While I was in the midst of giving birth years ago, the young medical resident, who was lucky enough to get the Christmas Day shift in labor and delivery, tried to explain to me how the hormone Oxytocin worked and how it was going to help me deliver my baby. I will admit that my mind was on other things, so his lecture failed to impress me, and I told him so. Now, had the nurses been able to locate an anesthesiologist who was not downing eggnog and who was willing to come to the hospital to give me drugs before that ever important “window of opportunity” closed, I might have been more receptive to learning about the wonder hormone.
That was the last time I had heard about Oxytocin – that is until yesterday. I signed up to listen to this women’s empowerment telephone seminar, and the speakers talked about the benefits of Oxytocin. Apparently, if a woman can find a way to increase the amount of Oxytocin in her body, she has a better chance of success. It’s not a magic bullet, but it does allow women to capitalize on their strengths of warmth, compassion and making others feel at ease.
I looked up Oxytocin and discovered that it is an amazing hormone. It not only helps in childbirth, but it helps produce milk for nursing plus it reduces stress, anxiety and blood pressure. When Oxytocin is present in higher levels, pain thresholds increase, and a person gets a warm and fuzzy feeling toward people, animals, pieces of wood -- pretty much anything. That is why it has earned the nickname “the cuddle” hormone.
Scientists have long noted that the sense of touch raises the levels of Oxytocin. Since it is present in both men and women, some scientists think that Oxytocin may be responsible for stronger orgasms. Okay, not all scientists are completely on board with this theory, but as someone who is pro-orgasm, I will go with the scientists who believe this to be true. To be honest, I’m not sure if I know anyone who is anti-orgasm, but I’m guessing those are the people who have to attend court-ordered anger management classes.
Anyway, the women who gave the seminar kept saying there were exercises involving the Vagus nerve that can increase Oxytocin levels. So, I waited and waited for them to tell me the exercises. Guess what? This info wasn’t part of the free seminar. The women said there wasn’t enough time during the hour call to explain how to do the exercises, but they promised at the end of the call there would be a surprise offer that would allow listeners to gain access to all the secret information. So, they suggested that anyone who was listening stick around for the big finish.
Since I had already given them fifteen minutes, I decided to stay on the line. Then, the hosts talked about affirmations women could use to release Oxytocin which would make them more receptive to empowerment. I waited for a sample affirmation. How tough can it be to dole out a few words? Pretty tough I guess because time constraints were again the reason why they offered no snippets of affirmation wisdom.
I know these women were out to market their service, but come on, for all the time they wasted telling me what they could not tell me, they could have told me something that would start me on the road to building my Oxytocin so that I could achieve really great orgasms – I mean empowerment – yeah, that’s what I want-- empowerment.
You know, this is not the first teleseminar that has sucked me into giving my time for nothing. I think these seminar people would get more customers if they were up front with their tactics. I would have signed up for the whole thing if they said at the beginning,
“Okay here is the surprise offer. You can listen for an hour and get nothing but teasers or you can sign up for our special price of $30 per month, and get access to all the information immediately.”
But they didn’t. They reeled me in with quotes from women who said the telephone seminar transformed their lives. I swear those were the words they used. I believed these women. Why would they lie to me? Maybe this call was all it took to transform their lives. Personally, I need more than a phone call filled with pretty much nothing to have a life – changing experience.
So, am I giving up on Oxytocin? No. I already found an exercise online that would aid in releasing more of it into my body. Would you like to know what that exercise is? Oh, I am sorry, I have no time to tell you here, but if you send me $30, the information is yours. Yep, I think that empowerment hormone is working just fine!