Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/peakSTOCK
Topics: Health, Sex and Relationships
Britt Jones
A doctor has revealed the dangers of 'No Nut November' and cleared up some misconceptions about the so-called trend.
No Nut November is an infamous month-long abstinence challenge which sees people, usually men, refusing to engage in sex or masturbation for 30 days.
It became an online social media movement circa 2017, with droves of participants documenting their journeys, how it impacted them, and whether there was any real benefit to it.
Largely, it’s believed that abstaining from ejaculating would improve testosterone and sperm quality, but one doctor has dispelled the rumor.
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Urologist & sexual health expert Dr Rena Malik previously took to her YouTube channel to explain that you'll miss out on the benefits masturbation has to offer if you take part in the challenge.
She said: "There's a number of benefits to masturbation including better sleep, decreased heart rate, decreased stress and a lot of increase in feel good hormones.
"People can get a lot of pain and discomfort in their pelvic floor, or their testicles. A lot of you guys have heard of 'blue balls'."
Dr Malik said that masturbating helps relieve these issues.
She’s also warned of some 'dangers' to your body that you need to be wary of that revolve around your inner workings.
Speaking with Doctor Mike on his YouTube channel, the pair chatted about the yearly challenge and some misconceptions surrounding it.
Doctor Mike asked: “Well, let's start with, does sexual activity or masturbation impact testosterone?”
Dr Malik replied: “Oh, yeah, that's a great one. So, I think a lot of people think that semen retention will increase testosterone levels.
“And you know, actually I learned this recently from a guest on my podcast, Eric Sprinkle, where No Nut November was a joke.”
She claimed people took it as a ‘meme’ before it ‘became this thing that people took very, very seriously in terms of trying to better oneself, improve their testosterone, make themselves more focused and energized and more manly’.
But, according to the expert, there's ‘really zero scientific evidence that abstaining from masturbation or ejaculation in any way, shape or form is going to improve testosterone levels’.
Dr Malik said that instead, it could lead to discomfort in their pelvic floor which could lead to other issues.
“So, what I really worry about with No Nut November is not that they're abstaining. That's fine if you wanna abstain. What I worry about is that when you're abstaining, people are often tensing their pelvic floor,” she said.
The sexual health expert added: “And so what happens when you tense your pelvic floor, which is this bowl of muscles that we all sit on, and that everyone has, men do too, and when you're doing that and you're tensing 'cause you really want to ejaculate, and you are forcing yourself not to, you're then creating dysfunction.”
Telling viewers they could get erectile dysfunction, back pain, urinary urgency, constipation or hip pain, another offender is having pain with erections or pain with ejaculation when you do ejaculate.
“That is the one thing I really worry about, because that can be very harmful and very difficult to treat. It requires pelvic floor physical therapy and many, many months of treatment before you reverse yourself back to the way you used to be,” Dr Malik concluded.