Mind over Body

You start slowly, moving your body and finding the rhythm. Your breath becomes faster and you explore new positions to see the effect. You generate heat and after the exertion come a great relaxation and peacefulness. Are we talking about a yoga class or lovemaking? How about both?
Both yoga and sex are physical and emotional, uplifting and challenging, they both use the body to calm the mind and stimulate the spirit. So how can practicing yoga improve your sex life?
On a physical level, yoga helps strengthen pelvic floor muscles and sex organs and accumulate energy to achieve better orgasms. Increased flexibility and a toned body give more self-confidence and help you to experiment with different positions.
But more importantly, yoga can help you deal with the biggest spoilsport of great sex: the mind.
You are turned on, the other is making the right moves and then it happens. Like the first clouds on a clear sky, the first thoughts appear. "Is he going to still find me attractive naked", "will she be comparing me with her ex", "what shall we have for breakfast". The mind is bringing up insecurities, work stress, to-do lists and other random thoughts. Another great trick of the mind is comparing the person in bed to the image you have made up of the perfect lover, and they hardly ever match.  And before you know it, your sex drive is seriously diminished or completely gone.
Yoga makes you aware of your body and how it feels from one moment to the next. Learning to feel and adjust to the smallest sensations during yoga practice teaches you to savor all the sensations in your body. This awareness is carried over into your daily life and yes into the bedroom too. This awareness helps with the focus towards your body, but also takes the focus away from your mind and the things your worry about. Free from your stresses you can completely enjoy everything happening between the sheets.
"Yoga focuses people on how they feel, which is something they don't do enough during sex," says Dr. Marty Klein, a sex therapist and author of Beyond Orgasm: Dare to be Honest about the Sex You Really Want. "During sex, people tend to think more about what they imagine the other person is looking at or thinking about. Yoga brings the mind away from judgments, thoughts, speculations, assumptions, anxieties—things that interfere with physical response and emotional satisfaction."
Whether you choose Hatha, Asthanga or Iyengar, a consistent yoga practice helps in improving better understanding of yourself and more sensitivity about the other's needs. In the bedroom, this increased attentiveness helps you recognize subtle shifts in your partner—a level of focus that will put you on the fast track to becoming a world-class lover.
"You will be tuned in to what feels good and what doesn't—for yourself and for someone else," says Kevin Courtney, a yoga teacher based in New York City. "Take the time to be fully present—no mental grocery list, no daydreaming, no anxious gathering of fears and insecurities. Look your partner in the eye and spend time on every caress and every kiss."