How Often Should You Ejaculate?

As a teenager it’s possible to ejaculate 5 or 6 times (or more) in a day and feel great. Once you get to be in your late 20s or early 30s though, your physical health slowly gets a bit worse, it’s an entirely different story… I’m 34, and if I ejaculated 5 times in one day it would fuck me up. So how often should you ejaculate?

Let’s get into it…

Your Ideal Ejaculation Frequency (IEF)

This is the main concept I want you to take from this article. Your frequency of ejaculation has a direct impact on EVERY aspect of your life.

Only you can determine your ideal ejaculation frequency, and in this article you’ll read perspectives from Tantric, Yogic and Taoist Sexuality philosophies that will help you figure this out.

We’ll talk about the modern practices of semen retention and nofap too.

Before we get there, we need to debunk a major myth first:

Your Brain is a Sex Organ

There’s this myth/illusion in our western world that sex lives in an isolated box in our genitals… but nothing could be further from the truth.

WE ARE SEXUAL BEINGS WITH SEXUAL DESIRE

Your brain is sex organ, and your entire body is too. The decisions you make with your sex life impact your entire life. Don’t believe me? Consider this:

If you’re constantly ejaculating while watching porn, you’re constantly programming your brain to associate arousal and pleasure with pixels on a screen. This hits many men like a drug, and the effects are so intense that lots of men who habitually “use” porn find it difficult to get and sustain an erection when having sexual intercourse with a real women, sometimes leading to premature ejaculation or even delayed ejaculation.

If you’re constantly letting your energy go through daily ejaculation, you’re living in a perpetual state of ejaculation hangover. This is a state of non-peak performance where your mental clarity, motivation, confidence and drive are lower than they could be which can lead to longer-term issues like decreasing testosterone levels, sperm count, lessened sperm motility, or even something more esoteric like relationship problems.

How do you think this could impact you when you go in for a business meeting? For an interview? For a negotiation? You probably won’t have that extra energy and fire needed to push through and make something truly great happen.

This is why Napoleon Hill included an entire chapter in his book “Think and Grow Rich” called The Mystery of Sex Transmutation. After talking to a group of the worlds most successful men, Napoleon realized that these men were able to build, harness and utilize their sexual energy to supercharge the creation of their financially successful business ventures…

Napoleon says:

“The individuals of greatest achievement tend to be those who have highly developed sexual natures and who have learned the art of sex transmutation.”

Then he famously says this:

“Sexual energy is the creative energy of virtually all geniuses.”

To which he then clarifies:

“The mere possession of sex energy itself is not sufficient to produce genius. The energy must be transmuted from desire for merely physical contact, into some other form of desire and action before it will lift one to the status of a genius.”

These are important pieces of the puzzle to consider when we’re asking the question of how often should you ejaculate.

Tantric & Taoist Perspectives on Ejaculation

Eastern traditions (like Tantra & Taoist Sexuality) have linked sexual power and sexual energy with ejaculation frequency for literally thousands of years. These Taoist practices have a lot to offer us because they generally take a more holistic approach to good health than we do in the west.

There are lots of modern branches of these sexual practices, and even though they share similar fundamental philosophies, they still give different recommendations for how often you should ejaculate:

• One Tantra school says you should only ejaculate for procreation (while having as much sex as you want).
• Another Tantra school says that you should ejaculate only as often as you can give blood (every 8 weeks).
• One branch of Taoist Sexuality says that you should ejaculate at a specific frequency that is related to your age (for example: view the image below).
• Another branch of Taoist Sexuality says you should ejaculate based on what season it is (for example: zero ejaculations during the winter, occasional ejaculations during the spring, and very infrequent ejaculations during summer and fall).

Here’s an example from Mantak Chia’s book The Multiorgasmic Man:

It’s important to note that all of these traditions believe you should cultivate your sexual energy and be intentional with your ejaculations since doing so is primarily a spiritual practice, in their eyes.

They all believe that excessive ejaculation depletes your sexual energy (life force), and makes you a less powerful being. They believe that sexual energy is a powerful resource that should be cultivated and treated with reverence… and that if you cultivate your sexual energy, every area of your life will improve. Yang energy, in particular, is known as the part of your life essence that gives you the power to lead and push through, traits many men revere.

Even further than that, ancient Taoists believe that men cannot experience true sexual pleasure unless they can control their pelvic floor muscles and when they ejaculate – failing to do so means that a person is not following this ancient religious tradition.

(I’ve included specific real-world examples of this later in this article).

