The link between sex and your performance in life isn’t immediately obvious, but having fewer orgasms could make you a better entrepreneur, at least if you’re a man.

Recent discoveries in brain function suggest that it’s because your hypothalamus – an older part of your brain that controls your basic bodily functions – controls both sex and aggression.

By hacking your sex life, you can influence your motivation. There is a convincing case – backed up by biohacking self-experiments and lots of historical references – that women are happier and perform better when they have more orgasms, and men benefit from far fewer – but longer – orgasms.

The link between sex and aggression

Researchers used a new method of stimulating the brain using fiber optics and light-sensitive injected proteins to specifically trigger a portion of the hypothalamus in male mice. They discovered something shocking:

“[After] A flash of light, the mice transformed from Jekylls into Hydes. They rapidly attacked other mice, whether male, female or anaesthetised. They would even assail an inflated glove.

There was only one way of preventing these violent urges: sex. If the males were actually mounting a female, the bursts of light had little effect…These experiments clearly showed that the act of sex suppresses neurons in the brains of mice that trigger aggression. “

Ok, so men are not mice. But when a man wants to “kick ass” in his next meeting, he might want to skip sex the night – or the week – before, or at least (as the scientists note) the ejaculation.

Boxing coaches and professional athletes have long known this little hack to increase performance before competition. It works for entrepreneurs too. Weight lifters even measure how ejaculation effects weight gain.  It’s even on Pubmed!

So why could having less sex, or at least ejaculating less, make you a better entrepreneur (if you’re a man anyway)? Because it will increase your aggression. Aggression isn’t something I seek to cultivate in my quest to be more Bulletproof, but as conscious humans, we can transform that added aggression into energy and productivity, just like Napoleon Hill, one of the first Bulletproof Executives, described in 1938. He wrote a whole chapter in “Think and Grow Rich” dedicated to transforming male sexual energy into productivity. He claims the sex drive is the most powerful force in man. Many men would agree. 🙂

Some psychologists call this transformation of sexual energy into productive energy “sublimation.” Where sexual energy, or in some cases other impulses, are consciously transformed into creative and productive acts that drive an individual to create, invent, build, or demonstrate greater intellect or acts of physical prowess . . . usually in favor of enhancing civilization.

Limit yourself to one half hour orgasm per month?

Taoists – some of the original biohackers – also recommend transforming sexual energy into productivity and health. Advanced practices suggest that for optimum power and energy, ejaculation about once a month is the right amount, although they encourage much more frequent sex (without ejaculation.) I’d quote this source, but it’s from an out-of-print very old book by a Czech Taoist master, and I don’t have it in my vast biohacking book collection anymore. Of course, the info is also on Wikipedia.

If you are an advanced Tantric practitioner, is possible to orgasm without ejaculation, but since orgasm and ejaculation come together (ahem) for most men, I use them interchangeably except when otherwise noted.

Those same Taoists recommend that when a man does have an orgasm with ejaculation, he should limit the length of his orgasm to only a half hour. They are talking about just the orgasm, not the entire act! Compare that to your puny 15 minutes, Nicole Daedone! 🙂 (I wrote about Nicole as a biohacker.)

Being a biohacker, I tested these theories.  They are legit. The results were the subject of my talk at the Quantified Self conference in Mountain View, CA last month. Stay tuned, the video will be posted soon!

Real world examples of success when men ejaculate less

At the recent BIL Conference, I spoke with a successful entrepreneur based in LA who runs a popular blog. He told me, “I made the most money and progressed my career the most when I was single and wasn’t ‘getting any.’”

I spoke with a NY Times best selling author about this over dinner while gathering research for this biohack. He asked that I not use his name, but he described a time when he made a deal with his wife that he would not orgasm until he made $250,000, which was a very considerable sum for his family. With that kind of motivation, he achieved the goal in 30 days.

You’ll also see my video on the topic soon. I apologize for not naming names here, but it’s just as hard to find people willing to talk about this as it is to find ones willing to talk about using smart drugs.

What to expect if you try this

For starters, we’re not talking about celibacy or turning into a monk. We’re talking about having an active sex life (ideally with someone else, just saying…) but not ejaculating during the act. This doesn’t work if you’re choosing outright celibacy.

For the average guy, the effect of less frequent orgasms during sex takes about one minute to be annoying and about one day to feel unbearable. After a few days of knuckle-biting frustration, the energy has to go somewhere, and with a little effort, you can turn it into productive energy.

The time to enter a productive zone is a few days, probably longer if you’re under 25 years old. After the initial frustration zone, your performance increases regularly for about 3 weeks then levels out and sustains as long as your self-control can last. The combination of fewer ejaculations with the Bulletproof diet is especially powerful, as a high-healthy fat diet already raises testosterone and puts you in a high energy metabolic mode.

It takes an enormous amount of discipline to do this, obviously. I failed more than a few times while learning to biohack myself to the 30 minute, 30 day goal. The good thing here is that this is one time when failure is entirely pleasant. 🙂

More orgasms make women perform better

Nearly all my writing on biohacking in this blog works for both sexes, but in this case the Taoist recommendations for women are very different because, from another source, “A woman’s body uses her orgasm to nourish her body and stimulate vital life qi. She is the receiver (yin) of her partner’s (yang) qi.”

Better yet, women increase their emotional intelligence (EQ) when they have more frequent orgasms.  And there is fantastic work from New Scientist about how female orgasm unlocks altered consciousness.

There is also John Gray’s recent work on how oxytocin, the “happy hormone” is formed in women – and orgasm is one of the ways.  The pathways are different for men, although men obviously use oxytocin too.

It works better when both partners are in on the game

I’ve come across two women entrepreneurs who have mentioned having massive, life-changing bursts of energy and confidence when they increased their orgasm frequency at the same time their male entrepreneurial partners decreased theirs. (I have no idea why some people entrust me with this type of info, but they do!)

Something else happens to men too – their pheromones change. Do not be surprised if your partner – and random women you meet – find you more attractive than usual. It’s biochemistry.

Male readers of Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Body book will also find that they can enhance their performance while still practicing Nicole Daedone’s techniques from Tim’s “15-Minute Female Orgasm” chapter. There’s no reason a man shouldn’t help the woman entrepreneur in his life have a higher emotional IQ, as long as he doesn’t… finish.

I dare you to comment on this! 🙂