Enhanced Sexual Function Through Yoga Practice: Unveiling Its Potential Impact
Yoga's Saucy Secret: Does the Ancient Practice Improve Your Sex Life?
The virtual world is brimming with wellness blogs preaching yoga as the secret to a more satisfying sex life, backed by personal stories of transformed sexual experiences. But does the science support these claims? Let's delve in.
From treating conditions like depression and anxiety to helping manage metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and thyroid issues, yoga is quickly proving its worth in the health world. Recent studies have unveiled the intricate workings behind these benefits.
Yoga calmly lowers the body's inflammatory response, suppresses stress-inducing genetic expressions, and brings down cortisol levels, all while boosting a protein that fosters brain growth and health.
Beyond these merits, yoga just feels good and, rumor has it, can lead to the legendary coregasm. Touching base with our bodies can offer a rejuvenating, healing, and pleasurable physical experience. But can yoga's yummy poses enhance our intimate lives? Let's explore the science.
Yoga's Magic Touch for Women
A study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that yoga could, indeed, boost women's sexual function, particularly those over forty-five. The study examined the effects of twelve weeks of yoga on forty women who self-reported on their sexual function before and after the sessions.
By the end of the program, the women reported improved sexual function across all sections of the Female Sexual Function Index, including desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, and satisfaction. A whopping 75 percent of the women noticed an improvement in their sex lives after yoga training.
During the study, all the women were taught twenty-two poses, or yogasanas, believed to strengthen core abdominal muscles, improve digestion, fortify the pelvic floor, and elevate mood. Some poses included trikonasana (triangle pose), bhujangasana (snake), and ardha matsyendra mudra (half spinal twist). Find the complete list here.
Yoga's Satisfaction Promise for Men
Men aren't left out of this benefits bonanza. A study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav, a neurologist at the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi, India, examined the effects of a twelve-week yoga program on the sexual satisfaction of men.
At the study's conclusion, the participants reported significant improvements in their sexual function, as evaluated by the standard Male Sexual Quotient. The team discovered improvements across all aspects of male sexual satisfaction, including desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm.
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.
This study involved fifteen yoga poses, ranging from easier ones like Kapalbhati (a breathing exercise) to more complex ones like dhanurasana (the bow pose).
Yoga's Intimate Mechanisms
But just how does yoga amp up our nookie? A review of existing literature conducted by researchers at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, helps us understand some of yoga's sex-enhancing mechanisms.
Dr. Lori Brotto, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at UBC, is the first author of the review.
Dr. Brotto and her colleagues explain that yoga regulates attention and breathing, lowers anxiety and stress, and activates the part of the nervous system that encourages relaxation.
""All of these effects are associated with improvements in sexual response," write the reviewers, so it is "reasonable that yoga might also be associated with improvements in sexual health."
The Power of the Root Lock
While tales of unleashing trapped energy in root chakras and moving "kundalini energy" up and down the spine to produce ejaculation-free orgasms lack solid scientific evidence, other yogic concepts may resonate with skeptics.
Moola bandha is one such concept.
""Moola bandha is a perineal contraction that stimulates the sensory-motor and the autonomic nervous system in the pelvic region, and therefore enforces parasympathetic activity in the body," write Dr. Brotto and her colleagues in their review.
""Specifically, moola bandha is thought to directly innervate the gonads and perineal body/cervix." Watch this video for an incorporation of the movement into a pelvic floor muscle practice.
Studies referenced by the researchers have suggested that practicing moola bandha alleviates period pain, childbirth pain, and sexual difficulties in women, as well as treating premature ejaculation and regulating testosterone secretion in men.
""Moola bandha is similar to the modern, medically recommended Kegel exercises, thought to prevent urinary incontinence and help both men and women enjoy sex for longer," explain Dr. Brotto and her colleagues, referring to the research of others.
Another yoga pose that strengthens the pelvic floor muscles is bhekasana, or the "frog pose."
In addition to enhancing the sexual experience, this pose may help alleviate symptoms of vestibulodynia, or pain in the vaginal vestibule, and vaginismus, which is the involuntary contraction of vaginal muscles that prevents women from enjoying penetrative sex.
The State of the Evidence
While the tantalizing potential sexual benefits of yoga can be enticing, it's crucial to remember the vast chasm between the abundance of anecdotal evidence and the scarcity of empirical, or experimental, evidence.
The internet teems with anecdotal tales, but studies that have actually tested yoga's effects on sexual function remain scarce. Furthermore, most of the studies mentioned above—which found improvements in sexual satisfaction and function for both men and women—have comparatively small sample sizes and lack control groups.
However, more recent studies—which focused on women with sexual dysfunction in addition to other conditions—have yielded stronger evidence. For instance, a randomized controlled trial examined the effects of yoga in women with metabolic syndrome, a population with a higher risk of sexual dysfunction overall.
For these women, a twelve-week yoga program led to "significant improvement" in arousal and lubrication, compared to no such improvements in the women who didn't practice yoga.
Improvements were also found in blood pressure, leading the researchers to conclude that "yoga may be an effective treatment for sexual dysfunction in women with metabolic syndrome as well as for metabolic risk factors."
Another randomized trial looked at the sexual benefits of yoga for women living with multiple sclerosis (MS). The participants engaged in three months of yoga training, consisting of eight weekly sessions.
Importantly, women in the yoga group "showed improvement in physical ability" and sexual function, while women in the control group exhibited worsening symptoms.
""Yoga techniques may improve physical activities and sexual satisfaction for women with MS," the study paper concluded.
While we need more scientific evidence to substantiate yoga's benefits for our intimate lives, the seeds are definitely sown. Until future research clarifies whether "yogasms" are a real, achievable thing, we think it's worth exploring the potential benefits yoga has to offer.
Giving yoga a try could prove incredibly enlightening—and our pelvic muscles will definitely thank us.
- The study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that yoga improved sexual function in women over forty-five, particularly in areas like desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, and satisfaction.
- A study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav examined the effects of a twelve-week yoga program on the sexual satisfaction of men and found significant improvements in their sexual function.
- Moola bandha, a yogic concept, contracts the perineal muscles and is thought to directly innervate the gonads and perineal body/cervix, potentially easing conditions like period pain, childbirth pain, and sexual difficulties in women, as well as treating premature ejaculation and regulating testosterone secretion in men.
- Beyond improving sexual health, yoga also helps regulate attention and breathing, lowers anxiety and stress, and encourages relaxation, all associated with sexual response.
- A randomized controlled trial examined the effects of yoga in women with metabolic syndrome and found significant improvement in arousal and lubrication for the yoga participants, compared to no such improvements for those who didn't practice yoga.
- While the scientific evidence for yoga's benefits for our intimate lives remains scarce, the seeds have been sown, and giving yoga a try could prove incredibly enlightening for both our physical and sexual health.
