A millennium-old Japanese medical scroll says you can live longer if you have sex more often, while only finishing a fraction of the time (for the men, anyway). The Ishinhō, preserved in the imperial archives, is 30 scrolls long, but Scroll 28 is the one with instructions that still raise eyebrows: keep your life force intact, limit how often you finish, and use sex to stay alive.
The focus is on jingqi, a form of vital energy thought to drive every system in the body. The scroll warns that spending it too freely accelerates aging. Its prescription is blunt: men should ejaculate only two or three times for every ten sexual encounters, letting the rest of that energy circulate instead of losing it.
Leslie Kenny, founder of Oxford Healthspan, told the New York Post the ancients may have been on to something. She points to studies suggesting sexual intimacy can lengthen telomeres—the DNA end caps that erode as we age—when couples sync breath, heartbeat, and gaze. That level of connection, she says, may explain why some couples report feeling more energetic afterward.
That same state spikes oxytocin, which reduces inflammation and supports immune function.
Ancient Japanese Scroll Reveals a Surprising Secret to a Longer Life
Kenny says ejaculation depletes testosterone and drains compounds that the body benefits from keeping, including spermidine, vitamin C, magnesium, glutathione, and zinc. Spermidine, in particular, has been linked to slower aging and improved cell repair. Taoist traditions have long treated semen as a resource to be recycled; Kenny is giving the idea a modern biochemical frame.
Both the scroll and Kenny emphasize that intimacy itself is restorative. Sex can lower stress levels and trigger chemical shifts such as endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. Those physiological surges don’t just feel good—they may help the body repair faster. These same chemical changes can improve mood, strengthen immune response, and protect long-term health.
The research on semen retention is far from settled. Some studies associate higher ejaculation frequency with lower prostate cancer risk, while others find no clear effect. What Scroll 28 offers is a mix of restraint, connection, and nutrient awareness—an approach to sex that treats it as both pleasure and maintenance.
Worst case, you won’t live forever. Best case, you’ll forget you were ever trying to.
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