For couples only: 10 ways to heal yourself with sex

Sex does a lot more than making you feel good. Sexual healing isn't just about pleasure but can prolong your lifespan.

Meg Butler of Madame Noire lists 10 ways sexual healing helps your relationship and your health:

1. Even your cycles out: Wish your period was easier to follow? Regular sex can even them out (as long as your doctor can assure you through a checkup that nothing else is wrong).
   
   
2. Cure your headaches: It may work better than painkillers for an average headache.
   
   
3. Bring down your stress levels: Have a tough week at work? Schedule some intimate time even if you’re tired. Sex can do just as good a job of bringing down your stress levels as a calming bath or a yoga session.
   
   
4. Soothe your symptoms: When you’re under the weather, sex can be the last thing on your mind. But a few minutes under the sheets can actually give your sympathetic nervous system a boost to help relieve most of your symptoms.
   
   
5. Improve your workouts: Post-workout sex is amazing. When your blood flow is pumping, your pleasure zones go off the charts. And I can’t think of a better reason to get to the gym.
   
   
6. Get your exercise on in bed: Sex provides more of a workout than researchers previously thought. Getting busy can actually burn as much as 2/3 of the energy as time spent on the treadmill.
   
   
7. Improve your relationship health: Sex doesn’t just fix your physical health. The stress-reducing hormones released after you both have an orgasm make pillow talk the best time to talk about tricky issues in your relationship.
   
   
8. Relieves minor aches and pains: Headaches aren’t the only pain a good orgasm can alleviate. Minor aches and pains like cramps can be banished by a little action in the sack.
   
   
9. Improve your heart health: Several studies suggest that the more orgasms you have in your lifetime, the lower your risk of developing heart disease or having a stroke or heart attack.
   
   
10. Help you get to sleep: You may not get off quite as quickly as he does, but over time, regular orgasms before bed can make it easier for you to get to sleep.