5 Surprising, Research-Backed Tips for Better Sex

Get inspired to jump into bed by just a few of the many research studies that shed light on surprising ways to boost your sex life. (Thanks, science!)

10 Reasons Why Orgasms are Good for You

Orgasms aren’t something we talk about as often as smoothies here, but let’s face it, they are equally exciting and healthy. Loving more is part of a nutritious life, and I’ve always believed that sex is uber important when it comes to wellness. But did you know there’s a whole lotta science going on under the sheets?! Yep, there’s many lucky people studying the benefits of sex and the horizontal mambo, and knowing there’s research promoting a roll in the hay is just great for the entire human race. There are many bits and pieces to a good romp, but today I’m focusing specifically on what we know about orgasms. 10 Reasons Orgasms Are Good for You Orgasms may help heal a cold faster. No joke. A study out of Germany found that men who masturbated had increased adrenaline and prolactin levels and a higher number of leukocytes. Translation: they’ll end up using less tissues for the sniffles if they use more time by themselves. So, the next time you take a sick day, spend some of it awake and aroused to get you back in action faster. You’re probably be spending that day in bed anyway, so make.it.work. Orgasms are good for the brain. Scientists at Rutgers University hooked women up to MRI machines to study blood flow to the brain while they masturbated. They found that blood doesn’t only flow to the nether regions, but also to the brain, which gets flooded with nutrients and oxygen in the process. So next time you need to cram for a test or nail a presentation for work, spend a few minutes … relaxing … first. Sexual satisfaction increases with age. Adding to the explosion of orgasm research (pun intended), The American Journal of Medicine published findings that sexual satisfaction improves, yes, improves with age in women. Hallelujah! May we all live to be sexually satisfied octogenarians! Focusing on the OM is a win-win. For the men, taking care of your lady helps you, too. The OM center is a practice club that focuses on the female orgasm. Apparently, when partners focus on the female orgasm, men report having better focus in other areas of their lives, such as work. So if your man really needs to have a good day at work, he needs to be sure to give you a good morning. Like, a really good morning. You can lose weight, look younger, live longer, fight pain and sleep better from orgasms. Of course, orgasms are also linked to losing weight, looking younger as we age, living longer, getting rid of pain, fighting insomnia and better sleep. So, if it’s been awhile since you, you know, then I hope I’ve given you reasons to well, you know. Orgasms are healthy. They do a whole lotta good stuff to your body, and you don’t even need a partner to have one.  

One Surprising Reason to Have a Healthy Sex Life

I talk a lot about having a healthy sex life and the benefits of sex, but today’s reason might surprise you. Did you know that having sex improves your sense of smell? After sex, there is a surge in the production of the hormone prolactin, which causes your brain’s stem cells to form new neurons in the olfactory bulb, also known as the brain’s smell center. Why am I talking about this? Well, you know I always support having a healthy sex life, because research shows it’s a best way to lose weight. And we know that how well you can taste your food is tied to how well you can smell. Research also shows that there are certain aromas that will actually curb your appetite. So, the more sex you have, the better your ability to smell these foods, the more weight you may be likely to lose!  Now if that’s not a beautiful trifecta of benefits, I don’t know what is.   How a Healthy Sex Life and a Better Sense of Smell Relate   One study showed that strong aromas can cause you to grab a smaller forkful of food, so think chiles and onions if you need a little help in the not devouring-your-meal department. Another study found that the smell of bananas and green apple can actually curb your appetite, so reach for a whiff of these when you’re trying to lessen the amount of times you open the pantry door every afternoon. Licorice works well here, too. Grapefruit has been shown to lower appetite and weight. I love having my clients eat half of a grapefruit with cinnamon as a snack when they are cleansing or trying to lose weight. And here’s a fun fact: my mom started dinner every night with a half grapefruit on all of our plates. I have no idea why, and it had nothing to do with weight loss, but there is a special place in my heart for these citrus powerhouses. So, back to why I originally started writing this. You should have more sex. It’s part of a Nutritious Life, and there are so many other benefits we didn’t cover here today. Clients always raise their eyebrows when I ask them about sex in our nutrition counseling sessions but it truly does have a place in a nutritious life. I don’t want the private details – I want to know they are using it as a secret weapon to manage stress, burn some calories (sexercise, anyone?), and in the end, lose more weight. See, it’s not all about the food.  

