During our teenage years, we suddenly found ourselves in an embarrassing predicament. With the onset of puberty, hormones were running rampant and our libido was skyrocketing, but where was the outlet for all this sexual tension? Well, masturbating, obviously.
But in most cultures, masturbation has consistently been viewed in a negative light, with parents shunning it and religion badmouthing it. If we were ever caught masturbating, it was seen as a punishable offense and one that would never be spoken of again. Masturbation became taboo — something that was laden with guilt and that you were ashamed of but had to do out of necessity.
As we mature into adults, most of us carry this notion of “masturbation as a crime” with us. Our need for it may be somewhat less urgent than in our teenage years, but it’s still there. But when it comes down to it, masturbation is a healthy, normal part of being a post-pubescent human, and it’s time to bring it out in the open and give it the credit it deserves.
Here are seven reasons to help you do just that.
It can improve your sex life
Contrary to popular belief, masturbation can actually improve your sexual relations with others. This is because it enables you to work out your hotspots — what gets you going, what doesn’t, and how to get the most out of pleasuring yourself. You can pass this on to your partner during sex, making the experience more enjoyable for both of you.
You’ll feel great
It’s a well-known fact that sex makes you feel good. Newsflash: so does masturbation! That’s because our bodies release a heady wave of dopamines, endorphins and oxytocin, all of which make you feel great and improve your mood. This influx of feel-good hormones helps to lower the feel-bad hormones swimming around in your body, specifically cortisol. Chronically elevated cortisol can have a strong detrimental effect in your body, increasing inflammation, feelings of anxiety and weight gain.
And you’d be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable way to get rid of it!
Your waistline will thank you
Not only does masturbation keep the pounds at bay by fighting off elevated cortisol in your body, it also reduces your junk-food cravings. During and after masturbation, the inflow of oxytocin into our brains makes us feel happier and keeps emotionally triggered food cravings for sugar-rich or salt-rich foods away.
It promotes a healthy heart
We all know that exercise is good for your heart, but it turns out masturbation, similar to exercise, gets your heart pumping and your blood flowing. Done regularly, this significantly lowers your risk of heart disease and diabetes.
It helps you sleep
Happily, masturbation has the same effect as sex in dropping you into a gloriously deep sleep. It’s believed that this is due to the flood of endorphins produced during orgasm, which produces deeper sleep and can even help you get to sleep faster, as you’ll be more relaxed.
For men, it improves sperm health
Men will be universally pleased to know that frequent masturbation keeps your sperm production on top of its game. This is because regularly masturbating minimizes DNA damage to sperm and encourages good sperm motility.
Oh, and it lowers your risk of prostate cancer, too.
For women, it improves vaginal health
Orgasms from masturbation help keep your pelvic floor strong and healthy, helping to prevent urinary problems and promote general sexual health. If you have uncomfortable periods, muscle contractions from masturbating can help to relieve period cramps.
Part of who you are is being comfortable with masturbation and the benefits it can provide. Keep these benefits in mind next time you feel the misguided taboos of masturbation creeping in.
—Liivi Hess
Liivi is an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach and is training to become a doula. She inspires women to find peace and personal power by taking control of health and fertility naturally. Liivi‘s passion is ancestral nutrition and primal lifestyle design. She and her partner Will live between Toronto, Canada and Queenstown, New Zealand.
Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19138375
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/womens-health/in-depth/kegel-exercises/art-20045283
Sorry.. theory just doesn’t pan out. I know a guy who does it all the time. One of the fattest people I know, has diabetes , and stupid too. That’s why he has to masturbate all the time. No girl wants to hang out with him. LOL One thing holds true though, he sleeps a lot.
It’s like never having to say you’re sorry.
I think the downside to this would be that people who do it, will end up not knowing how to relate in a loving way to a partner and will merely see them as someone to “touch their hot-spots.”
Lust and love are diametrically opposed..I think no one is going to get sick or die because they don’t masturbate.
I really doubt the “benefits” you tout.
Another thing, once you give into any pleasurable thing, it becomes addictive: whether coffee, drugs, etc or in this case, masturbation. The persons mind degenerates to the lowest level when in this mode.
