1. Relax Fascia
When you limber up through yoga, it relaxes the connective tissue called fascia that runs throughout the human body and gives structure to the muscles.
As your massage therapist might have informed you, fascia can be a source of all sorts of problems like stiffness, pain and general discomfort. Furthermore, the tightness of fascia in the neck area is a common cause of headache and you are probably aware of the proverbial relation it has with sex. R
elaxed fascial tissue and general balance between the opposing muscle groups that comes along with it promotes one’s ability to find a pleasant pose in sex and generally relax during the act.
Physical discomfort in a sex pose is a very common and major distraction during lovemaking. So, despite most people probably imagining yogis having sex in some off-this-world poses with their legs behind their head, the biggest actual benefit of being limber is the ability to comfortably stay in one of the more common poses for prolonged periods of time while delivering pleasure to your partner and yourself.
2. Be Present
Apart from modern uses like Instagram photo opportunities, awareness of the current moment is the supreme purpose of yoga. By developing a disciplined focus on our body and breath, yogis also build up their capacity to be present in other situations, including sexual encounters.
In love life, it is reasonably healthy to allow your imagination to playfully wander outside of the realm of reality and towards, say, a role-playing scenario.
However, the most fulfilling aspect of sex is the one where we can fully appreciate the intimate contact between two living beings in all its glory and by paying respect to its every aspect; the sensation of touch, smell, taste of our lover. The texture of the skin, the rhythm, the sexual mannerisms, the perfection and lovely imperfections of our partner… it all adds to the entirety of experience and the ultimate satisfaction with the act.
3. Controlled Breathing
One of the major focuses of yoga is controlling your breathing process both in yogic poses or in separate exercises called pranayama. The effort stems from the idea of the breath being not only the main engine of our body, but also a bond that connects the nervous system with other functional units.
To put it simply – controlling your breath will help you control your mental state, use of your muscles, your general physical endurance and so on. It goes without saying that those are the traits that will massively help your performance in bed.
On the other hand, sexual act is about maintaining the fine balance between being in control and letting go of it. For some it’s hard to fully get into it and for others not to get too overwhelmed too soon.
Being in control of your breath might just be the right formula to finding this balance. And if you wonder where it might be – more likely than not you will discover that being able to keep a steady, deep, rhythmic breath for a prolonged period will make you a much better lover than breathing like a chipmunk suffering a stroke.
4. Use Energy Locks
Although nowadays it might seem that yoga is all about smiling people doing downward dog poses on flashy mats, it is actually a mystic and ancient discipline with some very deep insights into anatomy and the inner workings of the energetic circuit of the human body.
One of such insights is a concept of bandhas, or energy locks that make an extremely important aspect of some of the most popular yoga systems, like Ashtanga yoga. Bandhas are muscular structures inside our body that we tend to keep active to gain better control of our body.
The one that is especially useful in the sexual context is called the root lock (Mula Bandha) as it is located around the well-known centre of our sexual energy; the pubococcygeal or PC muscle, also used in Kegel exercises. The benefits of a strong control of your PC muscle are almost extraordinary and for women they range from having better tone of your vaginal wall to greater sexual satisfaction and better control over how and when you climax.
Men will find that strong PC muscle allows them to stay harder, last longer, and generally enjoy sex more. Apart from yoga and Kegels, women can also use devices like Ben Wa balls to exercise the PC muscle. Once you strengthen it, try using it to accentuate the rhythm of your lovemaking through pulsating contractions.
5. Building Confidence
Have you ever met an inexplicably sexy person? Perhaps the person that defies the standardized image of sexy as presented by visual culture, or maybe not even good-looking in a traditional sense of the word, yet somehow still… just sexy?
If you can relate to that you know the truth – being sexy is not about conforming to the collective aesthetic taste but accepting your body and in the broader sense accepting yourself as a sexual person. So how can yoga help?
For one thing, it will take you a long way in learning how to be at peace with different aspect of your beings – your mind, your body, and whatever is in between (like the mysterious entity yoga refers to as subtle, or energy body). If you let go of the expectations and approach yoga with a playful heart and a focused mind, it might just teach you a valuable lesson – even if your body is not that of a supermodel, you are still unique and amazing.
What is sexier than that?
See Also: Yoga for Better Sex