Stress & sex: a yogic approach to awakening women’s libido
A woman’s most powerful sexual response is hidden beneath the surface and runs as deep as an ocean. Women have more erectile tissue than men, and the clitoris has nearly twice the amount of nerve endings as a penis. Women have reported orgasms of the clitoris, uterus, nipples, throat, g-spot, energy body, and more… So why is it that so many women today are struggling with low libido and anorgasmia? My name is Emily, and through my courses and coaching, I show women a yogic path to awakening their sexuality, healing sexual tension, increasing orgasm, and building a strong and consistent libido. In short, how to increase your sex drive with yoga.
The answer to the big question above is, well… multi-faceted. The roots run as deep as two millennia of sexually oppressed, objectified, and abused women. In today’s more inclusive and equitable world, our culture has some work to do to support women back into their empowered sensual expression. The application of various principles and practices of yoga help to activate a woman’s pleasure response, increase her sex drive, and support her in finding emotional and spiritual fulfillment from within her sexual life.
Holistic Sexual Healing through Yoga
Holistic sexual healing through yoga embraces five primary facets: stress reduction, self-connection & love, physical mastery, transcendence of history and limiting beliefs, and activation of the creative power.
The Power of Prana to Increase your Sex Drive
One of the most important links to the puzzle of a woman’s libido is in her subtle energy. Subtle energy, or prana, is the force that animates life. It’s invisible, but we can sense it with our higher senses if we pay attention closely. As yogis, we begin to perceive subtle energy through our practices. As we learn to work with it, it becomes less obscure. Then we begin to read it, move it, and control it – which all comes with time, patience, and most importantly – practice.
A woman’s sexuality can be addressed in a very similar way – as a practice of getting to know her on a subtle level. We can watch subtle changes in her skin tone, feel them in her aura, and she can use a soft concentration on the sex centers to move more prana into them and deepen the mind-body connection. It is at the level of the subtle that we begin to unveil answers to the questions about women’s sexuality that many of us don’t even know to ask.
Stress affects the body in both very subtle and very extreme ways and leads to a laundry list of dis-ease. If we pay close attention and study the changes in the body during and after the stress cycle, we can then support the body through its stress & recovery processes.
Reducing Stress and Feeling Safe
Healing a woman’s sexuality starts with supporting her body’s stress cycle through its entire process and back into a state of balance. When a woman begins to relax and feel safe in her own body, she establishes the foundation of accessing her deepest, and most powerful sexual response. It is at the level of embodied surrender that she begins to awaken expansive orgasmic potential and have deeply satisfying sex.
One of the first and immediate ways that the body responds to stress is by tensing and contracting the low belly – around the guts and the sex organs. The body instinctively draws the sensitive belly and sex organs up and inward to protect them from the perceived threat.
Think about it – do you really ever feel this reaction in your body? Chances are, the answer to that question is no. That could be because for days, weeks, months, maybe even years your body has had to react to stressors one after the other with such frequency that it never really recovered from the previous stressor before it had to respond to the next one. We’re talking about anything from jolting alarm sounds, to running late, to not getting enough ‘likes’ on a recent post, and the list goes on and on…
Normal modern life is stacked full of stressful stimuli. Most of us have adapted to chronic stress… but at a cost. Belly tension is subtly activated so often that the pattern of tension becomes stuck in our tissues and we become numb to it. (And I haven’t even mentioned how we hold our bellies in fear of being fat! That’s a different article.) When we become numb, our sensing mind has “checked out” from the low belly & pelvis. In this state, known as dissociation, we can no longer hear or sense intelligent messages being whispered by the body – until it starts “screaming” at us with issues like painful sex, IBS, the buildup of toxic belly fat, or a disconnection from the sexual response.
When we begin to bring consciousness to the micro-reactive movements of the body during its stress response, we can choose to take a little time to allow the body to recover. This is one step towards becoming unstuck from stress and tension stored inside the tissues.
Practice to Relax the Belly and Feel Safe
Contrast is the teacher! Begin observing the belly at various moments throughout the day. Observe it in the morning, touch it, take a moment to allow it to soften layer by layer. Try spending a full 15-20 minutes savasana practice with an intention to soften the belly, pelvic reservoir, and sex organs as deeply as possible. With this practice, we build a strong mind-body connection to a soft & relaxed belly – we now know what it feels like to be relaxed.
Then, look for contrast in the belly throughout the day. Observe when you feel stressed, tense, excited, anxious, nervous, fearful, or protective. Observe how these feelings affect the belly. Look deeper than the belly skin, feel deep into the layers of tissue around the organs for even the most subtle contraction.
Once the tension is observed, it’s time to take effective action. After the threat or stressor is over, spend a few moments consciously relaxing the belly and pelvic organs and tissues. To do this, simply bring a soft focus to the low belly and pelvis, and allow them to relax (think “relax” and feel it in the body). Spend at least two, up to thirty minutes relaxing deeper and deeper. Listen to the body and support its full resolution from the stress response.
Reclaim Joy
It’s no secret that chronic stress and trauma interfere with the ability to enjoy even the simplest of pleasures in life and in sex. It is never too late to reclaim joy and pleasure as a birthright.
Relaxing the soft tissues of the belly & pelvis flushes fresh oxygen and prana into the organs. By focusing on this area with a soft and loving intention, subtle energy will penetrate into the sexual centers releasing blockages and stirring the erotic potential. Sexual energy may naturally awaken as a result. If so, simply enjoy it!
Connect with Yourself to Increase your Sex Drive
When we feel disconnected from our sexuality, have low sexual sensation, or can’t get out of our heads during sex, these are often signs that we have ‘retreated’ from the pelvis and sex centers for one reason or another. Embodiment is the antidote to dissociation. Through yogic techniques, we can learn to master the stress response, feel safe in our own bodies, become wired for pleasure and joy, and sink into our most expansive orgasmic pleasure.
Revel In Your Pleasure
If you enjoyed this article and want to go deeper, try our free course Revel in Your Pleasure.
Emily is a Women’s Sexuality Coach and Founder of Yoga for Sexual Wellness. She specializes in supporting her students in removing the obstacles holding them back from their self-healing. As a thought leader for the modern woman, her mission is to support all women in liberating themselves from any constraints preventing them from living their best life, and aligning with their deepest passion and most complete expression of themselves. Learn more about this new paradigm in women’s sexuality at: www.yogaforsexualwellness.com. Follow us on Instagram @yogaforsexualwellness