sober October is over and now it's no
not November but should you really
participate in no not November I'm Dr
Rina Malek urologist and pelvic surgeon
and I'm going to give you five reasons
why you shouldn't participate in no nut
November as a disclaimer this is not a
video to shame anyone who wants to
participate in no not in November if you
find some benefit from doing so and it's
not affecting you negatively in any way
then please by all means go ahead but
these are five reasons that if you're
kind of skittish about doing it that
really you shouldn't do it so number one
reason is that it actually reduces the
quality of your sperm this is
interesting because we do tell people
that optimally when you're trying to
conceive and have babies you should try
not to have sex every day necessarily
maybe every other day however emerging
data says that it may be okay to just
have sex every day and here's why so as
you abstain from sex Studies have shown
that yes sperm number end of semen
volume increase increase Over time
however the quality of that sperm
decreases with longer periods of
abstinence specifically over five days
you find that we see increases in sperm
DNA fragmentation so what does that mean
it means that the DNA is not as good
quality as it is in the sperm that you
would have and after day one or day two
and when you're trying to create an
embryo right trying to conceive a baby
it's really important for the sperm to
have good quality DNA otherwise the
embryo doesn't usually take in fact in
one study looking at over 5 000 semen
analyzes after men who had not ejected
for 11 to 14 days they found that sperm
motility which means the ability of the
sperm to move to get to the egg decrease
as well as sperm morphology which is the
shape of the sperm so you may not know
this but sperm is always pictured in
this beautiful little head and tail but
often we see sperm that are looking a
little bit different they they may be
more round they may not have a tail they
may look a little bit different and
those form are not capable of
fertilizing an egg number two reason and
this is a big one so listen up it
doesn't affect testosterone levels
hear me out everyone quotes this one
study they looked at 30 men after seven
days of abstinence and found that their
testosterone increased by over a hundred
percent but that study has since been
retracted meaning that for some reason
from scientific reason it was actually
pulled from the literature as being a
good supportive evidence one of the big
reasons that semen retention proponents
talk about doing this process is because
it boosts testosterone and what are the
benefits of having higher testosterone
well it can boost your libido increase
your muscle mass reduce your fatigue and
even improve your cognitive function
meaning it might sharpen your memory
that sounds great if you could do
something to give you all those things
naturally of course you would do it in
another study they only looked at 10 men
between the ages of 22 and 29 and they
evaluated their testosterone levels
after 21 days of abstinence and what
they found was they did have an increase
in testosterone but it wasn't stained
for any long period of time it was only
20 to 30 minutes so if you're looking
for a sustained boost in testosterone
make sure you check out my video on
natural ways to boost testosterone and
also if you're older and not trying to
conceive talk to your urologist about
getting testosterone replacement I've
also made videos on that so make sure
you check out my video on testosterone
replacement as well number three it does
not enhance your athletic performance
since Roman and Greek times Educators
have been touting the benefits of
abstaining from sex before athletic
performance and the reason was that they
thought that sexual frustration would
cause some increased aggression whereas
sex may lead people to be more calm
relaxed and maybe even tired in a
meta-analysis of nine studies looking at
sports performance or athletic
performance after abstaining from sex
what they found was that there was no
impact on a number of different factors
one of these was a stationary bike
stress test and they looked at
differences in output after abstinence
versus after sex they found no
difference they also found that there
was no difference in Focus another study
looked at hand grip strength which is a
measure of muscular performance and
strength and the only thing they found
was that in people who had sex two hours
before performing they did have an
increased heart rate which means that
yes if you are having sex two hours
before going to a performance or going
to a game or a competition of some sort
it may affect your recovery a little bit
ultimately I think the key here is that
not every single person is the same what
you want to think about is your personal
routine what do you normally do because
increased stress in certain types of
activities is not actually good so if
avoiding sex is causing a lot of stress
that can actually hamper your
performance generally speaking the night
before you're going to have a big
performance is not the time to be
changing your general routine so if you
have sex every day then have sex every
day if that's a normal part of your life
then you should go ahead and do that and
number four if you're not ejaculating
during the day your body will often take
care of it at night while you sleep so I
made a video on nocturnal emissions or
wet dreams or Nightfall whatever you
want to call it but essentially these
are normally occurring ejaculations that
happen during your sleep they are not
always associated with erotic dreams but
we've seen that in studies it's
correlated people who have more
nocturnal emissions are those who've had
a longer duration between having an
orgasm and their sleep time if this is
real really stressing you out it can
cause what we call blue balls or pelvic
floor dysfunction so blue balls is
actually a real thing it's called
epididymal hypertension what that means
is when you're aroused blood flow goes
to the penis and to the testicles and
usually after you have a active
stimulation and your release all that
blood flow goes away however Sometimes
some of that blood flow still stays
around and it can cause this discomfort
and achy feeling that many people
describe as blue balls or for women blue
vulva also if this is really stressing
you out it can cause something called
pelvic floor dysfunction basically
pelvic floor muscles are the bowl of
muscles that sit in our pelvis that hold
all our organs up but they can also
carry a lot of stress if you're getting
very stressed and trying to control your
ejaculation over and over again the
pelvic floor muscles can get really
tense and they can start holding tension
all the time when that happens you can
develop a number of different symptoms
this could include symptoms like pain
with ejaculation testicular pain can
cause pain with defecation or back pain
it can also cause urgency like Gotta Go
Gotta Go in the bathroom as well as
constipation so if you're trying to do
donut November and you realize that
you're having a lot of discomfort this
may be why and it's important to see a
urologist and go to a pelvic floor
physical therapist to help take care of
all those pelvic floor tension I hope
you all have a wonderful November and
whenever you decide to practice that's
all fine with me as long as you are
happy and healthy as always we're going
to take care of yourself because you are
worth it
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