Sexual wellness is about a lot more than having great orgasms (although, obviously, we’re not going to complain about those). Think of it as the bigger picture: feeling comfortable in your body, knowing what you enjoy, getting out of your head, and connecting with a partner.
Sex toys can be part of that picture, whether you’re exploring solo, trying something new together or simply curious about what else your body can do. You don’t need a vibrator to have a healthy sex life, but you just might discover one adds something nice to yours.
Only got time for a quickie?
- Better Sleep: Sexual pleasure can be relaxing for some people, and research suggests orgasm may help with sleep.
- Stronger sense of what gets you off: Solo play gives you time to figure out what feels good, making partnered sex more satisfying.
- Deeper connection with a partner: A toy can give you something new to explore together and make conversations about pleasure a lot more concrete.
- More confidence in your sexuality: Exploring your body can help you feel more comfortable expressing what you want and staying present during sex.
- More options as your body changes: What feels good can shift with age, hormones and life stages including menopause. Toys can be one way to learn what works for your body now.
1. Stress Relief and Sleep
You know that feeling when your brain has been running 47 tabs all day and, somehow, all 47 are still open when your head hits the pillow? There’s research that suggests sex and orgasm could make falling asleep a little easier.
During sexual arousal and orgasm, the nervous system changes and hormones associated with pleasure and relaxation are released. A 2023 study looked at how different types of sexual activity affected sleep by tracking the daily diary entries of 265 people over 14 days. People generally felt that partnered sex and masturbation that ended in orgasm helped them sleep. In the diary portion of the study, they found that only partnered sex followed by orgasm was significantly associated with falling asleep faster and better sleep quality. Masturbation, with or without orgasm, didn’t show the same significant relationship.
A survey published in 2023 with a smaller sample of 53 people similarly found that people reported they slept better on nights they had sex or an orgasm.
There was a study done in 2025 that followed seven heterosexual couples over 11 nights and actually tested the quality of sleep with something called a portable polysomnography system (basically a sleep-monitoring headband someone can wear at home). In this study, researchers found that masturbation or partnered sex significantly improved sleep quality, specifically waking up less often.
If you’re curious about the relaxation benefits of orgasm, whether solo or partnered, a small external vibrator, such as a bullet-style toy, can be handy here because you don’t need to turn your bedtime routine into a 14-step production. Something compact like the We-Vibe Tango X is made for straightforward external stimulation and can be used at whatever pace feels good to you. Think: clitoris, nipples, the sensitive spot between the genitals and anus, or frenulum of the penis.
However, don’t cancel your doctor’s appointments for your vibrator. If stress, anxiety or sleep problems are persistent, they’re worth addressing directly rather than hoping an orgasm will sort them out.
2. Solo Wellness and Sexual Self-Knowledge
If you’ve read any advice from sex therapists and experts, you will consistently hear them say that in order to have a more fulfilling sex life, you need to get to know your body. While many people want to skip this step and get right to the “easy tips and tricks” for better sex, it’s a seriously important place to begin.
In partnered sex, there’s another person’s needs, wants, and experience to consider. But during masturbation, you aren’t managing another person’s experience. This creates an environment that allows you to get to know what your body likes and doesn’t like. You can work out whether you prefer steady pressure or lighter touch, faster or slower movement, clitoral stimulation at the very top of your clit or lower, a tighter or looser grasp at the head of your penis.
Sex toys specifically help people get to know their body better because they can produce a much wider variety of sensations and in different locations than a person can create on their own.
A G-spot vibrator, for example, lets you stimulate the internal wall of the vagina that connects to the clitoris and erectile tissue around the urethra that can be hard to reach with your own hand. It will also stimulate a larger area than your finger and more intensely if you use vibration. For anyone with chronic pain in their hands or mobility challenges, holding a sex toy, or using a wearable sex toy, can make masturbation possible when it might otherwise be painful or not an option.
Some for whom it takes a long time to get aroused or experience low desire find that the intense stimulation of vibration versus their hand can increase arousal. It takes setting aside time on your own and exploring different toys to learn these things about your own body. And there’s research that backs up how important feeling comfortable and knowledgeable about your own body is to a better sex life.
A study published in 2013 had 765 American women complete an online anonymous survey, and the majority of people in the study reported that masturbation improved their pleasure in sexual encounters. This study found that women who use masturbation to explore their bodies or experience sexual pleasure are more likely to view solo sex as an empowering part of their sexuality. Due to how they chose the sample population of this study, however, these women may have been more likely to already have positive attitudes about their sexuality.
