Jahnavi Patwardhan, yoga expert at Sarva Yoga, explains how yoga can help you improve your sexual health.

There are several aspects that define a great sexual relationship.

There should be emotional connection and physical pleasure. It can include passion for the partner and a deep intimate connection too.

Yoga not only makes the body strong offering power, strength and endurance but also trains the mind to relax and enjoy the pleasures with more intensity.

Here are some of the poses that help with good sexual health that translate to better experiences between the sheets:

1. Downward Dog

How to do it

• Go down on your hands and knees. Your knees below your hips and hands in front of your shoulders.
• Lift your knees from the ground. Keep your legs straight and push your hips upwards and back. Arms should be straight with palms flat on the ground and your head between the arms.
• Your body should resemble an upside-down V shape.
• Inhale and hold this pose for a few moments before relaxing.

Benefits

• This pose will help to relieve stress by stretching your muscles and increasing the oxygen flow to your body.
• It can help tone muscles and improve flexibility while boosting your confidence.
• It eases muscle tension in your back and helps improve overall flexibility.
• It also helps you find fresh, vibrant energy.

2. Reclined Butterfly

How to do it

• Sit on the floor and extend your legs.
• Lie back and place your hands on your belly or out to the sides.
• Bring the soles of the feet together with the knees out to the side like a diamond.
• Hold this pose for five to ten breaths.
• To release, stretch out your legs, turn to the side and slowly get back up.

Benefits

• This posture primarily opens the hips and the inner thighs, increasing endurance and your flexibility (in the groin area).
• It is great for low libido, stretching the inner thighs and opening the hips for a wider range of motion.
• In this pose, people often shed layers of anxiety and tend to feel a natural openness and sense of intimacy.
• It improves blood flow to the pelvic area immediately, and where the blood goes, so does the energy and vitality.
• Circulation and increased blood flow are directly linked to level of arousal.

3. Lizard Pose

How to do it

• Slowly kneel on your mat in tabletop pose elbows on the ground.
• Take your right foot to the top of your mat outside of your right hand.
• Help your left foot to stretch behind as far as is comfortable, toes tucked under.
• You may lift your back knee off the ground keeping the spine erect.
• Hold for five breaths, then release to tabletop pose and repeat on the other side.

Benefits

• Hip openers are meant to increase flexibility and also help to release any stagnant emotional energy that you may be holding onto, from the past.
• It helps calm your mind too and increases stamina.
• This pose will improve your range of motion and flexibility.

4. Cat-Cow Stretch

How to do it

• Get down on your hands and knees. Your wrists should be below your shoulders and knees underneath your hips.
• Keeping the spine long and neck erect, look down and out.
• Inhale and arch for cow pose. Hold for 5 to 10 breaths.
• Exhale and round your spine to resemble a cat. Look down towards your navel.
• Hold for 5 to 10 breaths and release.

Benefits

• Also known as spinal flexion and extension, these movements tone the hip and pelvis, increasing blood flow to those areas and strengthening the muscles that support your reproductive organs, which can lead to better functioning and performance.
• This pose is also meant to activate the pelvic floor muscles
• It helps lower your overall stress levels and makes it easier to get into relax.

5. Happy Baby Pose

How to do it

• Lie flat with your back and head on the floor or a mat.
• Slowly bend your knees toward your chest at a 90-degree angle soles facing the ceiling.
• Grab and hold the inside or outside of your feet or toes.
• Hold for 30 seconds and release. Relax and repeat.

Benefits

• A popular relaxation pose, this pose stretches your glutes and lower back.
• It is a deep hip opener that will help with your emotional release and increased flexibility.
• It opens up your sacral chakra, the key to your passion and pleasure centre.
• It also aids in relieving fatigue while calming the nervous system.
• It lengthens and helps realign the spine.