Is masterbation unhealthy

Is Masturbation Healthy?

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Masturbation

Is Masturbation Healthy?

You may have heard some crazy things about masturbation being bad for you, like it makes you grow hair in weird places; it causes infertility; it shrinks your genitals; or once you start masturbating you’ll become addicted to it. None of that’s true. Masturbation isn’t unhealthy or bad for you at all. Masturbation can actually be good for your health, both mentally and physically. And it’s pretty much the safest sex out there — there’s no risk of getting pregnant or getting an STD.

When you have an orgasm, your body releases endorphins, which are hormones that block pain and make you feel good. The good feelings that come with an orgasm happen whether you’re masturbating or having sex.

Plenty of research has shown the health benefits of masturbation. Masturbation can:

release sexual tension
reduce stress
help you sleep better
improve your self-esteem and body image
help treat sexual problems
relieve menstrual cramps and muscle tension
strengthen muscle tone in your pelvic and anal areas

Masturbation also helps you figure out what you like sexually. Where do you want to be touched? How much pressure feels good? How fast or slow? Learning how to have orgasms on your own can make it easier to have one with a partner, because you can tell or show them what feels good. And when you’re comfortable with sex, your body, and talking to your partner, you’re more likely to feel comfortable protecting yourself against STDs and unintended pregnancy.

Some people masturbate often — every day, or even more than once a day. Some people masturbate closer to once a week, once every few weeks, or every now and then. Some people never masturbate, and that’s fine too. All of these are perfectly normal.

Masturbation only becomes “too much” if it gets in the way of your job, your responsibilities, or your social life. If that’s a problem for you, you may want to talk to a counselor or therapist.

Some people learn when they’re young that masturbating is wrong or bad, so they feel guilty about doing it. If you feel that way, try to remember that most people masturbate. It’s perfectly normal, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Talking to a counselor or therapist may help if you have trouble getting over guilty feelings.

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Health Benefits, Side Effects, Myths, FAQs

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Masturbation and guilt

Some people may feel guilty about masturbating because of cultural, spiritual, or religious beliefs.

Masturbation is neither wrong nor immoral, but you may still hear messages that self-pleasure is “dirty” and “shameful.”

If you feel guilty about masturbating, you can speak with someone you trust about why you feel this way and how you can move past your feelings of guilt, if you would like to do so.

Therapists who specialize in sexual health may be a good resource to help you overcome feelings of shame or guilt associated with masturbation.

Addiction to masturbation

Some people can develop an addiction to masturbation, or what some call “sex addiction. ” However, this term is not recognized in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5) and is not considered by some to be a true addiction.

You may be spending too much time masturbating if masturbation causes you to:

skip chores or daily activities
miss work or school
cancel plans with friends or family
miss important social events

Masturbating may be considered too much if it causes harm to your relationships and other parts of your life or if it interrupts your work or studies.

It may also hurt your romantic relationships and friendships because you don’t spend as much time with your loved ones as you used to or you don’t pay attention to their needs.

If you’re worried you may be masturbating too much, consider speaking with a doctor or a counselor about ways to cut down.

If you would like to masturbate less, consider talk therapy. You could also try cutting down by replacing masturbation with other activities. Next time you have an urge to masturbate, you can try:

going for a run
writing in a journal
spending time with friends
going for a walk

There are several common myths about masturbation that have not been proven by scientific research.

For example, masturbation does not cause:

infertility
dehydration
hormonal imbalances
changes in the size or shape of the penis
decreased sperm count
vision loss
acne
hairy palms
erectile dysfunction
low libido

Some people may also believe that masturbation can negatively impact romantic relationships or may indicate that one partner is experiencing sexual dissatisfaction.

However, though excessive masturbation can have negative effects, many people find that masturbating alone or with their partner can actually enhance their sex life.

Furthermore, masturbation may be associated with several health benefits and is considered one of the safest forms of sexual activity as it does not have a risk of pregnancy or STIs.

For those who have sexual dysfunction, enhanced stimulation — including masturbation — can help increase sexual desire and sensitivity.

In fact, one 2018 review published in the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy reported that vibrator use may be beneficial for the treatment of erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction and anorgasmia, or difficulty reaching orgasm. According to the review, vibrator use may also be associated with improvements in sexual desire and sexual function for both males and females.

Masturbation may affect sensitivity during sex for people with a penis because of their technique. Research from 2022 has shown that too much stimulation on a penis during masturbation can decrease sensation.

Sometimes referred to as death grip syndrome, this can make it more difficult to reach orgasm during sexual intercourse.

If you use a tight grip, try changing your technique during masturbation to restore sensitivity levels during sex.

What are the effects of masturbation?

Sexual activity, including masturbation, is linked to the neurotransmitters dopamine and oxytocin in the brain, which are involved in regulating mood and increasing feelings of pleasure.

Sexual satisfaction has also been associated with many other benefits, including decreased stress levels, improved self-esteem, and enhanced life satisfaction in older adults.

Are there any good reasons for abstaining from masturbation?

Though masturbation can be a healthy, pleasurable, and natural activity, some people may choose to abstain from masturbation when it becomes compulsive or begins to interfere with other activities or relationships. Additionally, some may also decide to abstain from masturbation for personal or religious reasons.

