Tabuu Wrap-up: If your feel-good routine is all about taking caring for your body through exercise and healthy eating, you’re missing something important: sex!
Most people worry about their health, as they should be. They’re constantly setting new goals for better health, such as exercising, eating better, giving up sugar, etc. However, some of these things are easier said than done. Nonetheless, we understand how important it is to stay healthy. Stay fit. Remember your body is a temple.
For some people, being healthy means exercising at least an hour a day. For others, it means following a diet and doing their best to have a couple of hours of exercise in the week. We’re all different, so we all have different wellness routines.
However, there’s something we should all be doing more often, and that’s getting laid. Along with exercising, healthy eating, and caring for your body, sex can make a huge difference in your physical and mental health. Let’s take a look at 6 reasons why!
1. Sex Helps You Beat Stress
Life is stressful, so we all need to find ways to cope with stress healthily. Whether it’s meditation, yoga, watching your favorite show, watching a feel-good movie, spending time with your pet, or hanging out with your friends. Do you know what else is good for stress? Having sex! And that’s easy, especially if you already have a partner. By the end of it, you will have forgotten about the things that were making you go crazy. Not to mention your mindset will change and you’ll be able to tackle challenges a lot more efficiently. Without the burden of stress or anxiety.
According to a study conducted at Princeton University, having intercourse regularly makes the hippocampus bigger, which is what helps our brains regulate stress, which is what researches have learned from rats. But don’t worry, this applies to humans as well. The reason sex is such a huge stress relief may be because oxytocin and endorphins are released, which makes us feel good and reduces anxiety.
2. It Helps You Burn a Few Calories
I wish I could tell you sex will help you burn as many calories as a HIIT workout or a CrossFit training session. Alas, that’s not the case. But it does help you burn as much as 85 calories in just a standard 30-minute session. That’s just the baseline, though. If you go harder and for longer, you may burn many more calories. Either way, you’re burning them, and that’s what matters.
If you have sex regularly, it could actually help you lose a couple of pounds here and there. When you’re aroused, your heart rate increases, which is why you burn calories during sex. The more intense, the more calories you’ll be getting rid of. Plus, thrusting is a good workout for the core as well as your thighs, glutes, and butt.
3. It Promotes Better Sleep
After sex, you always get a good night’s sleep. It’s not just because you’re tired from the, ahem, workout. It’s also because the chemicals your body releases during sex keep you calm, such as endorphins and oxytocin. You also release prolactin when you orgasm, which is why you feel sleepy afterward.
It’s important to note there are different ways of having sex, and some promote sleep a lot better than others. If you have to get up super early the next day, don’t go for something kinky. Opt for slow sex instead, which can be so pleasurable we even wrote an article about it! If you’re having issues falling asleep or having a good night’s sleep, have sex and see if it makes a difference!
4. It’s Good for Cardiovascular Health
According to research from the American Journal of Cardiology, men who engage in sexual activity only once per month have a higher risk of developing heart issues than men who engage in sexual activity two or more times a week. This study was conducted on a thousand men in a period of 16 years, and it showed men who had sex just once a month were 45% more likely to suffer from heart disease than men who have sex two or more times a week.
In other words, sex is good for your heart, so if you want to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, especially at a certain age, what you need to do is exercise, eat healthy food, and have sex more often.
5. It Keeps You Looking Young
According to a study conducted at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland, having regular sex can make a difference in how young people look by a margin of 4 to 7 years. This study consisted of showing pictures of people aged 30 to 101 so a judging panel could guess the age of the people in the pictures. People who were engaging in sexual activity at least four times every week were considered by the judges to be 7 to 12 years younger than they were.
It turns out sex boosts human growth hormone production in our bodies, which leads to better muscle tone. Not only that, sex also helps produce hormones like estrogen and testosterone, which are responsible for keeping the body young. You can use as many wrinkle treatments as you want, but the secret to looking younger for longer may be found in your bed.
6. It Can Relieve Pain
I’ve already mentioned sex and orgasms will increase hormones in our bodies that make us feel alright. And many of those hormones can work wonders against pain! Endorphins, for example, have the same effect as morphine. So, having a headache is not a plausible excuse not to have sex. The truth is that having sex will get rid of that headache and other pains. Masturbation will also work!
As you can see, sex offers many different health benefits that are worth knowing. I’m not saying sex should replace a lifestyle that’s healthy and proven to help many people, but it can be an essential part of it and it should be. The next time you feel too guilty about skipping the gym, you know what to do!
