By Jamie Azar, Certified Sex Coach
When we talk about self-care in traditional Western culture, most people think about bubble baths, cucumber masks, or getting their nails done. And all of these things can absolutely be forms of self-care. But caring for yourself extends far beyond a spa day. It’s also about setting boundaries, tending to the parts of yourself that need healing, and prioritizing experiences that bring pleasure and joy to your mind, body, and spirit.
Did you know there’s neuroscience behind this?
At a neurobiological level, both giving and receiving care involve the brain’s endogenous opioid system. These naturally produced chemicals help regulate pain, reward, pleasure, and social bonding. They’re part of the biological machinery that supports our connections with children, partners, family, and friends. They also play a role in the rewarding experiences of affectionate touch, social connection, and caregiving.
In other words, care isn’t just something that feels nice. It’s part of how we’re wired to connect.
Oxytocin also plays a role in bonding, social connection, and our stress response. Loving touch, sexual activity, and orgasm can influence oxytocin release, but its effects are more complicated than popular culture often suggests. Rather than simply being the “love hormone” or “cuddle hormone,” oxytocin works differently depending on the person and the context. It can help support feelings of safety and connection and provide antianxiety effects during interpersonal encounters, from reassuring physical touch to a caring conversation.
Oxytocin doesn’t work alone, either. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in motivation, reward, and anticipation, interacts with oxytocin and other systems that shape how we experience pleasure and connection.
Dr. Nan Wise, cognitive neuroscientist and certified sex therapist, playfully refers to oxytocin as the “slutty neurotransmitter” in her book Why Good Sex Matters, highlighting how this molecule is involved in a range of rewarding experiences.
So, how do we create more opportunities for our brains and bodies to experience care, connection, and pleasure?
One place to start is with face-to-face interaction. Another is through caring touch, shared laughter, and playful intimacy.
We need opportunities to connect with other human beings, whether that’s eye-to-eye conversation, a reassuring hug, sitting together without our phones, or exploring physical intimacy with a partner. In a technology-driven culture that often keeps us connected digitally but disconnected physically and emotionally, these seemingly ordinary moments can become surprisingly easy to neglect.
And connection doesn’t have to be sexual to be meaningful. A conversation with a friend, a moment of genuine laughter, or a hand held during a difficult day can all offer opportunities for connection and comfort.
Another tool for nurturing well-being and desire? Play.
I’m talking about doing things for the pure sake of having fun, without needing to justify them through productivity, achievement, or some other goal-oriented outcome. (Unless you’re competitive like me! Slightly joking.)
Play gives us permission to experiment, explore, be curious, and experience joy without everything needing to lead somewhere. It can be spontaneous or intentional, physical or imaginative, solitary or shared.
And yes, play can be good for your brain.
Research on play and reward suggests that playful experiences engage neural systems involved in motivation, pleasure, learning, and social connection. Our capacity to experience pleasure is influenced by many factors, including stress, mood, relationships, and our ability to engage with rewarding experiences. When life becomes a constant cycle of working, achieving, managing responsibilities, and recovering from burnout, opportunities for play can be some of the first things to disappear.
We start treating pleasure as a reward we have to earn rather than an experience we’re allowed to have.
Care helps us tend to ourselves and one another. Play helps us explore, discover, and experience joy.
You are allowed to care for yourself before you’re depleted. You’re allowed to experience pleasure without earning it. And you’re allowed to play, even when there’s still a long list of things left to do. You don’t have to earn your right to joy.
Jamie Azar is former graduate of the Pleasure Psychology and Sexology Certification program, a sex, relationship, and intimacy coach, educator, writer, and mindfulness practitioner based in South Carolina. She offers 1-1 coaching with singles, couples, throuples + to co-create a safe, sex-positive, transformative, liberating, and empowering space that fosters personal and relational growth. She specializes in dismantling limiting beliefs, deconstructing, and destigmatizing harmful narrative constructs, to help clients reframe and redefine their understandings of selfhood, sex, sexuality, and relationships. To work with Jamie go here!