The details of finding a great romantic relationship are hard enough to nail down, but have you ever wondered what happens to your body when you’re getting frisky in bed with someone you love? Well, here’s a rundown.
1. Muscle Tension Ramps Up. At first, in what’s known as the Excitement phase, muscles tense up. The body begins to become energized and starts releasing adrenaline.
2. Heart and Breathing Rate Begins to Climb. Next, the heart rate and breathing rate accelerate. Blood flow increases, resulting in what’s called vasocongestion, sending blood to all the right places.
3. Skin Flushes. Thirdly, the skin becomes flushed, blushed and rouged. This will result in the beautiful “glow” many women have after time with their loved one.
4. Your Body Starts Producing Awesome Drugs. Next on the list are the good, naturally producer hormones and chemicals that flood the bloodstream. Dopamine and epinephrine go up significantly. Dopamine is responsible for the feelings of intimacy and love resulting from sexual encounters. It’s that “lovers high” feeling.
5. From Muscle Tension to Muscle Spasms. When the body gets sexually excited enough, the hands, feet and face may start spasming. Those muscle groups have been tensing more and more as the encounter progresses, and now they’re reaching spasm-level activation.
6. The Big Moment. As some muscles spasm, others involuntarily contract and spasms carry to the most intimate places involved in the moment. A sudden and forceful release of sexual tension occurs. Orgasm is imminent!
7. Heart Rate and Blood Pressure Are At Their Peak. As climax occurs, the woman’s heart rate, blood pressure and breath reach their highest point, and the body takes in as much oxygen as possible.
8. Oxytocin Explosion. The release of sexual tension then causes a release of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that is boosted to maximum toward the end of a sexual encounter.
Oxytocin (Illustration by Parrish Broadnax)
9. The Body Resets. Finally, everything bounces back into place. The muscles readjust to their normal state, blood flow begins to slow down, and the heart rate as well. A feeling of emotional intimacy tends to occur as well, thanks to all those happy drugs being produced by the brain and glands.
10. Cool Down Period. While the period after sex is called a ‘refractory’ period, it is worth noting that the female system can jump right back into the sexual cycle without much of a cool down period at all, while it usually takes men some time to be able to re-enter the cycle. The female body is amazingly designed in all these different ways!
