7 Reasons to Prioritize Your Sexual Health
Did you know that the ability to embrace and enjoy our sexuality throughout our lives, forms an integral part of how healthy we are both physically and emotionally?
With this in mind, it’s important to keep yourself sexually healthy by practising safe sex and getting tested for STIs as and when necessary (in some cases, this can be carried out at a private clinic), and when having regular, consensual sex in a loving relationship, you can expect to enjoy a range of benefits not just for your sexual health, but for your overall health, too.
Here are 7 reasons to prioritize your sexual health and help keep yourself in tip top condition:
- For a more robust immune system
Those who take part in regular sexual activities are known to produce not just more antibodies, but stronger ones. Playing an essential role in helping our bodies defend against disease and infection, the importance of antibodies should never be underestimated, nor should the importance of regular, safe and consensual sex!
- To lower blood pressure
Having a direct and positive effect on a person’s blood pressure by helping to lower it, the powerful hormone Oxytocin is released during an orgasm.
- For burning calories
For many, sex is a calorie burning, high energy workout, and as such, can help burn a significant number of calories if performed rigorously enough! Some studies have even shown that a 24 minute romp in the hay can burn as many calories as a 30 minute session on the treadmill – what would you rather do to keep fit?!
- To lower the risk of heart attack
Recent studies in the U.S. have shown that men who had sex at least twice a week were less likely to develop heart disease when compared to men who only had sex once a month. And with heart disease such a big killer, having sex twice a week in exchange for a healthier heart, seems no great hardship!
- To strengthen a woman’s pelvic floor
For many women, their pelvic muscles weaken with age and after childbirth, but regular sexual activity can help to strengthen their pelvic floor and reduce the chance of them experiencing a vaginal prolapse or pain during sex.
- Reducing the risk of prostate cancer
Studies have also shown that for men who have sex at least 21 times a month, they are less likely to get prostate cancer. They may, however, be somewhat exhausted!
- Helping to improve sleep patterns
Long having been shown to release beneficial hormones such as oxytocin and endorphins, when a person experiences an orgasm, the combination of the two hormones creates a relaxing effect that often induces a period of restful sleep.
There are many reasons to prioritize your sexual health, but please make sure that while reaping the many physical rewards of having regular sex, that you respect your body and get yourself tested regularly at a private clinic or your local GPs surgery, if you have multiple partners or have ever had non-protected sex.