Besides getting off and doing so efficiently — without all the baggage that can come with partnered sex — masturbation has scientifically shown the benefits of decreased stress, which increases mood and improves sleep. The one-person show can also lower the doer’s risk of cancer, especially in men; and in women, gifting the self with a big “O” around a period can actually decrease the pain of menstruation!
Research shows what the body knows: that orgasms release happy hormones, which ease anxiety while prompting self-esteem.
According to a study reported on by DailyMail.com, “abstaining from pleasuring yourself is also bad — and could raise the risk of anxiety, depression and erectile dysfunction.”
Dr Peter Kanaris, a sex therapist on Long Island, advises that men should masturbate between seven and 21 times a month to decrease their risks of cancer, citing a 2016 study by Boston University researchers which reviewed 32,000 men and represented that frequent masturbating lowered the risk of prostate cancer.
The study found that regular ejaculation, whether through masturbation or sex, decreases a person’s risk of cancer by up to 33%. Scientists believe that jizzing “helps to clear potentially cancer-causing substances from the prostate,” reports Daily Mail.
Dr. Kanaris especially encourages older men to masturbate more as data shows they tend to pleasure themselves less frequently than those 50 and below.
However, the doctor warns against a compulsion towards the act, and recommends that all masturbators check in with how they feel throughout, as they would with a partner in sex. Dr. Kanaris says masturbating multiple times a day is perhaps a problem, and continues, that a person could tell “if they were masturbating too much if the habit began to interfere with their daily lives including going to work and seeing family and friends. Other risks from too much masturbation include injury, which happens when people start applying more force in order to get the same pleasure,” reports the Daily Mail.
Dr Yvonne Fulbright, a sex expert in Iceland, advises that women masturbate at least once a week to help relieve menstrual cramps.
“With managing one’s pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) and menstruation woes like pain, one would want to self-pleasure more than once per month,’ she says. “PMS often starts five days before bleeding begins and goes away within four days of it starting. So it could be beneficial to masturbate on each of those days.”
Fulbright explains that masturbating increases blood flow to the pelvic area, providing pain relief.
Additionally, a 2020 study from University College London suggests that masturbating once a week could delay menopause for women in their 40s. According to the decade-long study of nearly 3,000 women aged 45 years, those who engaged weekly in sexual activity were 28% less likely to have begun menopause by the end of the study compared to those women who masturbated less than monthly. The scientists behind the study suggest that when women go without orgasms, their body denounces ovulation, triggering menopause.
