Topics: Articles, Romantic, Sex & Relationships
Beating Stress With Torrid Sexual Fantasies
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Forget yoga, meditation, and aromatherapy. The way to beat stress is to conjure torrid sexual fantasies! In fact, forget relaxation altogether…since the best way to beat stress, advises an American stress guru, is to get the adrenaline pumping by conjuring your most torrid sexual fantasies, ‘the wilder the better’.
‘Imagining yourself sharing a night of passion with your favourite pin-up may not be the most orthodox way of treating stress. But, says Craig Mardus, an American expert on the subject, it works every time.
‘When people go for counselling about stress they think they are supposed to feel calm’, points out Mardus, who has spent 11 years researching and treating stress at the prestigious Canyon Ranch spa in Masscusetts. ‘They would like to feel relaxed when they are upset. That’s why they use drugs. They take something like Valium because they think you can be relaxed and upset at the same time.’
It doesn’t work like that. You have to deal with the problem, advises Mardus, and one of the best ways of doing so is to indulge in sexual fantasy, ‘the wilder the better’.
Imagine yourself sharing a night of passion with Brad Pitt or Cameron Diaz, advises Mardus, and don’t hold back. The aim is not to feel relaxed; it is to feel excited. That way, the debilitating worry of anxiety is replaced with a rush of pleasure. ‘Usually, you’ll notice you’re smiling,’ says Mardus. ‘If not, you’re not in the right motel.’
This is a radical new approach to stress relief. But Mardus believes that relaxation techniques are inappropriate when you’re feeling stressed or anxious. ‘If hot tubs were the answer, they’d be in every office and club and I’d be selling them.’ But the goal of his technique is not to feel relaxed; it’s to feel in control. There is a big difference.
GET THE ADRENALINE PUMPING
Mardus developed his ideas after measuring adrenaline levels with bio-feedback. Hook someone up to a bio-feedback machine, he explains, and it’s like a lie detector test. If they’re pumping adrenaline, the machine will know.
While working with a sky-diver, Mardus noticed that the man was smiling, despite the stressful memories of the sport. At first, Mardus couldn’t understand it… Then a theory emerged.
‘Before you go sky-diving, you think, “That looks like fun, it’s so cool”. So you decide to go up and then you’re in the plane at 3,000 feet, standing in the doorway. Now you have something called terror. You would like to commit suicide.’ It gets worse. The moment you jump, you have no control of the situation, you imagine all the things that might go wrong, and it generally feels horrible.
‘Then you pull the rip-cord. The moment you do, that second that the ‘chute opens, you feel, “This is so great”. All that terror turns to excitement. You turn what I call “bad adrenaline” into “good adrenaline” and it only takes one second. It’s all the same adrenaline, but the difference is that with the bad adrenaline, the level of control you have is zero.’
This is where the sex comes in. Like sky-diving, sex is all about adrenaline-pumping excitement. ‘You are definitely not relaxed. You’re charged up, you’re apprehensive but in a good way,’ says Mardus.
‘Now, say you are worrying about something: your mortgage is ballooning, or you have a job interview or you’re giving a dinner and you’re worrying about how it will turn out. Worrying is all about going into the future, looking for trouble. It’s looking for the worst scenario, though it probably won’t even happen. It’s a fantasy. Now, instead, give yourself another fantasy thought to put in place of this one.’
According to Mardus’s theory, you have two options: risk and risqué. ‘You can think of something risky, like a James Bond scenario, or sky-diving, or skiing. Or you can imagine yourself with Pamela Anderson, or Harrison Ford. Don’t put any limits on it - worry doesn’t have any limits, so this shouldn’t either - and the worry will disappear.’
‘It’s a tool that you can use to put yourself back into control. You realise that you have a choice. You have to find a way of replacing the worrying thought with an exciting thought, so as to make the switch from bad adrenaline to good adrenaline - and the perfect example of good adrenaline is sex.’
• Sally Kinnes is a regular contributor to The Sunday Times and The Guardian.
• Craig Mardus, PhD, is the author of How to Stop Worry in One Second (Warner Books) and has spent 11 years treating and researching stress at the Canyon Ranch Spa in Lennox, Massachusetts. He can be contacted at: 189 Stratton Road, Condo A-5, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 01267, USA
