How your Emotional Health Affects your Sexual Health

By HelloLife

Emotions and Sex

Sexual health is inextricably linked to emotional health. Good sexual health is dependent on respectful behavior and positive attitudes toward sex. Sexual engagement in which safe practices, non-violence, and consideration are embraced can have many benefits. Additionally, the physical and psychological components of emotions contribute heavily to sex, in positive or negative ways, depending on one's emotional stability and outlook.

Sex as a Positive Release

Procreation isn't the only reason for engaging in sex. The powerful release that comes from sex can be healthy, both emotionally and physically. This release can be the cause of wanting to:

Relieve stress
Receive and express intimacy or love
Show and affirm affection and attraction

Studies have shown that sex releases endorphins, the body's natural opiates that minimize pain, and positively affect our emotions. Sexual contentment has been linked to a decrease in PMS, chronic arthritis pain, and the risk of heart attack. Positive sexual release can also promote feelings of safety, trust, self-confidence, and the ability to understand and control negative factors and events in one's life.

Sex as a Negative Release

At the same time, desiring a release from sex can be negative if a person is not being honest with his or her emotions, and in an effort to refrain from dealing with them, chooses sex as an escape. This kind of release may be the result of:

Fear of something over which you have little or no control
Anger, and the inability to channel it
Sadness or depression, and a lack of tools or resources to combat it

Bringing a negative emotional state to a sexual situation or relationship is unhealthy for several reasons. First, it perpetuates the cycle of an unhappy emotional state with very likely unsatisfying sex, or at least sex that is not as fulfilling and rewarding as it could be for both partners. Secondly, releasing negative emotions in an unhealthy way deprives one of really connecting with their partner, and staying in the present. Third, just as positive sexual release can contribute to one's overall health; negative sexual release can lead to chronic, serious diseases. Fatigue, depression, anxiety, and even arthritis and cancer may be the result of not dealing with repressed emotions.

Communication and Sexual Health

Being in touch with our emotions, and understanding our interaction with others, is crucial when it comes to being able to effectively communicate. The ability to make good decisions stems from understanding our emotions. This is linked to sexual health for important decisions such as:

Safe sex to reduce the risk of STDs, unwanted pregnancies, and to engage in a non-violent, respectful, and responsible manner
Sharing. Talking about what we want and need from our partners, and reciprocating those wants and needs
Setting boundaries. Protecting our overall health is possible if we can trust our own judgment with our emotions, and thus be able to communicate with our partner.

In Conclusion

How your emotional health affects your sexual health is clear when we acknowledge that emotions are strong forces which can significantly impact and characterize our sexual health. The more we try to understand our emotions and their consequences for our health, the better our overall health can be.

Sources:

http://www.worldsexology.org/about_sexualrights.asp

http://www.mkprojects.com/fa_emotions.html

http://eqi.org/emotions.htm