Sex has a lot of health benefits like reducing stress, improving your fitness, and lifting your mood. It also can boost your immune system to help fight off seasonal bugs.

Sex is an important factor in your life. Sex and sexuality are a part of life. Aside from reproduction, sex can be about intimacy and pleasure. Sexual activity, penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI), or masturbation, can offer many surprising benefits to all facets of your life:

1) Physical
2) Intellectual
3) Emotional
4) Psychological
5) Social

Sexual health is more than avoiding diseases and unplanned pregnancies. It's also about recognizing that sex can be an important part of your life, according to the American Sexual Health Association.

How can sex benefit your body?

This study suggests that sex can be good cardiovascular exercise in younger men and women. Though sex isn't enough exercise on its own, it can be considered light exercise.

Some of the benefits you can get from sex include:

1) Lowering blood pressure
2) Burning calories
3) Increasing heart health
4) Strengthening muscles
5) reducing your risk of heart disease, stroke, and hypertension
6) Increasing libido

People with active sex lives tend to exercise more frequently and have better dietary habits than those who are less sexually active. Physical fitness may also improve sexual performance overall.

Stronger immune system

In a study of immunity in people in romantic relationships, people who had frequent sex (one to two times a week) had more immunoglobulin A (IgA) in their saliva. People who had infrequent sex (less than once a week) had significantly less IgA.

IgA is the antibody that plays a role in preventing illnesses and is the first line of defense against human papillomavirus, or HPV.

But those who had sex more than three times a week had the same amount of IgA as those who had infrequent sex. The study suggests that anxiety and stress can possibly cancel out the positive effects of sex.

Better sleep

Your body releases oxytocin, also called the "love" or "intimacy" hormone, and endorphins during an orgasm. The combination of these hormones can act as sedation.

Better sleep can contribute to:

1) A stronger immune system
2) A longer lifespan
3) Feeling more well-rested
4) Having more energy during the day
5) Headache relief

Another study shows that sexual activity can provide full or partial relief from migraines and cluster headaches.