I’d rather keep my mind free to enjoy life to the full, without being “chained” to such a habit – or any other kind of habit.
Love to know where you got your information on about masturbation “improving sperm health!”
One more thing, all these “benefits” you cite, only hold good for the period of time one is actually doing it, and just immediately after.
It is true that chocolate has the same effects as you cite, but one cannot live on chocolate, in a vain bid to keep feeling good. You pretty soon get sick.
Same deal here with masturbation, if a person does this as a habit, (and it may only take once to become habitual,) they end up with their mind almost perpetually on sex.
I don’t care who or how many disagree with me here, I am giving my own thoughts.
The iron in the cytochromes, that are little biological machines that open and close the cell doors, are magnetically polarized, facing outward, counterclockwise in males, an and, clockwise in females. Counterclockwise face to face with clockwise are confluent, and pushed together by all the other repelling configurations. This is the attraction of opposite polarities. In the one substance, energy, motion can only be in closed circuitry, that there be something to move out of the way and fill in behind. The other side, the “shadow” side, is the opposite polarity, everywhere within us. In the flexibility of more globally bent time space, the union and undifferentiation of circuits, polarities, is much easier.
You’re is you are. Your is your. You’re waistline line will thank you?????
You should not knock what you have not tried. and if you have then your not doing it right. just saying.
REALLY….. LOL.
Sam, thanks for catching that. Email me @ jake@thealternativedaily.com and I’ll send you a free Alt Daily shirt for pointing this out. – Jake
AND YOUR POINT IS…..
I totally agree with you. That was a good take on the opposite side of masturbation.
Keith, perhaps you have tried it, and it has become so good to you that you prefer it more than the other. Remember the word addiction.
Ben, or it could mean that pleasing yourself, is easier.
It’s easier, quicker, no expense, not having to listen to someone’s (bs) emotional baggage, and now you understand the meaning of “early to be early to rise”. Have a nice day, from Ben, in Kona, Hi.
This article missed one other benefit… sex boosts the immune system. No matter how one may slice it, we are “sexual beings”.
It’s for self absorbed people and has nothing to do with love, which sex should be about.
The benefits of masturbation are well known and widely publicized (on the net) I am of the opinion that masturbation is not addictive…habitual sure but not addictive. Habits are behavioral addictions are psychologically and physiologically
mandatory to the point of illness. Sex and in particular masturbation is simply a bodily function. Would those of you who are convinced of the addictive qualities of sex/masturbation suggesting we can be addicted to other mandatory bodily functions as well? The hairy palm club is not an exclusive organization. We are all – everyone of us members it’s just that some of us are much more active than others. The “norm” is to each their own. They/we had it right in the 60’s “let it all hang out” and “do your own thing”. Now if you’ll forgive me I think I feel the urge coming on. Lol!!!
I don’t believe one word, written in this article. Sex is for procreation of new live.
It is logical that wasting these energies is bad for health and a long life, and spirituality..
What is not needed for procreation should not be wasted, it is needed for the regeneration of the body and soul..
A lot of soul particles are lost… which the soul needs for its own growing and unification with the spirit…
With each act you loose live force energy. In very olden time when human lived hundreds of years, had power over nature, could control the weather, had control over animals, could walk on water, were clairvoyant, they could do a lot of things with there mind… they only used sex for procreation, it was a sacred act for new live not for lust…
There bodies were not that dense as now.
In Jesus time. the human race was already degenerated.
I always thought why the dogs stick, its all magntizm and they have opposite polarity also. Thank you sir for the theory, enlightening.
It seems to me that alot of women are against masturbation. Whether the person doing it is a man or woman. But women seem to be against men doing it especially.
I think that masturbation is res privata. Otherwise, I think that it can be comforting and a release from the structured sense which our society has created in order to control the individual. A warning will be that masturbation could reach other time periods through the oracle. Overall, i think that masturbation is something between the individual and God. Good luck !
Oh please!!!
My partner and I (both in our 50’s) have a wonderfully active healthy sexlife: we, on occasions madturbate….together; it helps both of us understand what the other one likes/needs at different times; (how do you know what your partner should do if you don’t know your own body??) also it’s great if our libido is out of sync due to travel work etc…and the benefits are there….just take the guilt thing off the table…..
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