Mental Health

Here’s the Role of Emotional Intimacy in Reducing Chronic Stress.

Both men and women reported more happiness the longer they had been together: Here is what science says.

Introduction and Context

According to the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, sexual dissatisfaction is associated with an increased risk of divorce and relationship dissolution.

Interestingly, frequent kissing or cuddling predicted happiness in the relationship for men but not for women. Both men and women reported more happiness the longer they had been together.

As I mentioned in this story, How Not to Be Cracked by Toxic Emotions and Chronic Stress at Work: A structured framework to deal with emotional toxicity and prolonged stress, stress is classified as the health epidemic of the 21st century by the World Health Organization.

Chronic and emotional stress adversely affects our physical and mental health. Worst of all, toxic emotions can ruin our lives.

Intimacy and sexuality appear to be related to our emotions. However, our sexual behavior, sexual attraction, and sexual identity differ significantly. The National Health Statistic Report shows a complex case in the United States.

Sexual Behavior, Thoughts, and Feelings

People have different sexual behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

The Kinsey team “interviewed thousands of people about their sexual histories. Research showed that sexual behavior, thoughts, and feelings towards the same or opposite sex were not always consistent across time. Instead of assigning people to three categories — heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual — the team used a seven-point scale.”

Even though we witness stereotypical behavior, our gender has little to do with the emotional response to sex. However, as pointed out in this research paper (Gender and Emotion Expression: A Developmental Contextual Perspective):

“Several research studies and meta-analyses have shown small but significant gender differences in the expression of emotion in adulthood in the US and some Western European countries, with women showing greater emotion expression overall, and in particular for positive emotions and internalizing negative emotions such as sadness and anxiety, but with men expressing greater levels of aggression and anger than women, in some contexts.”

The report points out that “interestingly, although women may be more expressive of most emotions, at least in Western cultures, men show equal or greater levels of physiological arousal, for example, with men showing greater blood pressure and cortisol responses to emotionally arousing stressors.”

This study highlights that “controlling for age and relationship duration, gay and bisexual men reported higher levels of emotional intimacy than heterosexual men. Suggesting that the role of emotional intimacy in sexual satisfaction is not sexual orientation-specific, the strength of the association between these two constructs was similar in both samples.”

According to National Center for Health Statistics, men have more sexual partners than women. While the lifetime average is 6.1 for men, it is 4.2 for women.

Alarming Sexual Inactivity Globally

There is an alarming rate of sexual inactivity globally. For example, this study by JAMA Network found that sexual inactivity increased among US adults, predominantly younger men, between 2000 and 2018, with potential public health implications.

Another study published in Springer highlights that “American adults had sex about nine fewer times per year in the early 2010s compared to the late 1990s in data from the nationally representative General Social Survey, N = 26,620, 1989–2014. This was partially due to the higher percentage of unpartnered individuals who have sex less frequently on average. Sexual frequency declined among the partnered (married or living together) but stayed steady among the unpartnered, reducing the marital/partnered advantage for sexual frequency.”

This paper on BMJ titled Prevalence and types of sexual inactivity in Britain: analyses of national cross-sectional probability survey data concludes that “while sex is important for well-being, a non-negligible proportion of the population at all ages are sexually inactive, yet many are not dissatisfied with their situation, with implications for sex and relationship counseling.”

Like many other life factors, the current pandemic has affected intimacy and sexual life. According to this report by Jessica Klein, the pandemic had taken a significant toll on our sex lives. She asks, “Why are our intimate relationships flagging — and could the damage be long lasting?”.

The report points out that “Studies from around the world tell a similar story. Research conducted in Turkey, Italy, India and the US in 2020 all points to the decline in sex with partners as well as solo acts, directly attributed to lockdown. “I think a big part of the reason for that is because so many people were just too stressed out,” says Justin Lehmiller, social psychologist and research fellow at The Kinsey Institute, which conducted the US-based study.”

Pornography is believed one of the reasons to reduce sexual intimacy among couples. For example, this paper published in Eastern Economic Journal points out that “proliferation of the Internet has made pornography an increasingly low-cost substitute. Researchers show that increased Internet usage is negatively associated with marriage formation. Pornography consumption specifically has an even stronger effect. Instrumental variables and a number of robustness checks suggest that the effect is causal.”

The Importance of Touch for Intimacy

Touch and meaningful conversations are part of human intimacy. Even though intimacy relates to sex, both sex and intimacy can exist without each other. So a couple can be intimate without having sex, or they can have sex without intimacy.

