Key Takeaways
- The release of hormones like oxytocin during sex can help relax blood vessels and temporarily reduce blood pressure.
- Sex can also improve sleep and reduce stress, both of which have beneficial effects on your blood pressure.
- People with severe or uncontrolled high blood pressure should speak with their healthcare provider before engaging in any strenuous physical activity, including sex.
Engaging in sex can temporarily lower your blood pressure and, over the long term, may reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke. However, individuals with severe or uncontrolled high blood pressure (hypertension) should speak with their healthcare provider to determine if sex poses any health risks.
How Sex Helps Reduce Blood Pressure
Sex can be regarded as a form of exercise that can benefit your heart health, whether or not you have hypertension or any other form of cardiovascular disease.
Exercise helps strengthen the heart muscle, increasing the force with which blood is pumped through your body. This improves the flexibility of your blood vessels and helps them dilate (widen) more easily, allowing for better blood flow.
Sex further enhances these benefits in three key ways:
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How Much Sex Is Needed?
The short-term impact of sex on blood pressure is relatively mild and short-lived. During sex, both your heart rate and blood pressure will rise to increase the delivery of oxygen and glucose (blood sugar) to muscles. After orgasm, blood pressure may dip slightly and quickly return to its pre-sexual state, usually within 10 minutes.
With that said, having frequent sex can have a beneficial, long-term effect on blood pressure, not unlike any other form of exercise. This is due to its physiological effects on circulation, as well as its ability to reduce stress by inducing and maintaining feelings of well-being.
As such, the more sex you have, the better your heart health may be.
This is evidenced by a 2024 study in Scientific Reports, which established a link between the frequency of sex and the risk of cardiovascular disease. Based on an analysis of 17,243 adults over an 11-year period, the researchers concluded that:
- Having sex less than 12 times a year increases the risk of hypertension by 30% compared to having sex at least 52 times a year.
- Having sex less than 12 times a year also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease by 86% compared to having sex between 52 and 103 times per year.
- On the other hand, having sex more than 365 times a year more than doubles the risk of cardiovascular disease compared to those who have sex between 52 and 103 times a year.
Does the Type of Sex Matter?
While individual sex (masturbation) can alleviate stress and induce physiological changes that help lower blood pressure, studies suggest that the effects may be shorter-lasting than with partnered sex.
Unlike masturbation, partnered sex can provide emotional support and stability that reduces exposure to stress over the longer term, particularly among older couples. Factors that influence this include the frequency of sex and the perceived quality of sex.
These factors, in turn, can influence a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), albeit in strikingly different ways.
According to a 2016 study involving 2,204 older adults:
- High frequency of sex is associated with a lower risk of CVD in men, but not women.
- Good sexual quality appears to reduce the risk of CVD in women in later life, but not in men.
Older research published in Biological Psychology also suggests that couples who regularly engage in vaginal intercourse have lower blood pressure than those who masturbate or have non-penetrative sex. According to the study, individuals who engaged in penile-vaginal sex had a systolic blood pressure reading 14 mm Hg lower than those who didn’t.
The findings suggest that the type of sex you have can influence the body’s stress response, with penetrative sex potentially providing a greater stress-dampening effect.
When Sex May Be Harmful
The natural increase in blood pressure during sex is generally not a concern for healthy individuals. However, for those with pre-existing cardiovascular disease, the increases can potentially trigger an acute event, like a heart attack or stroke.
Even so, the risk of this occurring is small, even among those who have had a heart attack. According to the American College of Cardiology, only 0.7% of heart attack patients reported having sex before the event.
In fact, some studies suggest that having sex at least 52 times a year can reduce the risk of death from heart disease by 10% following a heart attack. Doing so can also reduce the risk of death from all other causes by 44%, irrespective of age, sex, or smoking status.
To this end, it is important to speak with a cardiologist if you have severe hypertension or heart disease to determine if there are any risks to having sex or any limitations on the amount of sex you can safely engage in.