Yin yoga is a meditative style of yoga in which the postures are held for approximately three to five minutes. This approach is designed to increase flexibility by targeting the connective tissue, however, much like sex, this is not a time to space out. Instead, the three to five minutes are a physical and mental exercise of observing your “edge”.
Your edge is a liminal space where you feel enough sensation or discomfort to feel challenged, but there’s also enough comfort that you can maintain the posture for the duration of the hold. Your edge is not a specific shape or sensation, instead, your edge is fluid and is subjective to your current mindset, your diet, the time of day, previous injuries and so on. Your edge is your own!
Sex on the edge creates mind-altering, transformational, and life-affirming orgasms and yin yoga teaches you to surrender to the edge. This is why yin yoga is so effective at enhancing your sex life. It provides you with an arena, outside of an intimate, vulnerable setting, to practice playing with your edge.
Before we get started, familiarize yourself with ‘good pain’ and ‘bad pain’. The following principles of yin yoga, when practiced during sex, allow you to be present with the sensations of sex and to endure when sensations become intense so that you can experience mind-altering, transformational, and life-affirming orgasms. Now that you have this underlying knowledge, let’s take a closer look at one of the key ingredients of yin yoga and how this ingredient can enhance your sex life.
Week 2: Breath
Breath is like a river. Sometimes slow and deep and other times fast and shallow, but the river keeps running. During yin or during sex, practice breathing like a river and when sensations become intense and your mind becomes preoccupied with thoughts, breathe. During yin or during sex, practice breathing in and out of the nose. Nasal breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which tells your body that it is safe and allows your body to relax.
While practicing yin yoga, maintain a steady, easy breath. If breathing becomes labored or you find yourself holding your breath, first attempt to smooth it out. If smoothing out the breath proves to be impossible, then back out of the posture slowly until you find a more manageable shape where the breath can flow. And, if you cannot find a more manageable shape with steady breathing, back out of the posture entirely, take a break, and return to the posture if or when you feel ready.
During yin or during sex, when the edge becomes too intense, relax your breath and breathe like a river. Stop holding your breath during sex, this limits your orgasmic potential. Instead, focus on nasal breathing and this will allow you to endure.
For women, endurance means you are able to go deeper into the sensation, prolong your orgasm, take more of your lover’s cock, and/or ejaculate. Endurance for men means stamina, to prolong your orgasm, and achieve multiple orgasms with or without ejaculation. Men, your lovers need you to fuck them for as long as it takes. That time is going to fluctuate depending on the needs of the relationship, but I can tell you right now that to achieve mind-altering, transformational, life-affirming orgasms takes more than five minutes of genital stimulation. You have to go deeper than that.
When you are close to climax, maintain a steady breath, breathing like a river, in and out of the nose. Orgasm is more sensational, more satisfying, when you allow it to arrive on its own time instead of chasing it. When your mind is preoccupied with thoughts, breathe, this will bring you back to the present moment. When you’re thinking about what to have for dinner, that presentation you need to prepare for work, or whether or not your partner is enjoying themselves, you’re not present with the sensations. Focusing on your breath, during yin yoga or during sex, will bring you back to the present moment. If having sex with a partner, you can try syncing your breath for deeper rhythm, connection, and intimacy. Pair this with eye-contact and you are off to the races.
To practice breathing during yin yoga and to increase your orgasmic potential, check out the accompanying 45-minute Yin Yoga For Greater Orgasm class here.
Tune-in next week for our third and final ingredient of yin yoga to better enhance your sex life.
-Nicole Berns