VIDEO: Having more SEX has THESE health benefits (...including living longer)
SEX can bring a host of health benefits, from exercising your heart to fending off illnesses - and it could even provide you with a full body workout.
Five health benefits of having regular sex
A long line of studies looking into sex and the benefits it has on people’s health suggest a number of positives which you might never have known about.
One is that it could exercise different parts of your body all in one go.
According to recent research from Upbeat Active, sending a text uses 38 muscles, sprinting for a bus puts 99 into action, and having sex calls on 657 - which is all the muscles in the human body.
Physiotherapist and muscle anatomy expert Mike Aunger told The Telegraph: “In the bedroom, every muscle matters. All your skeletal muscles are essential for movement, no matter how vigorous; all your autonomous (involuntary) smooth muscles play a ceaseless role in digestion, respiration, circulation and bodily function; and of course your cardiac muscles are integral for pumping blood into all the right places.”
But, Mike added that you have to do it right: “Ideally it should last more than 30 minutes. 45 minutes would probably be better.”
Sex benefits: It can provide a full body workout
Sex benefits: It can improve your brain function
It could also improve your brain function
Research carried out by scientists at the University of Pavia, Italy, and published in March 2013, suggested that people who have regular sex displayed an increase in cranial nerve growth, which is crucial to mental alertness.
It could make you look younger
In the same year, Dr David Weeks, former head of old age psychology at the Royal Psychological Society conference, presented researched which showed that men and women who have an active sec life look between five and seven years younger than their actual age.
He said: “Sexual satisfaction is a major contributor to quality of life, ranking at least as high as spiritual or religious commitment.”
It can be a stress buster
According to a research published in Biological Psychology in 2006, sex could help you beat the stresses of 21st century living.
In a small study of 46 men and women, participants kept a diary of sexual activity, recording penetrative sex, non-penetrative sex and masturbation.
In stress tests, including public speaking and doing mental arithmetic out loud, the people who had no sex at all had the highest stress levels.
People who only had penetrative sex had the smallest rise in blood pressure. This shows that they coped better with stress.
Sex benefits: It could make you look younger
Weekly sex might help fend off illness
A study in Pennsylvania found that students who had sex once or twice a week had higher levels of an important illness-fighting substance in their bodies.
Immunoglobulin A (IgA) was 30 per cent higher in those who had sex once or twice a week than in those who had no sex at all. However, the lowest levels were in people who had sex more than twice a week.
NHS Choices also lists some of the benefits of sex.
It can be good for the heart
It writes on its website: “Anything that exercises your heart is good for you, including sex. Sexual arousal sends the heart rate higher and the number of beats per minute reaches its peak during orgasm.
“But, as with most exercise, it depends how vigorously you do it. Some studies show that the average peak heart rate at orgasm is the same as during light exercise, such as walking upstairs. That’s not enough to keep most people fit and healthy.”
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