Great Sex, Naturally (4 page)

The terms
natural health
and
natural medicine
, as used in this book, are based on the principles of naturopathic medicine, which holds the answers to the sexual-health issues of many women. Founded in the 19th century, naturopathic medicine is widely considered America’s original and most highly developed tradition of natural health care, and the best example of integrative or holistic medicine. With its focus on creating health rather than merely eliminating disease, and on using methods to stimulate the healing power of nature—your body’s innate capacity for maintaining and restoring health—naturopathic medicine strives to avoid drugs with potentially harmful side effects.

Naturopathic medicine sees symptoms as red flags that your body, in its wisdom, gives you to indicate that something needs to change—its way of trying to reestablish a natural balance—rather than indications that you need pharmaceutical medication. If you experience headaches, for example, it isn’t because you suffer from an aspirin deficiency. While drugs often suppress symptoms without addressing their underlying causes, the goal of naturopathic medicine is to treat the deeper causes and bring your body back into balance. The most natural, least toxic methods are always used first, and pharmaceutical medicines, surgery, and other invasive techniques may be recommended only as last resorts. There’s a time and place for drugs, and they can be lifesaving, but statistically they’re also among the leading causes of death in the United States. Natural treatments, on the other hand, are clearly much safer; statistics reveal, for example, that the number of annual deaths in the U.S. caused by vitamins and antioxidants (which can also be lifesaving, in less obvious ways) is virtually zero.

The naturopathic approach considers every aspect of your health, including physical, nutritional, environmental, mental, emotional, and spiritual factors. The emphasis is on lifestyle and prevention—keeping your body strong, and your immunity in good condition through diet, exercise, detoxification, stress management, natural hormones, mental and emotional support, nontoxic alternatives to environmental chemicals, and much more. Naturopathic medicine is all about your choices and your role as a free agent, capable of shaping your own health destiny.
You
have the power to make wise choices that supply every cell in your body with what it needs to function optimally, and you also have the power to remove obstacles to your well-being. This book provides you with many naturopathic treasures you can use to make choices everywhere in your life that will revitalize both your health and your libido. (To learn more about naturopathic medicine, and how to find a doctor trained in natural medicine, see
Appendix B
.)

Some of the natural health secrets you’ll find in this book are drawn from other healing traditions, most notably Chinese medicine. Like naturopathic medicine, this uses natural, nontoxic means; places great emphasis on diet; and considers every feature of your body, mind, and spirit, including environmental factors and behavior patterns. For millennia, Chinese medicine has also emphasized prevention; one of its most revered texts,
The Medical Rules of the Yellow Emperor
, from the 3rd century
B.C.
, compares waiting until you have a health problem and then treating it to waiting until you’re thirsty and then digging a well.

Chinese medicine is based on the concept of
chi
, or life force, which courses through your body, brings you vitality and well-being, causes growth and transformation, and protects you from foreign invaders like toxins and bacteria. If you keep your chi abundant, you’ll be vigorous and healthy; but if your chi becomes deficient or “stuck,” you’ll be vulnerable to pain and illness. Your chi comes, in part, from the food you eat and air you breathe; you can influence it with your diet, herbs, exercise, and other lifestyle choices. And since chi runs through your body in channels known as meridians, you can affect its flow by pressing on acupressure points along your meridians. In this book, you’ll discover many ways you can strengthen your chi and enhance your sexual energy with lifestyle choices and acupressure.

Also important in Chinese medicine are the forms of chi known as
yin
and
yang
—opposing forces found throughout nature that shape one another and interact continually. Yin is often represented by feminine sexual energy, darkness, the earth, inwardness, and cold; and yang by masculine sexual energy, light, the sky, outwardness, and heat. Wholeness is achieved whenever yin and yang are joined harmoniously; you’re healthy, and your sexual energy can function optimally, when you balance the two in your body, mind, and spirit. In the pages ahead, you’ll discover numerous ways of balancing your yin and yang energy to enhance your sexuality.

The traditional symbol of yin and yang.

Great Love, Naturally

Anyone can go through the act of sex and appear, on the surface, to have “great sex.” But great sex involves something
greater
than great sex. It’s about your longing for love and your desire to be whole. You live in the world of your individual mind and body, yet you yearn for the loving connection to another. Sex is your most primal form of reaching out, touching, joining, receiving, giving, sharing, and expressing love. It’s at the root of your existence; central to who you are; and integral to your innermost desires, passions, and attractions. The expression of love through sex can give you a sense of being “one,” not only with another human but with the universe—transporting you to a state of blissful interconnectedness that, perhaps for just a few fleeting moments, seems eternal.

