Friday Five: Meditations For Your Sex Life
It's Friday again and getting closer to the weekend gets us thinking about how we will slow down and relax.
While the word "meditation" might feel a bit woo-woo at first, in the last century there has been a considerable amount of research that shows us the tangible benefits of meditation for our bodies and minds.
Today we want to provide you with simple meditation-based practices that will help you tune into your sex life and make the most out of your intimate experiences. Keep reading for:
5 ways meditation and mindfulness will boost your sex life.
Attention
“Jon Kabat-Zinn (1994) defined Mindfulness as a form of ‘paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.’” Meditation becomes a practice that enhances your ability to pay attention.
How many of us go through our sexual experiences while doing our to-do list in our heads? How many times have you found yourself dwelling on thoughts like “Is this my good angle?” or “I am being too noisy?” right in the middle of the action?
“Any activity can be meditative if we’re fully present. Meditation is to be present and know what we are doing, while we are doing it.”
The demands of modern life make us prone to multitasking to the point that our brain knows how to process three things at a time BUT struggles to stay fully focused on just ONE.
Get cozy, grab your favorite tea, and get started with our exclusive Meditation Compilation Video:
2. Breath
Breathing exercises offer a gateway to the present moment, releasing stress, and anxiety, and boosting mental clarity—which explains why almost all meditations start with breathing excercises.
Ask yourself:
How often do I take deep breaths during sex?
How often do I hold my breath during sex?
These might seem like simple questions at first, but you might notice that during sex, our tendency gears towards clenching and holding our breath vs. relaxing our body and taking slow, deep breaths.
According to Women's Integrative Health Coach and Wellness Educator Denell Barbara Randall M.A, there is a very close connection between our jaw and our pelvis, and tuning into our breath during sex can help us open up to and invite pleasure into our experiences.
To train yourself to tune into your breath, try this simple box breathing exercise:
Inhale deeply for 5 seconds, drawing air from your belly to your chest. (Gently place your hands on your belly and feel it filling up with air).
Hold for 5 seconds, then exhale completely for 5 seconds.
As you become more comfortable, gradually extend each phase to 6 seconds.
3. Rewiring
Building a meditation habit is a gradual process that requires consistency and commitment, but over time, the more that you try meditation, the more you are teaching your brain not to default to the multitasking it is so used to doing (AKA doing your to-do list in your head during sexy time).
As pointed out in Healthline's article 12 Science-Based Benefits of Meditation, “one review concluded that meditation may even reverse patterns in the brain that contribute to mind-wandering, worrying, and poor attention.”
Here are practical steps to help you establish and maintain a meditation routine:
Begin with short sessions, even just 5-10 minutes, to make it more manageable.
Choose a specific time of day for your meditation practice.
Designate a quiet and comfortable place for meditation.
Set reminders or alarms on your phone or calendar to prompt your daily meditation.
4. Guidance
Guided meditation can be an invaluable resource for beginners and experienced practitioners alike. It provides a structured and supportive environment for meditation, helping you focus, relax, and achieve a deeper state of mindfulness.
Discover the benefits of guided meditation; try our Spotify Playlists as a resource for music to tune in with while doing some intensive journaling!
5. Hightened Sensation Play
Often, when struggling with sexual satisfaction and fulfillment, we want to find elaborate solutions like threesomes or BDSM while going back to the basics—slowing down and focusing on the senses—might be just about what we need to reignite the spark.
“Mindfulness is not meant to be a disconnected head-trip. In addition to mind, we are to embody fullness by bringing rapt attention to all five senses.”
— Cheryl Fraser, Sex and Meditation Are Perfect Bedfellows
“If people focus their attention on sexual activity, then their senses and perception of corporal sensations will be heightened and much more vivid than when we are distracted. As soon as they pay attention to their breathing, what they touch, the movements that they make, their corporal changes and to all their sexual experience, then sexual activity improves because there are no goals, demands, preferences, habits or aversions.” (Sánchez-Sánchez et. al., 2021).
Hit the button below to learn more about the way sensation play is yet another mindfulness practice and for tips from Psychotherapist and Adult Film Director Jet Setting Jasmine on how to get started.