However, touch is a critical human need. It is essential for compassion. As highlighted by Dacher Keltner in the Greater Good Science Center, in recent years, a wave of studies has documented some incredible emotional and physical health benefits that come from touch. Research suggests that touch is truly fundamental to human communication, bonding, and health.

Dacher Keltner, the UC Berkeley psychology professor and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center, shares his insights from the new science of touch: compassionate communication, touch therapies, and proof that to touch is to give life in this YouTube Video

This article title “Even in a digital age, we crave real human contact. Here’s why”, highlights eight important benefits of touch as decreased disease and stronger immune system, more non-sexual emotional intimacy, greater trust between individuals, stronger team dynamics, decreased violence, greater learning engagement, economic gain, and overall well-being.

This article titled “Why we need to rediscover the power of human touch” by Sylvester “Sly” Lee on the World Economic Forum points out that “in the 1960s, psychologist Sidney Jourard studied conversations between friends in different countries around the world. He found that friends in England never touched each other, friends in the US made contact twice, and friends in France and Puerto Rico made 110 and 180 points of contact, respectively.”

There are several reasons for the decline of touch in Western countries. As pointed out in this paper, “we live in an age in which decades of sexual misconduct have finally come to light, and touch no longer feels safe. In 2018, doctors were advised against hugging patients, and foster carers avoided hugging their children due to the dangers of overstepping boundaries and legal action.”

Sex, Intimacy, and Hormones

There is a unique relationship between stress hormones and sex hormones. Hormones affect our mood. For example, when cortisol (stress hormone) increases, testosterone (sex hormone) decreases. I shared my experience with elevated cortisol in this article.

Hormonal balance is essential to cope with stress. As pointed out in this paper, Stress and hormones, “Stress can lead to changes in the serum level of many hormones including glucocorticoids, catecholamines, growth hormone and prolactin.”

The paper highlights that “some of these changes are necessary for the fight or flight response to protect oneself. These stress responses can lead to endocrine disorders like Graves’ disease, gonadal dysfunction, psychosexual dwarfism and obesity. Stress can also alter the clinical status of many pre-existing endocrine disorders such as precipitation of adrenal crisis and thyroid storm.”

Another critical hormone related to intimacy is oxytocin. As pointed out in this paper by Society for Endocrinology, “in the brain, oxytocin acts as a chemical messenger and has an important role in many human behaviours including sexual arousal, recognition, trust, romantic attachment and mother-infant bonding. As a result, oxytocin has been called the ‘love hormone’ or ‘cuddle chemical’.”

Libido is affected by stress. When men have higher stress, their testosterone significantly decreases. Increasing testosterone naturally is the best solution, but if there are medical conditions such as hypogonadism, other therapies can help.

Age is another factor especially causing hypogonadism. I shared possibilities for mature men considering the use of bio-identical hormones in this article: Bioidentical Hormones For Longevity and Vitality: What if there is a good solution to hypogonadism.

Insulin resistance is another factor affecting sexual performance. Metabolic syndrome and obesity are reasons reducing sex drive. I shared my findings of the implications of metabolic syndrome in this article: Fix Metabolic Syndrome, Live a Longer and Healthier Life: Metabolic inflexibility underlies major health issues.

Finally, hormones affect orgasm that has a significant impact on emotional stress. Research “strongly supports the routine clinical investigation of psychological factors, partner-related factors, context, and life stressors. A bio-psycho-social model for understanding how these factors predispose to sexual dysfunction is recommended.”

Conclusions

Intimacy and sex are essential in dealing with emotional and chronic stress. In fact, both intimacy and sex can prevent the manifestation of these debilitating conditions.

Our stress and sex hormones are interrelated. Touch is an essential human need. Rejections cause anxiety and fear.

Unfortunately, we touch our mobile phones more than our partners. Reduction of intimacy and sex correlates with increased use of mobile phones, other technology devices, and social media.

The recent pandemic significantly affected our intimacy globally. We are social animals. We need each other. Intimacy and loneliness are related. Loneliness is a psychological problem, but it might have biological effects. Loneliness can switch our genes to create inflammation.

Addictions such as porn, alcohol, and drugs adversely affect sexual performance and consequently increase emotional and chronic stress.

You may check the addiction in our neural systems, as I documented in the attached article.

We can increase intimacy and reduce loneliness with smiles, hugs, eye contact, soft words, and massage therapy. Some of us take these natural approaches for granted, but they are essential for preventing emotional and chronic stress.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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