Sexual Wellness Should Be Part of Your Self Care Routine, According to New Study

Skincare routines, ice baths, meditation and more — these tools and methods have become more emphasized than ever before, thanks to the self-care movement. Women especially are learning to prioritize their mental and physical wellness to combat issues associated with workplace and parental fatigue. But a new study reveals how literal self-love seems to be missing from self-care.

According to a recent study, women have a hard time defining sexual wellness, and don’t even realize it can and should be part of your wellness regimen. If you’re puzzled by what this means, or blushing at the thought of it, we’ll spell it out — start incorporating sexual activities, including touching yourself, into your ongoing self-care routines, ladies.

The online survey (conducted by Proof Strategies Inc.) polled 1,000 Canadian women aged 20, and found that 93 percent of Canadian women “don’t understand what sexual wellness is or how to add it to their self-care routines.” The survey was conducted by Shoppers Drug Mart, and shared with Now Toronto, who reported about it on Feb. 2.

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The results feel a bit grim, especially with how far we’ve come in terms of contemporary sexual education and liberation: the survey found that “over half of Canadian women are unaware or misinformed about the health benefits of sexual stimulation” and that some women believed “there are no benefits to sexual wellness.”

So while we’ve come as far as inventing vibrators your partner can control using an app, it seems there’s still a long way to go in terms of how sexual wellness can be incorporated into our lives more frequently. This is important too, because the benefits of adding sexual wellness into your routine include “increased blood flow, stress reduction, and improved sleep,” which we could all use a bit more of.

The survey results do point to the idea that a lot of sexual topics still feel “taboo” for many generations, but Gen Z especially is swiftly changing that direction. This group views sexual wellness as “important to both physical and mental health, and women in this generation are more open to discussing sexual wellness with friends and romantic partners.”

“The younger a respondent was, the more likely they were to agree that people should be able to discuss sexual wellness as openly as any other form of wellness,” the survey added.

What are some ways to get sexual wellness in your self-care routine as regularly as you don a face mask sheet?

Having more open, honest, and frequent sexual wellness discussions with your partner is a great start, but even if you’re riding solo these days, there’s one sexual practice everyone can do (and enjoy): masturbation.

Alexandra Fine, a sexologist and co-founder of sex toy and sex education company, Dame, swears by it. “Carving out time for self-pleasure is one of many ways women can hold space to cultivate their life force,” she tells Hello Giggles.

“Using a vibrator can help vulva-owners understand their own ‘pleasure map,’” which has the ability to change over time as our sexual needs evolve, just as any self-care routine would too.

So make extra room for extra pleasure, and let the benefits of sexual wellness come (cum?) through for you.