Improved Sexual Function: Benefits of Yoga Practice
The internet thrives with wellness blogs touting yoga as the secret to a better sex life, with personal testimonies that seem almost too good to be true. But does the research support these claims? Let's delve in.
Modern research has begun to uncover a plethora of health benefits from the ancient practice of yoga. From easing conditions like depression, stress, anxiety, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and thyroid problems, yoga seems to have it all.
Recent studies have shone light on the intricate mechanisms behind these benefits. It turns out that yoga decreases the body's inflammatory response, counters stress-inducing gene expression, lowers cortisol, and boosts a protein that fosters brain growth and health.
But can its yummy poses really improve our sex lives? Let's take a look.
Yoga enhances sexual function in women
One frequently-mentioned study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that, indeed, yoga can indeed improve sexual function, particularly among women aged 45 and above.
The study, which enrolled 40 women, discovered significant improvements in sexual function following a 12-week yoga program. The ladies saw improvements in desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain. More than 75 percent of the women reported an improved sex life after their yoga training.
The 22 poses, or yogasanas, that were part of the study are believed to strengthen the core abdominal muscles, enhance digestion, improve the pelvic floor, and uplift mood. The star poses were trikonasana, bhujangasana, and ardha matsyendra mudra.
Yoga boosts sexual function in men
It's not just the ladies who can benefit from yoga. An analogous study led by neurologist Dr. Vikas Dhikav investigated the effects of a 12-week yoga program on the sexual satisfaction of men.
At the end of the study, the participants reported enhanced sexual function, as evaluated by the standard Male Sexual Quotient. The researchers observed improvements across all facets of male sexual satisfaction, including desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm.
A comparative trial by the same team of researchers found that yoga serves as a viable, non-pharmacological alternative, especially for treating premature ejaculation. It included 15 yoga poses ranging from simple to complex such as Kapalbhati and dhanurasana.
Yoga's secret to better sex
So how does yoga improve our sex lives? A review of existing literature by researchers at the University of British Columbia's Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology sheds light on some of its sex-enhancing mechanisms.
Lead author Dr. Lori Brotto and her colleagues explain that yoga regulates attention and breathing, reduces anxiety and stress, and manages the nervous system, inducing relaxation and therefore enhancing sexual response.
Additionally, the study found that women practitioners tend to be less likely to objectify their bodies and more aware of their physical selves, which may be linked to increased sexual responsibility, assertiveness, and desire.
The strength of the moola bandha
While tales of unleashing trapped energy in root chakras and guiding "kundalini energy" up and down the spine to bring about ejaculation-free male orgasms lack solid scientific evidence, other yogic concepts may have more credibility.
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 reinforces parasympathetic activity in the body," write Dr. Brotto and her colleagues in their review.
The video below incorporates the movement into a practice for pelvic floor muscles. Some studies have suggested that moola bandha relieves period pain, childbirth pain, and sexual difficulties in women, as well as treating premature ejaculation and controlling testosterone secretion in men.
Moola bandha bears some resemblance to the modern, medically recommended Kegel exercises, which are thought to prevent urinary incontinence and extend sexual satisfaction for both men and women. In fact, many sex therapy centers recommend this yoga practice to help women become more attuned to their sensations of arousal in the genital area, thereby enhancing desire and sexual experience.
Another yoga pose that strengthens the pelvic floor muscles is bhekasana, or the "frog pose." In addition to improving the sexual experience, this pose may help alleviate symptoms of vestibulodynia, an unpleasant sensation in the vaginal vestibule, as well as vaginismus, involuntary contraction of vaginal muscles that hinders women from experiencing penetrative sex.
The validity of the evidence
While the potential sexual benefits of yoga may be enticing, it's important to consider the substantial gap between the empirical (experimental) evidence and the non-empirical (anecdotal) evidence floating around on the web.
The Internet is teeming with anecdotal stories, but the number of studies evaluating the impact of yoga on sexual function remains limited. Furthermore, most of the aforementioned studies have small sample sizes and lack control groups.
However, more recent studies, which investigate possible connections between yoga and sexual function in women with co-existing conditions, have yielded stronger evidence. For instance, a 12-week yoga program for women with metabolic syndrome led to "significant improvements" in arousal and lubrication. These positive changes in sexual function were not observed in the control group.
Another randomized study examined the sexual benefits of yoga for women with multiple sclerosis (MS), finding that experimental group participants showed improved physical ability and sexual function, while those in the control group experienced worsening symptoms.
So while more scientific evidence is needed to substantiate yoga's impact on our sex lives, the signs are clear—the benefits may exist. In the meantime, incorporating yoga into our routines could prove incredibly rewarding, and our pelvic muscles will undeniably appreciate it.
The study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine provides evidence that yoga can indeed improve sexual function, particularly among women aged 45 and above, with significant improvements in desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain. In a similar manner, a study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav found that a 12-week yoga program improved sexual function in men, as assessed by the Male Sexual Quotient. The improvement in sexual satisfaction is believed to be due to yoga's regulation of attention and breathing, reduction of anxiety and stress, and inducing relaxation, leading to enhanced sexual response. Hence, the scientific evidence supports the claim that yoga may have a positive impact on sexual health.
