How Mindfulness Can Increase Sexual Satisfaction
How Can Sex Therapy Near Me Help With Mindfulness?
Sex therapist Jackie here, she/her, blogging from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sex and mindfulness may or may not be two terms you’ve heard in the same sentence. As a sex therapist, practicing sex therapy in Minnesota, Eastern mindfulness-based practices are ones I use often with clients in therapy sessions. A lot of times I see clients for anxiety counseling, which relates to sex therapy quite often. Performance anxiety is a common struggle for many people in Minnesota. Culturally, Minnesota is known to be a state that does not talk about sex, when we avoid challenging conversations or difficult things, anxiety grows bigger, and a lot of times this arises in sex therapy. One book I love and recommend for bibliotherapy talks about anxiety and the stress response when we avoid conversations is Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High, and also follow up with clients in sex therapy who have listened to or read this book and how it applies to their life. As a sex therapist, I have to balance teaching clients self-soothing strategies for anxiety, which may be Eastern mindfulness-based practices, breathwork, grounding exercises, enhancing our five senses, and various other sex therapy exercises throughout sessions. Sex therapy can help with mindfulness because it’s about slowing down the process and being rather than doing it at the moment. Anxiety sometimes screams we have to go go go, do, have racing thoughts, and physical, mental, and other sexual symptoms that may influence our sexual libido and satisfaction. Another book that I also recommend when it comes to mindful sex, specifically for women is, Better Sex Through Mindfulness, which is a great start for cultivating more desire.
What is Mindfulness?
You’ve probably wondered about mindfulness benefits, training, examples, and truly what the definition of mindfulness is in psychology, spirituality, or general practice. Mindfulness is bringing oneself back to the present moment, without judgment or evaluation of oneself. Mindfulness is all about slowing down and being in the moment rather than doing. How this shows up with sex, is truly getting out of our heads, and into our bodies. Simply noticing the touch, sensations, vocal cues, and pleasure that may be present in your body while sexually exploring. Sometimes people think mindfulness-based practices are only meditation, which is not true. Meditation is definitely a skill that one can develop to become more mindful, and it is not the only type of mindfulness exercise or example. In sex therapy, at the beginning of my sessions, I asked clients if they want to set up a ritual. This could be checking in pits and peaks, meditating, doing a mindfulness-based exercise, listening to a song, pulling an affirmation or mindfulness card, or anything else the client may want to incorporate during our time together. A lot of times what I notice as a sex therapist is when my clients are grounded, practicing more mindfulness-based exercises, or meditation, anxiety typically goes down. This also relates to sexual performance anxiety as well. A couple of books I recommend for Mindfulness-Based Practices and a Happier Brain/Mind are, Stop Overthinking: 23 Techniques to Relieve Stress, Stop Negative Spirals, Declutter Your Mind, and Focus on the Present, Practicing Mindfulness: 75 Essential Meditations for Finding Peace in the Everyday, and Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom. I’d start there if you’re interested in exploring more mindfulness-based practices.
What are Mindful Pleasure and Intimacy?
Mindful pleasure can be related to anything. Eating a food that brings you pleasure like strawberries, drinking your favorite latte from Starbucks or your favorite coffee shop, wearing an outfit that makes you feel sexy, confident, or good about yourself is all pleasure. It’s about slowing down and enjoying the experience while simply noticing what you are doing. For example, it could even be telling yourself, I am just putting on my socks, shoes, jacket, sunglasses, and then noticing how that makes you feel. Pleasure is anything that we enjoy and makes us feel good. Sex does not equal pleasure, and pleasure does not equal sex. This is something that I have to continuously say in sex therapy sessions, exercises, and even networking meetings with people who are not in the sex therapy field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mindful intimacy is those moments we are with ourselves, without judgment. There are 13 different types of intimacy, yes, 13, and we have to be able to have these with ourselves to then open up to partner(s)/spouse(s) about this too. Intimacy is familiarity or closeness, when we are mindful of how something feels, like emotional intimacy with ourselves for example, this can be easy, neutral, or difficult for some people. Sex therapy for individuals is also about building these areas of intimacy with oneself and giving oneself permission to cry and feel all the feels. A lot of times in sex therapy I work with shame, and this can come up related to different forms of intimacy too. Here are a couple shame resources I highly recommend from my girl Brene Brown.
I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power
The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage
The Gifts of Imperfection, 10th Anniversary Edition: Features a New Foreword
I hope these books related to shame help with you if you are in sex therapy or couples sex therapy, these are great tools and resources to be able to incorporate and use.
How Mindfulness Can Help With Sexual Satisfaction…
You may be wondering, how can mindfulness be applied to sex or sex therapy. Mindfulness can be applied to foreplay, sex, and aftercare. Mindfulness is the act of being in the moment without judgment through awareness. Sometimes this can come in the form of slowing down, feeling touch, being in tune with our and our partner's bodies, and just simply noticing what is happening throughout all of the senses.
There are many benefits of practicing mindfulness during sex. Breathing is a mindfulness skill that can help with what's happening at the moment and can reduce performance anxiety. Mindfulness helps with feeling sensations, and exploring pleasurable touch, a revolutionary act of letting go of any thoughts in our mind and bringing them back to the present moment. Mindfulness can help us connect to our bodies, we are more relaxed, and it can enhance sexual satisfaction. Mindfulness can also help with masturbation, understanding our personal pleasure, and then being able to apply and communicate this to partnered sex.
Here are some signs from a sex therapist that you and your partner might want to focus more on being mindful during sex. Performance anxiety, Delayed Ejaculation, Premature Ejaculation, Generalized Anxiety about Day to Day Stressors, Major Lifecycle Transitions, and changes, Communication Skills are Lacking, Not Know How to Talk to Partners about Sex in order to Slow Down and Describe this, Not Understanding One's own Pleasure and How to Masturbate, Not being Present in the Moments of Sex or even Foreplay or Aftercare.
Here are four tips on how to improve/practice mindfulness during sex.
1. Building Awareness: As a sex therapist, I tell clients to slow the fuck down and be in the moment. Pay attention to what’s going on before, during, and after sex. Noticing what are the turn-ons/offs during sex and being able to communicate this at the moment to partner(s).
2. Concentrate on Sensations: In sex therapy, sensations are important to make note of. Focus on what your body is feeling. Really pay attention to technique, and what you or your partner did, and when you notice you're slipping away to autopilot mode, stop and bring yourself back to the present moment. If you are seeking couples sex therapy near you, then this is something your couple’s sex therapist may ask you to pay attention to.
3. Breathing: Breathing is a great way to slow down, ground, be in tune with our bodies, sex related or not. This is why lots of times as a sex therapist I am teaching various Eastern mindfulness-based practices, along with breathwork techniques. There are certain types of breathing exercises that can induce orgasms. It's breathing all the way from the top of your head and doing so through your body and to the pelvic floor. During this, you have to use diaphragmatic tensing and then pulse on the pelvic floor while doing this exercise.
4. Reduce Sexpectations, aka Practice Nonjudgment: Sometimes we think every sexual encounter should end in orgasm. That thought already places shame, blame, and guilt on ourselves if we don't. Orgasm is not the goal of sex, pleasure is the goal of sex. We need to remember to reduce sexpectations and not judge ourselves or our partners if things don't happen as we may have wanted.
When we slow down, pay attention, and practice being more mindful, our overall sexual satisfaction, pleasure, and intimacy can increase.
I hope this blog helped you understand more about sex therapy, couples sex therapy, how sex therapy can help with mindfulness and increasing overall sexual satisfaction, and more!
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