Enhancing Sexual Wellbeing through Yoga: A Comprehensive Overview of Its Advantages
Exploring the web, you'll discover a whopping load of wellness bloggers touting yoga as the secret sauce for a satisfying sex life. They share personal accounts of enhanced sexual experiences - sometimes to mind-blowing levels. But does the research align with these claims? Let's dive in and investigate.
Yoga, an ancient practice that's gained modern popularity, has already been linked to various health benefits, such as alleviating issues like stress, anxiety, depression, metabolic syndrome, and managing diabetes and thyroid problems. But can it really fire up your sex life? Let's see.
Yoga works its magic by lowering your body's inflammatory response, altering genetic expression related to stress, decreasing cortisol levels, and giving a boost to brain-healthy proteins. Plus, it feels good! And if you believe the stories about yogic "coregasms," it can feel amazingly good!
Connecting with your body can create a sense of replenishment, restoration, and physical pleasure. But can yoga poses transform your sex life? We take a scientific look.
Yoga and Women's Sexual Function
A study featured in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that 12 weeks of yoga actually improved sexual function in women over 45. The study groups consisted of 40 women who self-reported their sexual function before and after yoga sessions.
After the 12-week period, their sexual function had significantly improved across all sections of the Female Sexual Function Index, including desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain. A staggering 75% of the women reported improved sex lives after yoga training.
They were taught 22 specific poses, like trikonasana (triangle pose) and bhujangasana (snake pose), believed to strengthen core abdominal muscles, improve digestion, toughen the pelvic floor, and boost mood. You can find the full list of asanas here.
Yoga and Men's Sexual Function
Not just women, men also reap the sexual benefits of yoga. A study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav, a neurologist at the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi, India, found that men experienced significant improvement in their sexual satisfaction after a 12-week yoga program.
Key improvements were seen across male sexual satisfaction, including desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm.
Yoga has even been shown to be a viable, nonpharmacological alternative to fluoxetine (Prozac) for treating premature ejaculation in a comparative trial by the same team of researchers.
The Yogic Path to Better Sex
So, how does yoga boost your sex life? A study led by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) helps us understand the sex-enhancing mechanisms. Dr. Lori Brotto, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at UBC, is the first author of the study.
Dr. Brotto and colleagues explain that yoga regulates attention and breathing, lowers anxiety and stress, and affects the nervous system by triggering relaxation processes. All these effects are linked to improvements in sexual response.
Psychological mechanisms also play a role. "Female practitioners of yoga have been found to be less likely to objectify their bodies," say Dr. Brotto and her colleagues, which could lead to increased sexual responsibility, assertiveness, and desirability.
There's also the concept of moola bandha, a pelvic contraction that stimulates the nervous system and directly affects the gonads and perineal body/cervix. Some studies suggest that moola bandha can relieve period pain, childbirth pain, sexual difficulties in women, treat premature ejaculation, and control testosterone secretion in men.
In summary, while claims about energy blockages and kundalini energy might lack rigorous scientific evidence, other yogic concepts can make more sense to skeptics. Moola bandha is one such concept that could positively impact your sexual health.
Assessing the Evidence
While the idea of improved sexual function through yoga is intriguing, it's important to remember that the empirical, or experimental, evidence for these claims is limited, and many studies have small sample sizes or lack a control group.
However, more recent studies, like one that focused on women with metabolic syndrome, have produced stronger evidence. For these women, a 12-week yoga program resulted in significant improvements in arousal and lubrication, which were not observed in women who did not practice yoga.
In conclusion, there's a growing body of evidence suggesting that yoga can indeed improve sexual function, though more research is needed to confirm these findings. Give it a try and experience the potentially mind-blowing (or at least enjoyable) benefits for yourself!
Yoga, with its vast array of health benefits, has been linked to improvements in sexual health as well, particularly for both women and men. A study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that 12 weeks of yoga improved sexual function in women over 45, with 75% reporting improved sex lives. Men, too, have seen significant improvement in sexual satisfaction after a 12-week yoga program.
Yoga's sex-enhancing effects are attributed to its regulation of attention and breathing, lowering of anxiety and stress, and impact on the nervous system, all linked to improvements in sexual response. Moola bandha, a pelvic contraction, is a yogic concept that could positively impact sexual health by stimulating the nervous system and directly affecting the gonads and perineal body/cervix.
However, it's crucial to acknowledge that the empirical evidence for these claims is still limited, with many studies having small sample sizes or lacking a control group. Yet, more recent and larger studies have shown promising results, such as the one focusing on women with metabolic syndrome, who experienced significant improvements in arousal and lubrication after a 12-week yoga program.
So while the journey to better sexual health through yoga may have its skeptics, the growing body of evidence supports its potential, providing an opportunity for personal growth and exploration in health-and-wellness, education-and-self-development, and fitness-and-exercise.
