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Recently I have had a spark of curiosity about how our hormones affect our bodies and am especially of my fellow woman gender group.
This lead me to read "How the pill changes everything" by Dr Sarah E. Hill. There were very interesting studies and explanations for things that affect women EVERYDAY and yes some re explanatory but it was just very interesting to me that these experiences, no matter how big or small, happen, with or without consciousness, through out every month for non-pill taking women and how taking the pill actually effect them.
In this blog post I am not trying to influence anyone's decision on whether or not taking the pill, or not, is good or bad. I jut simply want a place where I can share all these interesting things I have learnt through this book and where I can come back and reflect on it anytime I want too. So what better place to do it while sharing it with you guys on my little blog? I believe that people learn better by sharing the learnt information with others as it really sparks conversations and makes it stick in your brain for longer or even forever so that is also why I have decided to share this information with you. Again, I am not trying to influence you or your decision AND I am not a doctor by any means so please discuss medical concerns with your qualified GP or Gynecologist!!
So with keeping that in mind; here is what I found interesting...
1. 'I find you attractive' study:
Women and men are equally likely to go out on a date however women are less likely to go back to their dates apartment and have sex with them whereas 80% of men, in this study, said they would. The book explains that this is because this increases the chance that the women may get pregnant and being pregnant is more 'costly' to women when compared to men. If you would like to learn more on that topic you can read the pages 16-21 in the book.
2. Parental vs maternal closeness:
A study found that mothers' facial resemblance did not predict the emotional closeness with their children. However the more facial resemblance the child has to the father will give off a stronger emotional closeness feeling and the less facial resemblance to the father will give of a weaker feeling of emotional closeness. In other words, for a father to feel emotionally close to their child they need to feel like they resemble each other whereas for the mother it does not matter how similar they look because they will feel emotionally close anyway.
4. Men and Testosterone:
Men with higher levels of testosterones, in evolutionary terms, have a higher interest in impressing mates so that they could possibly spread their genes. However men's testosterone levels also change. Surprisingly, a man in a long-term relationship will have a lower level of testosterone produced than a single and 'ready to mingle male'.
A study measured men's testosterone levels twice across 4 1/2 years. Time 1, when they are single and childless, and time 2, when they have a long-term relationship and children. The study found that men with higher testosterone in time 1 were more likely to settle down and have children by time 2. They also found that as age rises the testosterone levels within a male drops. They also found that men who became fathers have a, more than double, decrease in testosterone than their fellow childless men. The fathers who spent approximately more than 3 hours caring for their children showed a very steep decline compared to all the male participants.
5. Newly weds afterglow:
The book mentions that a "sexual afterglow is the lingering feelings of increased sexual satisfaction that continues after an act of sex". In a study they found that the strength of this afterglow actually predicted martial satisfaction. Now the boo doesn't really into what relationship these two things have together but I'm going to make a wild guess and say that the stronger the afterglow is the more satisfaction there is, right?
6. Ovulating women in a romantic partnership:
When a woman ovulates there are secret cues that our body gives off to 'show' other people that. At a high ovulation point women tend to look, feel, sound, and even smell sexier than another at a low ovulation point and people tend to pick this up. This can somewhat explain why women are so wary when their partner is around other ovulating women.
7. The ovulating dancers study:
A study that took place in a strip club shows these exact effects. They found that dancers earned much more when they were close to ovulation and earned a bit less within other parts of their natural cycle. Surprisingly women on the pill earned less than the minimum amount the natural cycling ladies did and this amount did not fluctuate at different times, it just stayed the same.
Another study investigated whether a women's silhouette of body movements were more or less attractive to men during differed points of ovulation in their cycle. They found that men significantly preferred the body movements when at a high ovulation point of the cycle compared to the low point of the ovulation cycle.
8. Women's ovulation influence men's hormones too:
Apparently men also find the scent of vaginal secretion less intense and more pleasant when a women is in the high ovulation phase compared to a low one. There was a finding that men's testosterone actually increased after smelling a t-shirt worn by near ovulating women and decreased in non-ovulating, aka the luteal phase, women.
When men were asked to smell cotton that was under a women's armpit while she was ovulating and another when she was no the results found was that when the men smelt the ovulating cotton they had a higher interest in sex and an increase in stress hormones, similar to the results found in the above study.
9. Choosing a partner on the pill and divorce:
I was somewhat surprised when I read that women who chose their partner when they were on the pill were less likely to get divorced and if they did get a divorce they were usually the ones who initiated it. Dr Sarah Hill explains that this may be because the contraceptive pill makes women focus their attention of finding a partner with more stable caring characteristics and not focus in on their attractiveness, as much, as non-pill taking women. This was interesting to me because another study found that their female participants who found a partner on the pill were less attractive or satisfied within their relationship. No matter what the research says it's a couples choice to figure out and decide their own future, on the pill or not.