What’s a healthy level of masturbation?

According to the International Society for Sexual Medicine, there is no “normal” frequency for masturbation. While some people may masturbate daily, weekly, or monthly, others may choose not to masturbate at all.

As long as it doesn’t negatively affect your relationships or interfere with other activities like school or work, masturbating as frequently or infrequently as you’d like is safe and healthy.

Masturbation is a healthy, natural, and safe way to practice self-care.

Masturbating may have many benefits for your mind and body. There are typically no harmful side effects.

Feel free to enjoy self-pleasure without guilt or shame. Speak with a therapist or someone you trust about any negative feelings you may have.

What is harmful and what is not. Health myths debunked by the BBC in 2019

2 January 2020

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Health advice is in high demand in today's health care market. It is fashionable to be healthy, and where there is fashion, there are myths, misconceptions, and sometimes outright deceit.

Especially many misconceptions - partly sincere, partly imposed - are related to food, which is why most of the investigations of BBC journalists last year were devoted to this: what is harmful and what is not. However, let's start our review of the most popular articles on this topic not with food.

Who came up with the 10,000 step rule?

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Many of us keep track of how far we've walked in a day - using smartwatches, pedometers, mobile apps on smartphones. We rejoice when the figure of 10,000 steps is reached - well, it's important! We are upset when we do not reach the desired amount.

But let's see where this figure came from. Are they fooling us - at least to make mobile applications sell better? Or perhaps we ourselves are happy to fool ourselves, just to create the illusion of commitment to a healthy lifestyle?

This figure is so widely known that it is logical to assume that it was born as a result of many years of research, when scientists struggled with what number of steps per day is optimal for your health - 8000, 10,000 or maybe 12,000 ...

You will be surprised when you find out where it came from.

Medical myths: Do we need to take 10,000 steps every day?

The eternal question about yolk and white

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If you had to name the perfect food, then chicken eggs are one of the main contenders for this title. They are always on sale, they are easy to prepare, they are inexpensive and, moreover, they are packed with protein, as they say, to the eyeballs.

But is it healthy to eat eggs? Or can they cause heart disease? BBC Future columnist Jessica Brown decided to explore the available scientific evidence, and here's what she came up with.

The whole truth about eggs: is it the perfect food?

Is drinking milk unnatural?

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Jessica Brown decided not to stop with eggs and took up another product with dubious usefulness - milk. After all, there is an opinion that drinking the milk of another mammal is unnecessary, unnatural and even harmful.

Man is the only animal that drinks the milk of other animals, most of which lose the habit of drinking milk in early childhood, as they need more and more complex foods for food. Why do people keep drinking it? And is it good for us?

There is one more question. Well, we may stop consuming milk for some reason - for example, we are concerned about the environmental impact of animal husbandry. But what will we get in return? How safe are alternatives to milk for our health? Let's figure it out.

Milk and its substitutes: what is good, what is bad

Detox? What detox? About the benefits of freshly squeezed juices

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Many people think that drinking freshly squeezed fruit juices is a good way to get a mega dose of vitamins. They also say about juices that they help to lose weight and cleanse the body, remove toxins and toxins.

But is it all true? How do juices affect our blood sugar and insulin levels?

Once again our favorite author Jessica Brown is investigating.

Are freshly squeezed juices really healthy? And do they remove toxins?

It's Dangerous, Dangerous, Dangerous Meat

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Now that we've set out to debunk the myths about the health benefits of staple foods, we can't get past red meat. Everything seems to be clear with him - a terrible product.

Nitrates, saturated fats, salt - meat seems to be full of everything that doctors recommend to avoid in food. And we really hear from all sides: meat is harmful!

But still, let's be careful. Let's not blindly follow the international health guidelines that tell us to cut down on red meat in our diets. And let's try, together with BBC Future columnist William Park, to figure out what the real risk is and what exactly we are risking.

Is meat really that bad?

Fashion for dopamine starvation.

What does science say?

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If you haven't heard anything about dopamine fasting, we hasten to please you - it is not related to food, although some of its enthusiasts try to give up the most delicious at the same time.

For example, 24-year-old James Sinka. When he starts a dopamine fast, he tries to cut himself off as much as possible from the irritants of the modern world: he stops eating and instead only drinks water, turns off his phone, does not look at his laptop, and ignores other gadgets. And, as far as possible, he tries not to talk to anyone.

Dopamine fasting resets your brain and allows you to enjoy the simple pleasures of life again, say its adherents. But are their ideas scientifically backed up? Maybe it's just a new Silicon Valley fad?

Let's try to listen without prejudice to the arguments of those who "starve" like this, and the opinions of scientists.

What is dopamine fasting and how it can help

Saturated fats: enemy or friend?

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Here's another ominous phrase, the scarecrow of our time: saturated fat. Eating too much saturated fat leads to high blood cholesterol levels, which can lead to clogged arteries, a stroke, or a heart attack, according to mainstream nutrition science.