That’s why this book, although it’s about sex, is also about much
more
than sex. One of the great secrets about sexual energy is that it’s not just for between the sheets. Your sexuality isn’t only a matter of genital pleasure, intercourse, and orgasm; research shows that sex activates many of your other physical, cognitive, and emotional capacities. Your sexual energy affects your entire life, touching every dimension of your being. This is reflected in Chinese medicine, which sees your sexual energy as indistinguishable from the vital force that brings potent healing effects to all parts of your body. Your sexuality lies at the core of your life energy, in the wellspring of your creativity and spirit.

This is the greater meaning of “great sex,” and what this book is all about. You can use the information gathered in these pages not only to recharge your libido and electrify your sexuality, but also as a way of tapping into the power of your sexual energy to light up your life on all levels. By enhancing your sexual well-being—an essential component of your happiness—you can transform your world. This is why, if you incorporate what you discover in this book into your life, you may find that your partner, friends, or co-workers notice quantum leaps in the amount of energy, confidence, and
joie de vivre
that you exude.

When we refer to sex as “making love,” we imply that it literally creates love. The phrase illuminates our intuitive awareness that sex can manifest the strongest possible state of emotional bonding and unity; we
know
that real eroticism engenders intense compassion and empathy. Sex and love are inseparable, it seems, even linguistically; the words
libido
and
love
share a common ancestor.

By expanding your capacity for sexual union through the natural means described in this book, you can liberate the formidable influence of love in your life more fully. Love repairs relationships, changes cultures, moves mountains, and makes the world go ’round, but sex without it does none of these. To paraphrase the famous saying: without love, it is nothing.

Just as sex makes love, love makes sex better; it is your most powerful aphrodisiac. Intriguing research on sexual pleasure and the brain’s emotional center suggests that orgasms may be more euphoric when people are in love.

This is a multifaceted book; sex, like love, is a many-splendored thing. But while the chapters ahead give you a wide assortment of tools you can use to achieve great sex—and many involve physical methods for enhancing your libido—it’s important to remember that great sex can be a natural consequence of great intimacy. Paradoxically, you may find that the greatest sex derives not from focusing on whether you have the greatest sex, but from focusing on whether you have the greatest
love
.

CHAPTER 1

EXPANDING YOUR
SEXUAL POTENTIAL

The Power of Your Mind and Spirit

“The focused human mind is the most
powerful instrument in the universe.”

—J
ILL
B
OLTE
T
AYLOR
,
M
Y
S
TROKE OF
I
NSIGHT

Great sex is your birthright; you came into being as the result of orgasm, and your body is perfectly designed for sexual pleasure. You have specialized receptors in your brain, vagina, and clitoris—and throughout your physiology—that serve no other purpose than to give you sensual satisfaction. But even though you were born with the potential for great sex, it’s not a given. You have to nurture your capacity for it, allow it time to grow and flourish, and nourish it with care and loving attention.

Your capacity for sexual pleasure is intimately connected to every aspect of your health. To enjoy sex, you need a healthy mind and body, freedom from pain and discomfort, and the energy to act on your desires. Of course, you won’t be likely to have great sex if you’re chronically ill, tired, depressed, feeling burned-out, struggling with difficult sexual issues, or harboring negative feelings about sex.

But the relationship between your sexuality and your health is far more dynamic than the obvious correlation between your ability to experience erotic sensations and your overall well-being. There are myriad connections between your capacity for pleasure and countless choices you make every day. Everything about your lifestyle—including your state of mind, what you eat, how you exercise, and how efficiently you eliminate toxins—can affect your capacity for sexual pleasure. Over time, you can fully manifest your potential for great sex with the right choices, or you can diminish it with unhealthy ones. Just as people who let their health go for many years may lose the natural function of an organ or system, it’s possible to gradually undermine your natural capacity for sexual gratification with lifestyle choices that relentlessly torpedo your libido. Great sex can be yours for as long as you live, but you have to choose it again and again with a lifestyle that supports it. The choice is yours; choose it or lose it.