Improved Sexual Function through Yoga Practice: A Comprehensive Overview
Yo, here's the spicy lowdown on yoga and its potential impact on your sex life!
Across the web, you'll find a ton of wellness blogs advocating for yoga to transform bedroom sessions, with personal accounts backing these claims. But does science back this up? Let's dive in!
Yoga's crapload of health benefits has been gaining attention, treating conditions from anxiety to diabetes. Modern research delves into the science behind these results. Yoga lowers inflammation, counters stress-inducing gene expression, reduces cortisol levels, and boosts proteins vital for brain function. You feeling good yet?
Now, let's talk about the juicy stuff: improved sex life.
Yoga Gets Things Going for Ladies
A study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that practicing yoga for 12 weeks significantly improved sexual function in women over 45. After the sessions, they reported better desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and less pain during sex. So, you might say about 75% of these women reported positive changes in their sex lives!
These lucky ladies learned 22 poses said to improve core strength, digestion, pelvic floor strength, and mood. Try trikonasana (triangle pose), bhujangasana (snake), and ardha matsyendra mudra (half spinal twist). Cruise this link for the full list of yogasanas: [yogasanas link].
Yoga Rocks Dudes' World Too
It's not just ladies who benefit from yoga. A study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav found improvements in male sexual satisfaction after 12 weeks of yoga practice. The researchers saw improvements in desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm!
Yogasms, anyone? Well, a comparison trial by the same team found that yoga is a viable, non-pharmacological alternative to treating premature ejaculation. So, there's that! The trial involve 15 moves from easier ones, like Kapalbhati, to complex ones, such as dhanurasana (bow pose).
Yoga's Sex-Enhancing Mechanisms
How does yoga make you better in bed, you ask? Research suggests that yoga regulates attention and breathing, lowers anxiety and stress levels, and relaxes the body. These effects support improved sexual response. Plus, there are psychological factors at play: yoga practitioners tend to have a more positive body image and increased self-awareness, leading to better sexual assertiveness and desire.
The Moola Bandha Magical Move
Don't completely rule out the mystical yogic theories, like moving kundalini energy around your spine to create orgasms without ejaculation. However, there are conceivable yogic concepts that might appeal to the skeptics out there, like Moola Bandha.
Moola Bandha is a perineal contraction that activates the nervous system's relaxation response, directly affecting the gonads and sexual organs. Practicing moola bandha may relieve period pain, childbirth pain, and sexual difficulties in women, as well as regulate testosterone secretion in men.
Moola Bandha is similar to the medical advice given to prevent urinary incontinence, advising both men and women to enjoy sex for longer. Sex therapy centers often recommend this practice to help women become more aware of their sensations of arousal, improving desire and sexual experiences.
The Evidence: It's Famous, but scarce
Ichabod Crane would probably wig out at the thought of achieving mind-blowing sex with yoga, but it's essential to recognize the gap between the abundance of anecdotal evidence and actual empirical research.
The Internet abundantly hosts stories about yogasms, but the trials testing the benefits of yoga for sexual function remain scarce. Most of these studies have small sample sizes and lack control groups. The good news is, recent studies focusing on women with sexual dysfunction and other conditions, like metabolic syndrome, have produced stronger evidence.
Bottom line: Yoga might be a shot worth taking. Get on that mat and give it a whirl – your pelvic muscles won't complain!
- A study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine noted that practicing yoga for 12 weeks significantly improved sexual function in older women, leading to better desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and less pain during sex.
- A study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav found improvements in male sexual satisfaction after 12 weeks of yoga practice, with greater improvements in desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm.
- Yoga's sex-enhancing mechanisms may lie in its ability to regulate attention and breathing, lower anxiety and stress levels, and relax the body, supporting improved sexual response, as well as psychological factors that foster better sexual assertiveness and desire.
