Exploring the Juicy Side of Yoga: Does this Ancient Practice Really Boost Your Sex Life? 💻🧘♀️
Enhanced Sexual Performance through Yoga: Insights into Its Potential Advantages
The Interweb is flooded with wellness blogs endorsing yoga for a thrilling sex life. Personal accounts abound, too, describing how their amorous experiences improved - often astonishingly so 😱. But does the research verify these claims? Let's delve in. 🔎
Modern research is just unraveling the myriad health benefits of the millennia-old practice of yoga. Condition's ranging from depression and anxiety to metabolic syndrome and diabetes- all find relief in this ancient discipline. 🏥
Recently, researchers have uncovered the intricate mechanisms behind these positive effects: yoga, it seems, reduces your body's inflammatory response, changes the expression of genes associated with stress, and lowers cortisol levels while boosting a protein linked to brain growth and health. 🧬🧠
On top of this, it simply feels fantastic. And yes, if whispers are to be believed, it can, at times, feel freakin' amazing! 😜 Getting in touch with your bod can be restoring, revitalizing, and yes, pleasurable. But can yoga's scrumptious poses really enhance your bonking skills? Let's see if the science agrees.
Yoga Enhances Sexual Function in Ladies Over 45 👵️
A well-cited study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine demonstrates that yoga indeed can elevate sexual function, particularly in women over 45 years old. 🌈
This research analyzed the effects of a 12-week yoga regimen on 40 women who self-reported on their sexual function before and after the yoga sessions.
Come the end of the 12 weeks, the ladies' sexual function had shot up significantly- across all sectors of the Female Sexual Function Index: desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain.
Amazingly, up to 75% of the women reported an improvement in their sex lives after yoga training! 💫
The entire batch of broads learned 22 poses (or 'yogasanas'), which are said to improve core abdominal muscles, improve digestion, fortify the pelvic floor, and elevate mood.
Some poses include trikonasana (triangle pose), bhujangasana (snake), and ardha matsyendra mudra (half spinal twist). For the complete list, check it out right here.
Yoga Benefits Gents, Too 👨️
Blokes aren't remiss from yoga's benefits, either. An analogous study spearheaded by Dr. Vikas Dhikav (a neurologist at the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi, India) investigated the effects of a 12-week yoga regimen on the sexual satisfaction of men.
At the study's closing, the participants reported a substantial improvement in their sexual function—evaluated by the standard Male Sexual Quotient. 🌟
The researchers found improvements across all aspects of male sexual satisfaction: desire, intercourse satisfaction, performance, confidence, partner synchronization, erection, ejaculatory control, and orgasm.
In a comparative trial engineered by the same team, yoga was shown to be a viable and nonpharmacological alternative to fluoxetine (commonly known as Prozac) for treating premature ejaculation. 💊
It included 15 yoga poses, spanning from the simpler (such as Kapalbhati, involving sitting with your back straight, chest open, eyes closed, hands on knees, and abdominal muscles contracted 🌊) to the more intricate (such as dhanurasana, the "bow pose").
How Does Yoga Improve Your Sex Life? 💭
But how, pray tell, does yoga boost your decks and trills in the birdie's nest? A review of pertinent literature, headed by researchers at University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, sheds some light on its love-enhancing mechanisms.
Dr. Lori Brotto, a professor in UBC's Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, is the leading author of the review.
"Yoga regulates attention and breathing, lowers anxiety and stress, and regulates the nervous system, which induces relaxation," the authors write. "All these effects are associated with improvements in sexual response." ✨
There are also psychological mechanisms at play. "Female yogis are less likely to body-objectify and have better physical self-awareness," they explain. "This could promote increased sexual responsibility and assertiveness and, potentially, desires."
Another yoga concept, moola bandha, may help explain the magic. "Moola bandha is a perineal contraction that stimulates pelvic muscles and the autonomic nervous system," Dr. Brotto and her team write. "It encourages parasympathetic activity in the body, which can benefit gonads and the pelvic region."
In fact, many sex therapy centers recommend moola bandha and other yoga practices to make women more aware of their sensations of arousal in the genital area, thus boosting desire and pleasure.
Another yoga pose to strengthen pelvic floor muscles is bhekasana, or the frog pose.
Besides enhancing the sexual experience, this pose may alleviate symptoms of vestibulodynia (pain in the vestibule of the vagina) and vaginismus (involuntary vaginal muscle contractions that impinge penetrative sex). 🌴
Reliability of the Evidence 🎯
Although it's tempting to get overly excited by the potential sexual benefits of yoga, it's crucial to remember the large disparity between empirical (real, as opposed to anecdotal) evidence and the abundance of anecdotal tales on the Interweb.
future research can decisively determine whether "yogasms" are mere autumn-apple-pie dreams or real, attainable wonders. So, until then, it's our recommendation to test out yoga-you never know, your pelvic muscles might thank you! 😜
- The Journal of Sexual Medicine published a study showing that yoga can significantly improve sexual function, particularly in women over 45 years old.
- In the 12-week study, women who practiced yoga reported improvements across all sectors of the Female Sexual Function Index, with up to 75% reporting an improvement in their sex lives.
- Yoga's benefits aren't limited to women, as a similar study led by Dr. Vikas Dhikav demonstrated improvements in the sexual satisfaction of men.
- A review of pertinent literature headed by researchers at University of British Columbia sheds light on yoga's love-enhancing mechanisms, explaining that yoga regulates attention and breathing, lowers anxiety and stress, and encourages relaxation, all of which are associated with improvements in sexual response.
