Tapping into Your Wife’s “Love Hormone”

J. Parker

A lot has been written in recent years about the role of Oxytocin, the “love hormone,” in relationships. Its release within the body produces feelings of connection and satisfaction with your partner.

Oxytocin’s Many Benefits

Oxytocin provides many other benefits. Though research is still happening on some of these, oxytocin may or does:

• ease stress
• enhance emotional memory
• foster better sleep
• evoke generosity
• encourage trust
• reduce physical pain
• improve orgasm
• promote fidelity

If even one or two of those is a sure thing, then Oxytocin is pretty amazing.

Your Oxytocin vs Hers

In our recent webinar on How to Help Your Wife Want Sex (still available for purchase HERE), Chris talked specifically about the difference of his versus her Oxytocin. Men get a wash of Oxytocin during sexual orgasm with a long-term partner.

Women’s bodies also produce Oxytocin during sex, but not to the same extent. Rather, Oxytocin increases for us through a number of activities. Essentially, to get the same Oxytocin effect in a wife that a husband gets with his climax, you have to diversify.

You can’t put all of your eggs in her sex basket, guys. But doing all those other things that get her Oxytocin going can strengthen her connection with you, her feeling of being loved, and thus her sexual interest and satisfaction.

How to Boost Her Oxytocin

How can you get this love hormone flowing inside her? Mileage may vary, but here are nine research-backed ways to boost Oxytocin for women.

1. Hug or cuddle for an extended period of time. For instance, that hug needs to last about 20 seconds.
2. Play music she likes. Several studies show a link of listening to music and the love hormone.
3. Give her a massage. The person receiving the massage gets the most benefit, but the massager may also experience increased love hormone levels.
4. Encourage meditation and mindfulness. Meditation and mindfulness that focus on another specific person can increase Oxytocin levels.
5. Share food with each other. So the research was on chimpanzees, but still, when they shared food with each other, their Oxytocin levels went up.
6. Give her a gift. Oxytocin tends to rise when you receive a gift, but also when you give a gift.
7. Watch an emotional movie. Oh yes, the “chick flick” really does work. Don’t argue—it’s science!
8. Do something adventurous. Having new experiences together can invoke the bonding chemical as well (though remember that “adventurous” is defined differently by different persons).
9. Have sex. Yes, wives do experience a rise in Oxytocin during sex.

Putting It All Together

Much as you might like to pick a single idea from numbers 1 through 8 and then tack “9. Have Sex” onto the end, it’s best to take this information and apply it to form new habits in your marriage.

Consider which ones would be most appreciated by your wife, and make those a regular routine. Take the long-term view of building her sense of connection with and desire for you, and you may find her more open to sex or at least discussing sexual intimacy.

Yes, all this makes women seem complicated—too complicated at times. But if you look back at that list, there’s a theme: Love your wife in the ways that speak to her heart … and her hormones.

Which is pretty much the marriage version of “whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them” (Matthew 7:12).