9 Ways That Yoga Can Improve Your Sex Life

In addition to the million well-known reasons that it’s good for you, yoga is good for your sex life, too. I have to admit, I spent a lot of time privately hating on yoga. I’m not someone who particularly likes to be quiet or reflective and, up until recently, I wasn’t someone who liked to exercise either. My boyfriend told me all the time that if I would just meditate a little just do a few yoga poses, then my super busy brain would slow down, have a chance to rest, maybe do some creative growing. I resisted and resisted until my anxiety ratcheted up high enough that I realized I had to do something. And so, like so many women in their late 20s before me, I joined a yoga class — and I love it.

As predicted, my brain is noticeably calmer and my body is definitely stronger, but the other night I went dancing and I realized something else was happening. I’ve been dancing since I was a young teenager but this felt different. I was able to dive deeper into the music than I ever had before and I could feel parts of my body that I hadn’t even been aware of. It was an eye-opening experience and it got me thinking about what else yoga could be doing for me.

Which brought me to sex, of course. I figured there was no way yoga wasn’t affecting my sex life, but I wanted to know exactly how. As a recent convert and total noob to the yoga life, I decided to reach out to some experts to see how, exactly, yoga can improve your sex life.

1. Greater Flexibility Means More Possibilities For New Positions

Yoga practitioner and founder of the sex-positive community Mission Control, Polly Superstar, points out that “the flexibility will allow you to pretzel yourself into all kinds of kinky sexual positions.”

This is the super obviously one, right? Yogis are famous for being hella flexible and anyone who’s ever tried to do it in the shower knows that flexibility and strength are both essential ingredients for a lot of sexual positions.

2. Yoga Is Not About Being Looked At

“So often we feel pressure to make sex performative: We worry about the lighting, how the positions make our bellies crease,” Rae, owner of Home Yoga Saigon tells Bustle. “And we forget what we're there for: To give and receive pleasure. Don't get me wrong, it feels great to look good and to have your partner(s) appreciate that, but there is also so much more to it if you open yourself up to it.”

3. Yoga Teaches You To Treat Your Body As One Cohesive Whole

“In a society so saturated by porn culture and body shaming, we learn to cut ourselves up for parts, to treat our bodies like buffets where we accept some parts and reject others,” Rae says. “But in yoga, you can't do that. Unless you can integrate your entire experience, you can only progress so far. And once those channels open up in the body, you become awake to so many connections, to so many sensations, that words like ‘erogenous zone’ become meaningless. Your orgasm isn't localized to a two centimeter area between your legs.”

4. Yoga Gives You A Way To Explore Your Body Outside Of Sex

“I took a period of time where I intentionally abstained from sex and dating,” Rae says. “I realized that my entire idea about pleasure — about this specific combination of sensations we find in sex — was wrapped up in this one act wherein another person put his genitals inside me. And when I uncovered this belief, it seemed so ridiculous! So I took some time to explore what it was to experience pleasure, to explore sensuality, to enjoy my body, without relying on another person's junk.

5. And Makes You More Aware Of What Your Body And Self Need

While I first noticed that I was more aware of my body when I was out dancing, that awareness absolutely translates to awareness during sex. “I am still casually dating and exploring sexual relationships,” Rae says. “But I'm so much more able to speak up about what I want because I've taken the time to discover and own it on my own terms.”

6. Yoga Can Help You Heal From Sexual Trauma

“Yoga is well-known as a remedy for anxiety, depression, and stress,” Rae says. “It can be an incredible tool for those looking to reclaim their bodies after a traumatic encounter. It is just you on the mat, with your body and your breath. And for those who are uncomfortable taking classes or being in a group environment or having a teacher adjust you physically, there are now so many awesome resources available online so you can practice from home.”

7. Yoga Puts You In Better Touch With Your Body

“Yoga teaches you how to breathe and be in touch with the sensations in your body,” Polly Superstar says. “It teaches you how energy flows in your body and how to harness it. If you apply what you learn at the gym to your sex life you'll be on the path to tantric sex, and that means more pleasure, more fulfilling connections, and multiple orgasms.”

8. Yoga Opens Up Your Sexual And Creative Energies

“Yoga is essentially an energetic cleanse of the body, with postures working on opening channels (nadis) so that energy can flow unimpeded,” Kirsty Thompson, yoga instructor, tells Bustle. “The nervous and endocrine systems being stimulated in different postures encourages this, but the complete physiological affect is that you release and channel energy that often stagnates around your first and second chakras, muladhara and svadistana, our root and sexual chakras.”

Thomson goes on to explain that the energy that yoga releases is our essential energy and that it feeds both our creative and sexual selves. “Average” sex, she says, does not fully release that energy but practicing yoga can put you in better touch with your body and those energy releases, leading to better sex.

9. Yoga Teaches You Patience

Jade Salter is a yoga instructor and burlesque dancer who has found that the type of meditative thinking in combination with the slow pace of incrementally getting better at yoga have joined forces to boost her sex life. “Learning that you don't just slip into a state of meditation immediately, you have to learn how to reach that, working at it a bit at a time,” Salter tells Bustle. “That's helped me greatly with my sex life.”

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