Do you eat more than 100 g of fatty meat, pastries, cheese every day? Then you can easily overcome the limit of these same fats, recommended, for example, by the British public health authorities - 20 g for women and 30 g for men.

But why do some diets recommend eating more foods containing these fats? Are these scientists fooling us again? Whom to believe and where is the truth? Or just rely on luck (and good genes) and eat everything?

Saturated fats - evil or normal? Who to believe?

Soy: a healthy alternative to meat or.

.. is it not so simple again?

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Supermarket shelves are full of soy products - soy milk, soy burgers and other soy alternatives to meat and all kinds of "junk food". And that's not to mention the traditional tofu, tempeh, miso and soy sauce.

There is, however, one "but": the isoflavones contained in soy are sometimes accused of increasing the risk of developing breast cancer (and prostate cancer for men).

Let's try to figure it out? Jessica Brown to the rescue.

Is soy harmful to women? And what does it have to do with prostate cancer?

Raw, "living" water. Why drink it?

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So we got to the water, you say. Well, yes, we purify water before drinking - either with the simplest filters, or buy in bottles, or simply boil it. Sometimes, of course, we drink from the tap, but this is not recommended in all countries.

And here comes a group of enthusiasts who say: you should drink unpurified, raw, living water, it contains strength and health. According to the website Findaspring.com ("Find the Source"), the love of raw water has already spawned a global movement of people in search of their own natural water resources.

Website creator Daniel Vitalis makes bold claims such as "we as animals are biologically adapted to consume raw water." To which scientists answer: do we want to return to the Stone Age? Is it not enough for us typhus, cholera, giardia and diarrheal diseases, from which we got rid of with such difficulty?

So what is the logic of raw water adepts? By Tim Smadley.

"Raw water": what is behind the strange interest in it?

Hands off grandma's chicken noodles!

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Finally, let's talk about something peaceful and cozy, New Year after all. For example, about grandmother's recipes. In winter (and not only in winter) it is easy to catch a cold, and in the history of mankind and in the history of every family, countless tips and "sure remedies" for ARVI have accumulated.

Orange juice and chicken broth, zinc lozenges and garlic - all kinds of advice you can hear from family members when you catch a cold. Each of these pieces of advice draws on past generations and often begins with, "But my grandmother always..."

But is there any evidence that chicken noodles or garlic will cure your cold? We understand with the help of our browser to debunk the myths about the useful / harmful Jessica Brown.

Is it possible to cure a cold using grandma's recipes?

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As a bonus for those who have read this article to the end, here are three more "bad-good" myth debunkings:

Sunscreen: how safe are its ingredients?
Stem cell therapy: high cost, hype and false hopes?
Why you shouldn't trust a strong desire to eat something

Got your stomach pulled in? It's unhealthy

It's worth pulling the stomach in only for photographs. But it's better to just stop.

The habit of walking with an inverted abdomen often comes from childhood. The 1990s and 00s style trend with crop tops and low rises only reinforces the desire for a flat stomach. However, therapists do not advise keeping the press area constantly drawn in.

It interferes with breathing. Pulling in the stomach, we strain, first of all, its upper muscles - visually, approximately the first six-pack line. In the same area is the diaphragm - the organ that helps us breathe freely. If the abs are constantly tense (and pulling in is even compared to twisting in terms of the effect on the muscles), the diaphragm rises too high, and less air enters the chest than it needs.

The result is shallow breathing, which has a negative effect on training: for example, it will be more difficult for you to run or swim - it will take longer to take a deep breath. In everyday life, lack of air is associated with anxiety and fatigue. Surprisingly, in order to avoid physiological anxiety, sometimes you need to get rid of anxiety for an imperfectly flat stomach!

Overworks the neck, shoulders and back. The belly is far from the neck - a fact. However, by pulling it in, you create pressure on the thoracic and cervical spine and even the collarbone. When the weight is distributed unevenly and some areas are loaded more than others, chronic pain, muscle cramps and pinched nerves can appear.

Interferes with pelvic floor balance. The work of all muscles in the body is interconnected, and the "core" area is the best proof of this. When we tighten the stomach to make it appear flat, the pelvic floor muscles are also loaded. Over time, they become less flexible, and due to pressure, they can sink lower, as if “flattening”.

This is not good, gynecologists agree. The healthy work of the pelvic floor muscles helps to enjoy intimacy with a partner, endure menstruation painlessly, and regularly remove fluid from the body. Any changes in this zone are like dominoes: processes begin to “crumble” one after another. Will deprive you of orgasms in the inverted stomach or make you go to the doctors - it's hard to say.

Builds an unhealthy perception of the body. Perfectly flat stomach is best left in 2D with joy - in living people, this zone becomes more voluminous after a couple of glasses of water, even if you have not eaten anything. To walk with a constantly drawn in stomach is, in a sense, to deny that the body is three-dimensional. And it is this feature that allows him to be hardy and bend in different directions - which the smartphone screen cannot boast of.

Breathe out right now. And if your stomach is so tense that you forgot how to relax it, put your hand on it and take a few deep breaths. "Work" with your stomach - make sure that it rises and falls with your palm. Hold on to the moment you exhale: don't pull your belly in further than its natural state before you need a new breath.

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