10. Attractive spouses and the pill:
A study found that women who chose a partner when they were not taking the pill and then started taking it had a decrease in their sexual satisfaction, mostly due to how the pill affects women's libido. However on a more positive note these women's marital satisfaction did not change meaning that they still care deeply about their partner but the pill has a major influence on the quality of their sex lives.
Researchers investigated whether being on the pill and then stopping and visa versa would influence how they feel about their partner and relationship. If a non-pill taking women starts to take the pill they found that there is a decrease in sexual satisfaction. Women who were on the pill and stopped and they were still having a decrease in sexual satisfaction. Researchers believe that this may be due to the different type of people the women tend to go for. Pill taking women tend to go for more feminine features and once they stop the pill they may be more attracted to more masculine again which means that they may not be as attractive to their partner they chose while taking the pill. So a women's martial satisfaction, good or bad, is somewhat dependent on how attractive their partner is.
Pill taking women tend to be less aware of sexy cues. Researchers presented women with two images of two males and asked the women to rate them on how attractive they look and asked if going off the pill has had an impact on their own relationship with their partner. Researchers found that women with more attractive partners had an increase in marital satisfaction when coming off the pill rather than being on it. Women with less attractive partners had a decrease of marital satisfaction when going off of the pill. This may be because the pill changes who we, women, are attractive too.
11. The pill influences our scenes:
Pill-taking women and natural cycling women are equally likely to become sensitive to non-sex-related scents like pepper-mint, lemon and rose. When it comes to sexy-smells there is a clear difference between the two groups of women. Natural cycling women were more sensitive to musk smells than women who were on the pill. Pill-taking women really need a lot of the smell to even notice it is there.
Women's preference to sight and sound also changes due to hormone changes.
12. Dendritic spines and Estrogen:
A women's brain changes throughout their cycle due to their changes of estrogen levels when contraception is and isn't possible. When more estrogen is present in the brain, the more dendritic connections are available hence the more sensitive the senses are to different senses compared to when there is less estrogen on the brain.
13. The brain, libido and the pill:
Most of us know already that the pill affects a women's libido but it also affects what a women is sexually attracted to due to the change in the brain. A study showed women, pill-taking and natural cycling, explicit images to test if this may be true or not. They found that all the women looked mostly at the the genitals but also that pill-taking women became bored faster and looked at something else compared to natural cycling women hence the pill has potential to make women less interested in sex.
14. Oxytocin given to pill-taking women:
Pill-taking women are given oxytocin and they don't see partners any different from when they didn't have the oxytocin. They also don't feel an increase in the rewards center when looking at a picture of their partner. When they looked at a stranger and their partner is the exact same effect on the pill-taking women. This does affect the women's relationship as the oxytocin is the bonding hormone and by this having no effect on pill-taking women.
15. Stress hormone and the pill:
Pill-taking women report that they feel stressed out in response to a stress test but they did not have a rise in their cortisol level which can be a problem as the women can not change the way that they manage their stress. Cortisol is a hormone that is produced during stress, aka the stress hormone.
16. Hannah Bradshaw results:
Bradshaw found that pill-taking women did worse on exams than naturally cycling women but they were also more prone to give up easier when they were asked to do word puzzles. This effect may be because the pill changes a women's stress response which may affect the hippocampus which may result in these behavior's but it is still unclear.
17. Learning from a Denmark study:
Denmark is very good at keeping tracks of each individual within the populations health problems, conditions and medication which makes it easy to see how the population is reacting to different medications and treatments ect. When looking at this data, they found that 50% of women who started the contraceptive pill were likely to be diagnosed with depression within six months. Women on the pill were 40% more likely to be prescribed an anti-depressant than non-pill taking women. Women on a hormonal contraceptive were twice as likely to commit suicide but this risk increases the younger the women is which is pretty scary since most teenagers and women don't actually hear this from their doctor. I know I didn't hear it from either of my doctors...
18. Pill and Politics:
A study from Durante (2012) found that single women at high fertility (aka high estrogen levels) were more liberal than those at low fertility (aka low estrogen levels). Partnered women at high fertility were more conservative than those at low fertility. This shows me that hormones actually do have an effect on everything, noticeable or not.
I really enjoyed reading this book, learning more about my body and how important our hormones can be. Whether you decide to stay on, start or end the pill it is your own decision and choice. No one should influence your choice but unfortunately some doctors don't know the facts or whole story of the pill which is why this book, and others, helps to shed some facts on things that we may not hear otherwise.
If you find these things interesting then I would definitely recommend reading the book for more information.
Love Char.
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