Enhancing Sexual Health: Insights into Yoga's Positive Impact
The cyber world swarms with blogs expounding yoga's connection to a more thrilling sex life, along with personal accounts of this practice's impacts on bedroom experiences - sometimes to jaw-dropping degrees. So, does science back up these claims? We'll investigate.
Nowadays, the health benefits of yoga, an ancient practice, are only just being uncovered. Conditions such as depression, stress, and anxiety, along with metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and thyroid problems, are all said to benefit from yoga.
Modern research has shed light on the intricate mechanisms behind such benefits. It turns out that yoga lowers the bodily inflammatory response, counters stress-inducing genes, decreases cortisol, and enhances a protein that helps the brain stay youthful and healthy.
Besides these perks, yoga simply feels terrific. And, according to some, it can lead to a mind-blowing coregasm during yoga – the legendary orgasm without actually ejaculating.
Getting in touch with our bodies can result in a replenishing, restorative, and pleasurable experience. But can yoga's seductive poses improve our bedroom lives? Let's explore the science behind it.
Yoga improves sexual performance in women
One frequently cited study, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, found that yoga can indeed boost sexual function, particularly in women over 45.
The research looked at the effects of 12 weeks of yoga on 40 women, who reported self-assessments of their sexual function before and after the yoga sessions. After the 12-week stint, the women's sexual function had significantly improved in every section of the Female Sexual Function Index: desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain.
A staggering 75 percent of the women reported an improvement in their sex lives after yoga training. During the study, all the women learned 22 poses, or yogasanas, which were believed to enhance core abdominal muscles, improve digestion, strengthen the pelvic floor, and boost mood.
Famous poses such as trikonasana, bhujangasana, and ardha matsyendra mudra were among them. The full list can be found here.
Yoga improves performance in men
Men aren't left out either. A study conducted by Dr. Vikas Dhikav, a neurologist at the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi, India, examined the effects of a 12-week yoga program on the sexual satisfaction of men.
At the study's end, participants reported significant improvement in their sexual function, as assessed by the standard Male Sexual Quotient. The researchers found improvements in all sections of male sexual satisfaction: desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm.
In a related trial by the same team of researchers, yoga was found to be a viable, nonpharmacological alternative to fluoxetine (Prozac) for treating premature ejaculation. It included 15 yoga poses, ranging from easy positions like Kapalbhati to more complex ones such as dhanurasana (the bow pose).
How yoga enhances sexual performance
But exactly how does yoga improve sexual performance? A study led by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, helps clarify some of its 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 colleagues explain that yoga regulates attention and breathing, lowers anxiety and stress, and regulates the nervous system, which induces relaxation. Such effects are linked to improvements in sexual response.
Moreover, there are psychological mechanisms in play. "Female yoga practitioners are less likely to objectify their bodies," explain Dr. Brotto and her colleagues, "and they are more aware of their physical selves."
"This tendency," they continue, "may be associated with increased sexual responsibility and assertiveness, and perhaps even desires."
The power of the moola bandha
Stories about releasing blocked energy in root chakras and moving kundalini energy up and down the spine to induce orgasms without ejaculation lack scientific rigor.
However, other yogic concepts might be of greater interest to skeptics. Moola bandha is one such concept.
"Moola bandha is a perineal contraction that stimulates the sensory-motor and autonomic nervous system in the pelvic region, thus enforcing parasympathetic activity in the body," write Dr. Brotto and her colleagues in their review.
"Specifically, moola bandha directly innervates the gonads and perineal body/cervix." A video incorporating the movement into a pelvic floor muscle practice can be found here.
Research has 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 akin to the medically recommended Kegel exercises, thought to prevent urinary incontinence and contribute to longer, more pleasurable sex for both men and women.
In fact, many sex therapy centers advise this yoga practice to help women become more self-aware of arousal sensations in their genital area, thus improving desire and sexual experience.
Another yoga pose that strengthens the pelvic floor muscles is bhekasana, or the "frog pose."
This pose may aid in alleviating symptoms of vestibulodynia, a condition characterized by pain in the vestibule of the vagina, and vaginismus, which is the involuntary contraction of the vaginal muscles that impedes women from fully enjoying sex.
The reliability of the evidence
Although it's enticing to believe in the potential sexual benefits of yoga at face value, it's crucial to consider the vast disparity between empirical evidence and anecdotal evidence.
The Internet teems with anecdotal evidence, but the scientific studies that have measured the benefits of yoga for sexual function are scarce. Furthermore, most of the aforementioned studies – which found improvements in sexual satisfaction and function for both men and women – had a relatively small sample size and no control group.
However, more recent studies – focusing on women with sexual dysfunction in addition to other conditions – have yielded stronger evidence.
For example, a randomized controlled trial examined the effects of yoga in women with metabolic syndrome, a population with a higher risk of sexual dysfunction.
For these women, a 12-week yoga program led to "significant improvement" in arousal and lubrication, whereas such improvements were not noticed in the women who did not practice yoga.
Even more promising, a randomized controlled trial found that yoga significantly improved the physical ability and sexual function of women with multiple sclerosis (MS), while women in the control group experienced worsened symptoms.
"Yoga techniques may enhance physical activities and sexual functions of women with MS," the study paper concluded.
While more scientific evidence is needed to fully back up the claim that "yogasms" are attainable, there is enough reason to give yoga a try in our daily lives. Trying it out could offer tremendous rewards – and our pelvic muscles will surely thank us for it.
- Yoga, as cited in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, can boost sexual function, particularly in women over 45.
- After 12 weeks of yoga, 40 women reported a significant improvement in every section of the Female Sexual Function Index, with 75 percent of them noting an improvement in their sex lives.
- Men also experience benefits; a 12-week yoga program was found to improve male sexual satisfaction as assessed by the Male Sexual Quotient.
- Yoga regulates attention, lowers anxiety and stress, and regulates the nervous system, all of which can improve sexual response, according to researchers at the University of British Columbia.
- Moola bandha, a yoga contraction that stimulates the pelvic region, has been suggested to alleviate period pain, childbirth pain, and sexual difficulties in women, and regulate testosterone secretion in men.
- Despite the lack of extensive scientific evidence, more recent studies focusing on women with sexual dysfunction and other conditions have yielded stronger evidence supporting the benefits of yoga on sexual function.
