Enhancing Intimacy through Yoga: Exploring Its Positive Impact on Sexual Health
Unleashing the Secrets: Yoga's Hidden Impact on Your Sex Life, Unveiled!
The digital world is overflowing with wellness blogs advocating yoga for a more exhilarating sex life, accompanied by personal tales of its positive impact - often, to mind-blowing degrees. But does science back up these claims? Let's delve deeper.
Diving into contemporary research, we discover the plethora of health benefits that the ancient practice of yoga is bound to offer. From alleviating conditions like depression, stress, and anxiety to addressing metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and thyroid problems, the list goes on.
Many recent studies have delved into the underlying mechanisms behind these health bonuses. Unveiling astonishing findings, yoga is revealed to reduce the body's inflammatory response, counteract stress-inducing genetic expressions, decrease cortisol levels, and boost a chemical crucial for maintaining a youthful and healthy brain.
All these beneficial effects contribute to the sublime sensation of simply feeling good. And for some, it's said to feel heavenly, eliciting those mythical coregasms during a yoga session. This sensation of rejuvenation, restoration, and physical pleasure is captivating. But can yoga's enchanting poses really enhance our bedroom antics? Let's take a gander at the research.
Boosting Your Bedsheets - Yoga and Women
A widely-cited study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine revealed that yoga does, indeed, elevate sexual function, particularly in women over the age of 45. The study evaluated the effects of 12 weeks of yoga on 40 women and tracked reported improvements in their sexual function before and after the yoga sessions.
Post the 12-week period, significant improvements in sexual function were observed in all sections of the Female Sexual Function Index, including "desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain." Approximately 75 percent of the women reported a notable improvement in their sex lives following yoga training.
During the study, all the women were trained on 22 poses, or yogasanas, that are believed to strengthen the pelvic floor, improve core abdominal muscles, promote digestion, and elevate mood. Some of the poses included trikonasana (the triangle pose), bhujangasana (the snake), and ardha matsyendra mudra (half spinal twist). The complete list of poses can be found here.
Satisfying Moments - Yoga and Men
It's not just the fairer sex that reap the benefits. A study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav, a neurologist at the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi, India, examined the impact of a 12-week yoga program on male sexual satisfaction.
At the end of the study period, participants reported a significant improvement in their sexual function, as gauged by the standard Male Sexual Quotient, across all aspects such as "desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm."
Moreover, a comparative trial conducted by the same team of researchers found that yoga is a viable, non-pharmacological alternative to fluoxetine (Prozac) for treating premature ejaculation. The trial included 15 yoga poses, including easier ones like Kapalbhati and more complex poses like dhanurasana (the bow pose).
The Power of Yoga – Exploring the Mechanisms
But how exactly does yoga boost one's bedroom performance? A review led by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, helps us dissect some of the sex-enhancing mechanisms at play.
Dr. Lori Brotto, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at UBC, serves as the first author of the review. Dr. Brotto and colleagues explain that yoga improves focus, regulates breathing, lowers anxiety and stress, and stabilizes the nervous system, prompting the body to relax, sleep, digest, and triggering other metabolic processes associated with tranquility.
"All these effects are associated with improvements in sexual response," note the researchers, implying that "yoga might also be associated with improvements in sexual health."
Psychological mechanisms are at play as well. "Female yoga practitioners are less likely to objectify their bodies and more aware of their physical selves," Dr. Brotto and colleagues emphasize.
This heightened body awareness might foster increased responsibility, assertiveness, and even sexual desires.
The Mystique of Moola Bandha
While tales of unleashing blocked energy in root chakras and unleashing kundalini energy up and down the spine to culminate in ejaculation-free male orgasms lack convincing scientific evidence, other yogic concepts might make skeptics feel more comfortable. Moola bandha is one such concept.
"Moola bandha activates the sensory-motor and autonomic nervous system in the pelvic region, directly influencing the gonads and perineal body/cervix," write Dr. Brotto and colleagues in their review, incorporating the movement into a routine for pelvic floor muscles in a video.
Mustering evidence from various studies, some researchers have claimed that practicing moola bandha alleviates period pain, childbirth pain, and sexual difficulties in women, and regulates testosterone secretion in men. Moreover, many sex therapy centers recommend this yoga practice to help women attain greater awareness of their sensations of arousal in the genital area, thus enhancing their pleasure and sexual experiences.
Another yoga pose strengthening the pelvic floor muscles is bhekasana (the frog pose), which may help alleviate symptoms of vestibulodynia, or pain in the vaginal vestibule, as well as vaginismus, the involuntary contraction of vaginal muscles preventing women from enjoying penetrative sex.
While the allure of yogic bliss may be intoxicating, it is vital to bear in mind the gap between empirical, or experimental, evidence and anecdotal evidence that abounds on the web. The amount of so-called scientific proof supporting yoga's benefits for sexual function remains modest, with most studies boasting small sample sizes and lacking control groups.
However, more recent studies, which focus on women with conditions linked to sexual dysfunction, have produced stronger evidence. For example, a randomized controlled trial for women with metabolic syndrome reported "significant improvement" in arousal and lubrication for those practicing yoga, but none for the non-yoga group.
Another randomized study targeting women with multiple sclerosis (MS) showed that women practicing yoga improved in physical abilities and sexual function, whereas the control group showed heightened symptoms.
So, while we need more scientific evidence to establish yoga's benefits for our sexual health unequivocally, the potential is undeniably intriguing. Until future research confirms whether "yogasms" are a genuine, attainable phenomenon, it's well worth incorporating yoga into our daily routines for the sake of our sexual health and overall wellbeing.
Practicing yoga may help us discover a level of sexual satisfaction we never knew we could reach, and our pelvic muscles will surely thank us for it!
- The science behind the claims of improved sexual function through yoga is backed up by numerous contemporary studies, such as one published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, which showed a significant improvement in sexual function in women over 45 after 12 weeks of yoga.
- Yoga's impacts on sexual health are not limited to women alone; a study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav found that a 12-week yoga program improved male sexual satisfaction across various aspects like desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, and orgasm.
- The mechanisms behind yoga's enhancement of bedroom performance are multifaceted and include improving focus, regulating breathing, lowering anxiety and stress, and stabilizing the nervous system, which collectively lead to overall sexual health improvements according to a review led by researchers at the University of British Columbia.