One Taoist practitioner, Sun Simiao, even advocated for having multiple sexual partners, discussing if a man could control their spiritual energy and avoid emitting semen after having sex with ten women on one night, then they were truly in control of their life-force energy and at a high level of spiritual development.

There is also a general principle in ancient Taiost texts that sexual experiences where there are multiple female orgasms and the man has either one or none are the ‘optimal’ sexual union.

In these traditions, the act of sex is viewed as a healthy, beautiful, and joyful act that should be experienced regularly, with intention, care, and celebration. That sounds a bit different from our western view of sex, doesn’t it? Western society’s views on sex are disappointing, and often misleading…

How Often Should You Ejaculate?

Again, the short answer is: You have your own ideal rate of ejaculation that is specific to you, and you alone. There is no magic number that I can give you; it is up to you to figure it out.

The longer answer is: As often as it feels good for you, with one major catch…

When I say “feels good,” I’m not talking about the instant gratification kind of feels good. I’m talking about a deeper, core existential level of feels good. I’m talking about when you are in full alignment with your life purpose, where you feel powerful, abundant, confident, on-purpose, open and easeful in your body.

If you ejaculate often and/or watch porn often, you probably haven’t experienced the levels of “feel good” I’m talking about; true orgasmic energy is incomparable to any other.**

**Frequent ejaculation and regular porn consumption can affect your brain in ways that reduce your ability to perform at your highest levels, AND that reduce your ability to have meaningful connections with other humans.

Determining your Ideal Ejaculation Frequency

To determine your ideal ejaculation frequency, you’ll need to experiment. If you ejaculate every day, try going 3 days without ejaculating and see how you feel. Then you could try going 7 days, 14 days, 21 days or even 30 days without ejaculating.

Notice how your levels of clarity, motivation, and confidence change. Pay attention to the little things too. For example, observe the following:

After you ejaculate…

• Do you drink more caffeine?
• Are you more irritable?
• Do you find your partner less attractive?
• Do you feel drained?
• Do you have brain fog?
• Is your refractory period really long?

If any of these things happen for you, keep note that for your sexual health, you probably need to increase the amount of time between your ejaculations.

On the other hand, if you feel empowered, clear, charged and easeful after you ejaculate, it’s a sign that the time between your ejaculations is ideal. But be careful with your self-assessment, because if you’ve never gone a longer period of time without ejaculating, you probably don’t have an appropriate frame of reference to compare to.

Think of your sexual vitality like a burning fire that provides energy for your entire life. When you ejaculate too frequently, the fire never has any time to build up. But on the other extreme, too little ejaculation could cause the fire to slowly dampen out on its own, and even have potential prostate risks.

I recommend making notes about your experiments.  I write about this in my journal. Something about writing it down on paper really helped everything land for me. – the goal here is to make sure that your semen retention practice is actually benefiting your life. If you just feel tired when doing it, consider a qigong practice to help integrate your sexual energy; or, just check out my Semen Retention Mastery course that’ll show you how to do it step-by-step.

The Health Benefits of Ejaculation

Something a bit more esoteric than the other things I’ve mentioned above are the benefits of ejaculation. For me and many men that I’ve coached, getting control of their mental health, especially related to sex, has led to more positive emotions about having a healthy sex life, as well as other health benefits. The primary one that many people have talked about is a decreased prostate cancer risk.

A literature review from just a few years back in 2016 (it’s 2022 already?) took a peek at nearly 32000 men to determine their average ejaculation frequency at three different times: ages 20-29, ages 40-49, and the year before the study was published.

These men were followed back to 1992 and up to 2015; what was found was that there truly are health benefits when it comes to ejaculating regularly. There was a strong inverse correlation between prostate cancer risk and more frequent sex and ejaculation. But keep that word in mind: correlation.

Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. The researchers in this article concluded that while there seems to be a correlation between a lower risk of prostate cancer with more frequent ejaculation, there is a litany of other factors that could be affecting things here. For example, a guy who ejaculates more frequently probably has a healthy sex life, meaning he is probably in decent physical shape, which could positively influence his prostate health. 

Having solid cardiovascular health could be the factor that is modulating prostate cancer risk here – but we just don’t know. I discuss this topic a bit further over on my YouTube channel; check it out!

With all of this information in mind, how often should a man ejaculate varies based on personal feelings about ejaculation specifically. In general, the more you ejaculate, the lower your chance of developing prostate cancer; but at the same time, to develop greater sexual arousal and minimize chances of erectile dysfunction, having an ejaculatory abstinence period makes a lot of sense, especially since there isn’t a proven correlation between semen retention and sperm quality.

