You’ve probably wondered on more than one occasion what happens to your body if you’re not getting enough sex. You probably think that you can never be having enough sex, but, on average, millennial are actually having less sex than previous generations. And guess what… this is actually bad for you.
There are physical and mental health benefits to an active sex life — and potentially ones that you’ve never even thought of before. Let’s take a short tour of some of the health benefits of an active sex life — and some of the hazards of an extended dry spell.
Let’s say you’re having a dry spell. You’re stressed out from what’s going on at work, your romantic and sexual prospects are going no where and your personal life isn’t really a refuge. You bring your work home with you, so there’s no time for one night stands and your dry spell ends up extending into even your self-love time. No time to masturbate.
Well, increased sexual activity and increased masturbation practices (think somewhere around 4.6 orgasms per week) actually is linked to lower incidence of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common kind of cancer in men, and something you don’t want any part of, so grab those tissues and your smartphone and retreat to a private corner for a while and help in your personal fight against cancer.
Remember earlier when I was saying stress could be leading to a dry spell.
Well, that’s kind of a self-sustaining cycle. The endorphins that are released from a good night of sex have the benefit of improving your mood and lowering the anxiety levels that make you feel like the stress in your life is unmanageable. Sex is actually a great way to go about coping with the stresses of life.
Stress has the terrible ability to creep into every aspect of your life. And with increased stress, you’ll usually see a decrease in your sex life. You should combat that. Actively try to boost your sex life when things feel like they could be getting out of control. You’ll have fresh eyes in the morning and you’ll be more likely to find a way to manage it all.
Sex and orgasms don’t just provide boosts in psychologically beneficial hormones. They have significant physical benefits as well. Notably, studies have shown that, without sex, your immune system is less effective. Cutting off sex actually hurts your immune system.
Increased sex leads to higher levels of common cold fighting antibodies being found in your system. Furthermore, with less sex comes higher blood pressure. It’s that stress thing again. It might be the cardio, but — hey, that’s a benefit of an active sex life —empirical data shows that men with active sex lives have lower blood pressure, generally.
Starving yourself of sex can leave you horny and easily distracted.
It can also leave you depressed, stressed and generally pretty mopey. Both of these things are negatives when it comes to work productivity. There’s a lot of data showing that couples who have active sex lives are happier with their careers and happier at work. Being happier at work leads to increased productivity and being better at your job. There are a lot of other factors that go into job satisfaction, but your general mood and stress levels are a big part of it. This helps explain the why — but it’s just worth noting that having sex makes you better at your job.
One of the side effects of a decrease in your sex life is a drop in your sex drive.
You may not have thought about it too much, but not having sex doesn’t alway s make you more horny and distracted. That’s just the first step. An extended dry spell can lead to an increase in symptoms of depression and, as stated before, an uptick in anxiety. So while you could see an increase in libido in some cases, in others, you could see a drop in your sex drive. I guess what they say is true — if you don’t use it, you lose it.
This can be chalked up to just generally tuning out your sexual desires after a while. They could be cropping up, but you just ignore them, block them out and keep them suppressed in order to deal with them. They’re not going away entirely, but you might feel that way. Making sure to at least masturbate should help relieve some of these symptoms. It’s a cheap way to get the endorphins flowing and keep your libido going.
Though less supported by empirical data, but still interesting with some supportive studies, there may be a connection between an active sex life and increased brain function and the growth of brain cells. This is definitely more on the preliminary side when it comes to this list of conclusions, but it’s an intriguing possibility.
Not having sex could actually be making you stupider. Given the conclusions that popular culture draws, this seems to go in the opposite direction, but it’s nice to see that there could be mental benefits to an active sex life that go beyond improving your mood.
There are so many ways to improve your life with a more active sex life.
Whatever barriers you’ve erected that are keeping you from having a healthy, more balanced sexual appetite are usually easy to overcome with some self-reflection and maybe some counseling. Most of the time, not getting enough sex is a self-fulfilling cycle. Less sex means less confidence; less confidence means less sex.
Of course, if you’re in a relationship, your sex life is a partnership and not entirely up to you. You need to take your significant other’s feelings and where they are in their life into account. Talk it out with them. Let them know where you stand on an active sex life. Find out where they stand.
If you’re in a relationship, open communication about your feelings about your sex life is integral to a happy and healthy relationship. And, apparently, integral to a happier, healthier you.
