Loading...
QUESTIONS? CALL 1-800-448-4919 M-F 9AM-6PM EST

Want better orgasms? Just breathe!

By Barbara Carrellas

Would you like to amp up your orgasms and turn them into dazzling, mind-blowing events? It’s easy — just breathe. That’s right, breathe.

If you think using your breath to have better orgasms seems silly or impossible, then you’re in for a little mind-blowing on multiple levels..

A woman trying to have better orgasms

After many years of personal and professional research, I still haven’t found anything that has more impact on expanding the orgasmic experience than your breath. Sure, expensive sex toys and gravity-defying body positions are fun and often exciting, but your breath is your real ticket to the orgasm of your dreams

Most adults still have sex the way they did as teenagers. They do it quickly, quietly, without varying their technique and with lots of coiled muscular tension. How about you? What do you usually do when you get close to orgasm?

If you’re like most people, you hold your breath. Why? Think back to when you first started masturbating. You needed to be pretty quick and very quiet so you could get yourself to orgasm before anyone discovered what you were doing.

How did you do that? You held your breath — time after time after time. And because you held your breath every time you self-pleasured, it became a habit. Like most habits, it was done unconsciously — it’s just what you did when you wanted to orgasm — you didn’t think much about your breathing back then.

This “quiet and quick” technique might have given you pleasure when you were a teenager, but for the deep, expanded orgasms you’d like to enjoy today, you need to give yourself a lot more time and a lot more breath.

Oxygen is at the heart of great orgasms

Every orgasm is a physiological event that starts when you become sexually aroused. Arousal is the delicate balance between muscle tension and blood flow. While it feels like a uniquely personal experience, the physical mechanism of arousal is the same for everyone.

As your pelvic floor muscles expand and contract during the turn-on phase, they create tension that builds sensation. As you start to get more excited, more blood begins to circulate throughout your body and flow into your genital area, expanding the tissues and carrying in energizing oxygen.

Oxygen — that’s what better orgasms are about. If you aren’t breathing regularly while you’re building up orgasmic energy, you are cutting your orgasmic potential in half. Breathing deeply and consistently during sexual play can be the difference between a quick “firecracker” type of orgasm, and a long, ecstatic, orgasmic ride through the cosmos.

Do you need to do any special kind of breathing for better orgasms? No! And that’s what’s so wonderful. The secret to better orgasms is to just breathe a bit more fully and deeply than you usually do and to do it through your mouth.

practice your breathing during solo sex and then try it with your partner

Mouth breathing allows you to take in more air. Plus, it’s energizing. Nose breathing is wonderful for rest, relaxation and meditation, but have you ever seen anyone in the throes of passionate ecstasy breathing through their nose? No! They are breathing fuller and faster and through their mouth.

Breathing a bit more fully and deeply than you currently do is not just good advice for sex and orgasm. It applies to every aspect of life. Most of us are shallow breathers — breathing just enough to stay alive. When we find the space to breathe more deeply, we feel better and life looks brighter, no matter our age, physical condition or relationship status.

Try taking a few fuller breaths at random points during the day. You could set the alarm on your phone for 4 or 5 “breathing breaks.” This is a useful exercise for observing how restricted your breathing can become over the course of a day. It also shows how much a few fuller and/or faster breaths can clear the mind and energize the body.

“I’m supposed to be thinking about my breathing when I’m having sex?”

Yes! I know that remembering to breathe consciously during sex can be challenging at first. After all, there are so many other yummy things to focus on. Don’t be discouraged. Remember, you’re breaking a lifelong habit of holding your breath at the peak of excitement.

At first it may feel as if it takes longer to orgasm when you’re breathing fully. I can hear you asking, “If breath is such a great orgasm enhancer, then why am I taking longer to come?”

Look at it this way: imagine that your old way of breathing was the equivalent of putting a single gallon of orgasmic fuel in your tank. But when you breathe fully and deeply, you fill up the whole 30-gallon tank. Sure, it takes a bit longer of glorious anticipation, but that extra oxygen will take you on a much longer ride.

So have a little self-pleasuring session. Pay attention to your breathing while you’re masturbating and it’ll be easier to notice when you hold your breath. Give yourself lots of practice on your own. Then, when you’re with a partner, ask them to remind you (or order you, if that’s your style) to keep breathing.

For longer, deeper, more varied and more ecstatic orgasms, make a commitment to breathe fully and deeply from the first erotic thought or touch right through to orgasm. Be patient with yourself and enjoy the process.

Don’t think of orgasm as a goal. Instead think of pleasure as a magical journey, and savor each moment, peak and valley along the way.

orange asterisk Get more information about how and why you should practice breathing more deeply.
Last Updated: June 9, 2021
Back
on top