Sexercise Your Way to Happier—and Yes, Healthier—You

Sexercise. You either just blushed when I said it, or you already have your pants unbuttoned. No judgment either way, but, full disclothesure (ha!), I’m going to try to convince you to get comfy with the concept. I may not be Dr. Ruth, but this I know: A healthy sex life is an important part of living your most Nutritious Life. Is it as important as eating empowered, sleeping deep, stressing less, and all of my other pillars? You bet. Sex is good for you. It helps you recover from stressors better, strengthens your immune system, benefits your heart health and lowers blood pressure. Need more sex benefits? Benefits of Sex Sex prevents prostate cancer in men. It prevents bladder cancer in women. It’s a mood booster. It’s a pain alleviator. It can help you lose weight. It can help you look younger and sleep better. Sex as Exercise And there’s one more tiny detail we don’t focus on enough: Sex is actually a form of exercise as well. It strengthens muscles and burns about 3-4 calories per minute, kind of like biking at a light to moderate pace. So if you haven’t been biking because your tire is flat or your chain is loose or your handlebars are rusty, no more excuses. You don’t even need a bike. There’s plenty of sexercise apps out there to help you calculate your, er, expenditure and keep track of your favorite ways to do it. Yep, there’s an app for that. There’s a sexercise website devoted to helping you and your partner record those passionate calories burned. It even plots it on a graph for all you visual learners out there. It also tells you the equivalent exercises that would have burned the same amount of calories, and how many ounces of red wine you burned off. There’s probably a lot of other resources out there, but I don’t want to get you in trouble if you’re reading this while at work. You can do that research on your own. Speaking of research, it tells us that the more lovin’ you get in, the more lovin’ you’ll enjoy. It’s a self-fulfilling wellness wheel that you should climb on responsibly. Basically, sexercise should fit neatly sometime between waking up and falling asleep, like brushing your teeth or checking your email. If you tend to brush your teeth or check your email a lot, bonus! Exercise to Sexercise Now, I’m not saying that sex is itself the best form of exercise. But many of those other forms have an impact on your physical health, and improving your health can make you better at sex—it’s a really pleasurable circle of great benefits. For example, cardio (such as running, cycling, power walking) increases endurance, which understandably connects to bedroom activities. (Some people even experience “coregasm” during their cardio!) Also, for men, moderate to high-intensity aerobic exercise improves erectile dysfunction. Another great activity that leads to increased sexual function: kegel exercises. Doing kegels strengthens the pelvic floor muscles, which support the uterus, bladder, small intestine and rectum. A number of factors, from childbirth to surgery to aging (and losing estrogen), contributes to these muscles weakening. Often recommended as a strategy to help fight incontinence, kegel exercises are generally believed to improve sexual performance, not just in women but in men too. Then there are routines that improve your strength and flexibility. It’s not hard to imagine the extracurricular benefits of Pilates: Poses like the Pilates V (or Frog) build up core strength, which is great—and maybe it will also inspire some new sexy techniques to practice with your partner? Then there’s yoga, with plenty of stretches and poses that will both make you more limber and firm up your glutes. Most of us just think of the fun side of sex, not the fact that it’s actually good for your health. I’m not telling you to skip your morning run, or that you don’t need the spin class. I’m just saying that maybe it’s time to enhance your workout with a little between-the-sheets cross-training. Now stop blushing, keep unbuttoning your pants, and get your sexercise on. (Image: Shutterstock)