3. Relationship Connection
It’s really common to feel like bringing a sex toy into the bedroom means that you or your partner have failed or aren’t good enough to satisfy one another. It’s unfortunate because it’s not accurate and gets in the way of so many couples experiencing a deeper sexual connection and pleasure.
A 2023 study of more than 11,000 people across Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and the UK found that, among people in relationships, using sex toys more frequently with a romantic partner was associated with greater sexual satisfaction, life satisfaction and relationship satisfaction. Of course, remember this is association, not necessarily causation.
So, why might this be? For starters, your partner isn’t a mind reader. Neither are you. A sex toy gives you something concrete to explore together and, often, makes it easier to talk about what actually feels good. Instead of “Are you happy with our sex life?”, you can ask, “Is this pressure good?” or “Do you want it faster or slower?”
It can also turn pleasure into more of a team effort. Rather than one person feeling responsible for getting the other person off, you’re both figuring it out together. One of you might hold the toy while the other says, “Yep, right there,” or guides their hand.
And research shows that kind of communication is actually what leads to more sexual satisfaction in a relationship. A meta-analysis of 93 studies involving more than 38,000 people found that sexual communication was positively associated with both sexual and relationship satisfaction.
There’s another benefit that’s easy to overlook: you get to discover new things about each other. Even if you’ve been together for years, you don’t know every single thing your partner likes. It can break up the autopilot that sex sometimes slips into in a long-term relationship.
For couples interested in experimenting, something like We-Vibe Sync 2 is designed to be worn during partnered penetration and provides external clitoral stimulation as well as simultaneous vibration on the penis. There are also app controlled vibrators for long distance couples. But you don’t need a couples’ toy specifically to make exploration feel shared. Even a simple external vibrator can become something you discover together and can be used on both partners’ bodies.
4. Body Confidence
Being naked with another person can be vulnerable. It’s really easy to get in your head and think about if the lighting is too bright, if you’re being sexy enough, if your partner is noticing the things you’re noticing. These kinds of thoughts can be distracting and take you out of your body and into worrying about what you look like or how you taste.
Research has actually found that analyzing your body and performance during sex is associated with lower sexual satisfaction. While masturbation isn’t a fix-all solution, it may give you a chance to feel more confident in your body.
When you’re alone, your body doesn’t have to perform for anyone. You’re not wondering whether you look sexy enough or whether you’re making the right impression. You’re simply experiencing what it’s like to move, touch, get aroused and feel pleasure without having to see yourself through someone else’s eyes.
A nationally representative US study of more than 2,000 women found that genital self-image (how you feel about your genitals) was associated with masturbation frequency and vibrator use, as well as things like sexual desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction and pain during sex.
More recent research has similarly found that women who felt more positively about masturbation and their genitals tended to report fewer difficulties with things like desire, arousal, orgasm and sexual satisfaction.
Again, this is correlation, not causation. So people who are already confident about their bodies may be more comfortable masturbating, rather than masturbation necessarily making them feel more confidence.
If you’re curious about how masturbation could help with sexual confidence, toys can be useful to add into your solo sex practice. For some people, a vibrator’s stronger, more consistent sensation makes it easier to stay focused than the stimulation from your hand.
Finding things that genuinely make your body feel really good can also help you feel more confident in yourself and saying what you want during sex. Often sex toys can expose people to new sensations they haven’t experienced before. An external vibrator such as the We-Vibe Touch X, for example, lets you explore different levels of consistent vibration and stimulation.
5. Menopause and Pelvic Health
Menopause can feel like someone has quietly changed the settings on a body you thought you knew pretty well. During perimenopause and menopause, estrogen levels fall, vaginal tissue can become thinner, drier and less elastic. That can mean less natural lubrication, more sensitivity, or sex that feels uncomfortable when it used to feel fine. Some people also notice changes in arousal or that they need more time and stimulation to get turned on.
During these changes, getting curious about your body can be useful. “What works for you one day might feel different the next, depending on your mood, life stage and even your menstrual cycle,” says Dr. Jess O’Reilly. It’s possible that penetration feels better after more time spent on arousal. Maybe you need more lube than you used to. Or perhaps a lower, gentler vibration feels good while stronger stimulation feels like too much. None of this means something is wrong with you. Your body is simply giving you some new information.
A vibrator can be one way to explore those changes. Toys can help you understand what your body enjoys right now. The We-Vibe Tango, for example, can provide adjustable external vibration, so you can start at a low setting and increase the intensity only if that feels comfortable.
At the same time, sex toys are not medical treatment for things like menopause symptoms, vaginal atrophy, pelvic-floor problems, urinary issues, sexual dysfunction or pain. Menopause may mean getting to know your body in a new way, but it does not mean that pleasure has to disappear.
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