. So if we can knock out a few of the heavy hitters, these are the must-do non-negotiables, in order to have the best boners, also for women being able to get wet, being able to welcome in a partner.
So let’s talk about the heavy hitters, non-negotiables, and then maybe the one definite must-do that’s easiest for people to do, like the biggest, easy to do, really huge impact, and then a few other things, so that they can be loved, attract love, and make more love.
Kiran: Let’s bring it down. The biggest thing is touch. Still, the studies show that human touch, and then in some cases, with oil as well, increase your oxytocin higher than almost anything else.
Like we’ve talked about before, if you have an aversion to touch, then do it yourself. Use your own oils, use your own scented oils, listen to good music, and then massage yourself once a day at least, every day, and try to make that routine.
If not, go for massages. Go for therapeutic massages. Those can actually have a really important role in increasing oxytocin and reducing stress hormones.
So that’s one really important thing you can do. And then the other thing is with your friends and all that, just be more affectionate. Even among guys, a lot of times, guys don’t like to hug each other and stuff. But even among guys, just give each other a big hug when you see your friends, actually makes a huge difference in your levels of oxytocin within the body.
Dr. Cat: I want to add in there, especially with the massages, I can speak personally for myself, going to a healing masseuse helps me to recondition my body to accept touch, whereas before I freaked out at the sensation of touch.
So I highly recommend that in helping people who are aversive to touch.
Kiran: Absolutely. So that’s one big thing. And then the next one is fixing the body’s physiological systems that produce and utilize oxytocin. So if you are overweight, then it becomes important to reduce excess weight because studies do show that obesity dose trump the production and utilization of oxytocin.
So that becomes a physiological barrier that you have to minimize.
And then the other benefit of it is exercise has been shown to stimulate oxytocin production. So exercise not only is going to increase oxytocin production, but also going to go a long way of helping you lose weight.
Diane: Sexercise.
Kiran: Exactly, or jazzicise, depending on where you are in the country. And then eating right, so when you’re eating, I mentioned saturated fats, so eating in excessive amount of saturated fats or sugars seems to inhibit the production of oxytocin because it limits the oxytocin-type-producing microbes from their function within the gut.
Those microbes really love soluble and insoluble fibers.
Diane: Clarification. Clarification on saturated fats, but that also means that even things like coconut oil, or are we talking about more bad saturated fats?
Kiran: The worst saturated fat, in terms of the more oxidized it is, the more processed it is, it’s the worse. It has an impact. But even excessive amounts of coconut oil can cause the same kind of inflammation that leads to the suppression of these types of hormone production.
And a lot of people—coconut oil can be good for you, but a lot of people go crazy with it. Anything that’s good for you, people go nuts with it.
I would say if you like coconut oil, lean more towards using more of the MCT portion because they long chain fatty acids in coconut oil, the lauric acid and all that are more inflammatory than the medium chain.
The medium chain actually hasn’t been shown to be inflammatory at all.
So if you want a good fat that burns like sugar for fuel, use the MCT oil. The MCT oil is a fantastic version of fat.
And then increase the fiber intake. Something as simple as taking your fiber up to around eight-grams a day, which actually is not that much fiber, within two weeks can completely change your metabolic and hormonal response in your body.
Diane: You’re saying take eight-grams more than where they’re at now?
Kiran: You want to achieve a minimum of eight-grams. Most people are around three or four-grams in a typical western diet.
There was a study that showed that 8 to 21-grams and the more you take, closer towards the 21-grams, the more benefit you saw, would totally change your metabolic and hormonal system in the two-week period.
So you could see significant changes in how your body responds to sexual encounters and all that by just taking fiber for two weeks.
Diane: One of the things that I learned from you is that the consumption of fiber is the prebiotics that feeds the probiotics, which is the good gut bacteria, and when those probiotics in the gut, the healthy guys, eat the prebiotics, which is the fiber, they release vitamins and becomes a vitamin warehouse in there. So you’re not as vitamin-deficient in many areas.
So that’s another big part of vitamin D. I always say vitamin D is vitamin dick, for guys anyway.
Kiran: Exactly. And they have to also remember that oxytocin is a hormone that’s produced by protein. Your body needs certain amino acids in order to produce oxytocin itself, so if you’re not getting enough protein absorption, if you’re not eating a good variety of protein sources, you’re not going to have enough of the amino acids that your body needs to even produce the hormone, and same with the bacteria in your gut.
So you want to make sure that your digestive system is healthy enough to break down and assimilate the proteins that you’re consuming. And then eat a variety of proteins. Don’t just eat chicken every day.
Don’t just eat a single source of protein. You need to get some proteins from legumes, you need to get some proteins from plant-based sources, from lean meats and things like that.
So you have to vary your protein intake because each different protein source has different distribution of amino acids, and you need all of these really interesting amino acids to make the oxytocin itself.
And then take an effective probiotic because none of that stuff can happen effectively within your gut, the utilization of fiber, the breakdown and assimilation of protein and all that. None of that can happen unless your microbiome is healthy.
And one of the great ways of shifting the microbiome is taking an effective probiotic.
Probiotic, fiber, massage—those three things alone can really make a big difference in people’s lives. Then you can add in even fun things.
There’s been a study that shows that about 35, 40-minutes of dancing increases your oxytocin by about 11%.
Dr. Cat: I win. I do a lot every morning.
Kiran: You do? Awesome.
Dr. Cat: In my kitchen. I do it naked.
Kiran: I am buying spy equipment now, so I can spy on your morning routine.
Dr. Cat: That’s so creepy. Don’t do that.
Diane: Creepy in a hot way.
Kiran: But only if you invite me.
Dr. Cat: It’s consensual.
Diane: Yes, as we’ve talked about pretty much every show. So I wanted to let you all know that we do believe that probiotics are critically important. Gut health is paramount. So I put a little coupon code for you guys below, in the description, so that you can get a discount if you want to try some probiotics.
And hopefully, it’s still available by the time you listen to this show. But I want to plant a seed, pun intended, that Kiran and I are doing a series for the she-biome, and definitely talking about the disaster that antibiotics has to the body, and how it can create yeast infections, and all kinds of inflammation in our beautiful lady parts.
And also, of course, for men, but this one is going to be specifically geared toward the women.
Kiran, thank you so much for being on the show.
Dr. Cat: I love him.
Kiran: It’s always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Diane: We wish we can give you a group hug right now, so we can stimulate oxytocin for us, like Care Bears shoot it all around the world, but we’ll just give you a big cyber hug now, and hopefully, this will get more people to have more sex and make more love because sex matters.
Don’t forget, if you guys haven’t yet, to head on over to our iTunes and leave us a review. Make sure to share with all of your lovers because the only way that we can get the word out is through your word of mouth. And if this is helping you, if you have any questions, make sure to submit that on EatPlaySex.com.
We love you all.
Closing: Thanks for tuning in, lovers. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel. You can find out more about our guests and topics from our show by checking out CatMeyer.com or DianeKazer.com.
Until next time. Don’t forget to nourish your sex life.