That being said, if you want to make sure that your level of sexual activity makes the most sense for you, consider the below.

Your Ejaculation Assignment

Experiment with your ejaculation frequency, and observe your energy levels for 4 to 6 weeks. Make detailed notes in your journal about how you feel each day, and pay extra close attention to the day and days after you ejaculate.

After 4 to 6 weeks you should have a more clear idea of what your ideal ejaculation frequency is.

AND – It’s important to know that your ideal ejaculation frequency will shift over time. This is worth figuring out for yourself because the benefits of getting this right are amazing. I didn’t realize how much of an impact all of this had on my life until I did my own experiments…

30 DAYS WITHOUT EJACULATING

This was one of the most life-changing self-experiments I have done. I decided to go for 30 days without ejaculating, and it improved literally every area of my life.

Before this 30-day experiment, I couldn’t see outside of my self-imposed bubble… I thought I knew what was best for me…

To make a beer analogy:

My sex life was as if I always drank shitty beer because I it was the only thing I knew, and I didn’t have any idea how amazing local craft beer could be. One day I decided to make the switch to craft beer, and it was as if a whole new world of pleasure opened up for me.

When Should You Ejaculate?

I’m sharing all of this in the context of the practice of semen retention, which I know I haven’t talked much about in this article. If you want to dive deeper into that topic, check out my semen retention guide.

For now, consider these things:

• Do not ejaculate when you are sick. If you do, your body will not have as much energy to help you recover.
• Do not ejaculate right before a sports game or physical challenge. Your performance will likely suffer. Check out Muhammad Ali’s perspective on ejaculation and performance if you don’t believe me.
• If you have a huge work week ahead of you, in which you have to be at your peak performance all day every day, consider waiting to ejaculate until the end of the week.

MOST IMPORTANTLY:

If you do ejaculate when you’re trying not to, don’t worry about it. Enjoy it! Love yourself. It’s okay. This is a practice. It’s common for men to get down on themselves and experience shame if they accidentally ejaculate. I know that experience well, and that shame never helps anybody. Especially if you have a wet dream (“nocturnal emission”), don’t feel bad! It’s natural.

Enjoy your pleasure and keep living.

It might be time to ejaculate if…

• You have gone a long time without ejaculating and you feel constantly tense and/or agitated.
• You feel that you might emotionally or physically explode at any moment You feel a lot of tension and want to get rid of blue balls (you could also try qigong, yoga, or going to the gym and getting an intense physical workout)
• You’re ready. Go for it! Enjoy it. Ejaculating can be a wonderful experience. The important thing is to notice the difference between the physically addictive urge to ejaculate in a moment of pleasure, and your body’s healthy timeframe to ejaculate.
• You want to lower your risk of prostate cancer; this isn’t a perfect science, but if you just want to lower your chance of getting prostate cancer, semi-regular ejaculation makes sense.
• You want to keep your vitality up; ejaculation every once in a while, depending on your IEF, is just logical to potentially lower your prostate cancer risk, and to integrate your energy.

My Personal Ejaculation Practice:

Is semen retention healthy? I’d say so, so I ejaculate about once every 10 days.

I can have as much sex and masturbation during that time as I want, as long as I make sure to integrate and transmute my sexual energy so I don’t get blue balls or go agro-crazy.

When I know that I’m about to have sex, I decide BEFORE sex begins IF I’m going to ejaculate or not. Usually, I don’t… and I’ve gotta say that the less I ejaculate, the more incredible the times when I do ejaculate become. Obviously, this depends on your relationship status and if you have frequent consensual sex, but you CAN choose not to ejaculate.

Another benefit of this is that if you make a steadfast decision not to ejaculate before you begin to have sex, you will have a much easier time lasting as long as you want in bed. Your mind is incredibly powerful, and it can be a great ally in the practice of semen retention and ejaculation control. In general, healthy men have an amazing understanding of their bodies and control of their minds, so keep that in mind moving forward.

I PRACTICE SEMEN RETENTION

Semen retention is essentially the modern equivalent of the Tantric and Taoist traditions of sexual cultivation. I’ve written lots about semen retention in other articles, and if you’re want to uplevel your life with this practice, I recommend you start with my 7-Day Semen Retention Foundations course. It’s a comprehensive and affordable training for you to get all the benefits of a semen retention practice in a healthy and powerful way.

Closing Thoughts on Ejaculation Frequency…

If you cultivate your sexual energy and don’t ejaculate all the time, you can uplevel every area of your life.

How often should you ejaculate? Probably less often than you currently are. Try an experiment. Your life is worth the effort.

-Taylor