Episode 8 - Love, Sex, & Neuroscience




HealingLives with Corey Gilbert show

Summary: Gilbert, C. (2019). I can't say that: Going beyond the talk: Equipping your children to make choices about gender and sexuality from a biblical sexual ethic.  In this episode, Dr. Gilbert shares how fascinating discoveries coming out of the fields of neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology reveal God’s perfect design of our bodies and our masculinity and femininity. There are no mistakes. Why do you do the things you do in the way that you do them? Did you know that there is one interesting cure and/or treatment for many of the physical and mental health issues many of us face? In his book The Brain in Love, Dr. Daniel Amen states that sex is an incredible healing force—a medicine. He says, “Making love on a regular basis improved mood, memory, and overall health.” He continues to drive home the point with a study that found that regular sexual activity “decreased the risk of heart attack and stroke by fifty percent.” He concludes: “Hold the medicine, give me love.”What does sex do to and for our bodies? It strengthens and lengthens our life expectancy. Sex positively impacts and renovates our immune system functioning. Sex can also be associated with more joy, a reduction in physical pain, and improved sexual and reproductive health. Researchers have correlated sexual activity with a decrease in the two leading causes of death in the United States—heart disease and cancer. This should have you very excited right now and anticipating good times with your marriage partner. I hope so. Let us look at each of these benefits one by one. When sex and sexuality are in the right place in a person’s mind and body, the experience of sex tends to help reduce stress hormones. This also leads to a reduction of anxiety and a decrease in a person’s violent tendencies and hostility. The research also found that they key to these healthy benefits of sex was found in thoughtful sexual activity with a committed partner.   Matthew 19:5–6 describes the design in very simple terms, “And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together” (NLT). Marriage is the only context for sexual activity. One man and one woman only. For life. [1]      Institute for Sexual Wholeness. http://sexualwholeness.com   Order my new book by clicking here:   www.drcoreygilbert.com/books