4 Benefits of Sex You Need to Know About

Ask Keri: I’ve heard one benefit of sex is weight loss. Is it true? Keri Says: I’m an open book, put-it-all-out-there kind of person with most things. But I am not a, “hey peeps, let’s chat about sex” kind of free spirit. Sex is personal and everyone has different boundaries with this topic. However, the benefits of sex are so important that I refuse to let my own bit of—shall I say—awkwardness keep me from spreading the “Love More” message and discussing sex with my clients. Sex is part of everyone’s wellness.  “Love More” is a pillar of Nutritious Life for this very reason: Lovin’ is great for your body. It is the yin (oxytocin) to the yang (cortisol) of stress. It helps you escape the negatives in life and makes you feel good. I want you to feel good. Feeling good helps motivate you to make healthy decisions in all areas of your life. So, let’s talk about sex and how it can truly help you live your most Nutritious Life. 4 Benefits of Sex You Should Know About Sex is a great way to lose weight, which is why I always discuss it with my clients. I know, not the conversation you think you’ll be having when meeting with a nutritionist, right? Well, cortisol is a hormone that makes your body hold onto weight around the middle, and the best way to reduce cortisol is with its arch nemesis, oxytocin. How do you produce more oxytocin? You guessed it: by having sex. Cuddling, by the way, helps produce oxytocin too. Orgasms help chill you out, which also helps you achieve a healthy weight. We could all use a little relaxing, after all. So how do orgasms magically do this? Once again, through oxytocin. Oxytocin floods the body with relaxation messages after orgasm, and lowers anxiety and the brain’s natural resistance responses. A big O becomes a big aaahhh. Sex is good for your wellness. It strengthens your heart and can even improve your immune system. You knew snuggling could lead to, well, you know. But did you know it could lead to fighting diseases? If you’ve ever worried about being a superhero in bed, stop worrying. Your heart thinks you are the best.lover.ever. Sex improves your sense of smell. After sex, there is a surge in the production of the hormone prolactin, which causes your brain’s stem cells to form new neurons in the olfactory bulb, also known as the brain’s smell center. Not only is your sniffer gonna thank you, but now you have a fun fact to share at your next cocktail party. Well, I think I’ve covered all the bases (get it? bases? sex joke?). Eat a healthy diet, hit the gym, make love, repeat. And don’t worry if you only have time for a quickie. The benefits of sex last way longer.

How Sex Can Help you Lose Weight

Today I’m talking about why steaming it up between the sheets is good for you and helpful to the fitification (I just made that up) of your body. My goal isn’t to make you blush here. In all honesty, I’m a huge believer in the role of sex, touching and cuddling when it comes to health and wellness, but I don’t chat about it as regularly as I talk about the benefits of omega-3s, hydration and antioxidants with my clients or students. So, I’m sayin’ it here and I’m sayin’ it now: go have sex to lose weight, peops! {Tweet this} Cortisol is your stress hormone, often called the fight-or-flight hormone, that wreaks havoc on your health, makes your body hold onto weight around the middle and contributes to illnesses. If cortisol is the villain who comes out when you’re running late, arguing, pressured or otherwise overwhelmed, do you know who the hero is? Oxytocin. Do you know how you get oxytocin to rescue your damaged bod? That’s right. S-E-X. Sex. You need to get rid of excessive cortisol in your body to shuck your weight and a romp with your boo is a great way to do just that. While I’m talking up the superhero powers of oxytocin, magic from this powerful hormone helps you to sleep like a babe as well, which also happens to be another great way to lose weight! Sex is also great for your body image. It’s hard to hold on to negative feelings about your body when someone’s lovin’ it. {Tweet this} It’s also motivating to stick to your healthy ways when you know you’re gonna be naked with somebody. More than that, it seems as though sexual pleasure is greater in leaner peops. Overweight and obese people struggle more with lower testosterone levels, erectile dysfunction and performance difficulty. You know how you’re significant other always wants you to look and feel your best? Time to prove it. Instead of Netflix and the popcorn between you two on the couch tonight, bust out your satin jammies and look forward to turning in early!