Mind, Body, & Pleasure
Do you every feel like your mind and body are not on the same page? That you want to enjoy pleasure, but your mind is getting in the way? Fortunately, there are a few simple tasks that you can work on to help ease these struggles.
It is important to know what your accelerator and your breaks are. Accelerators are the things that get you going. This can include a massage, uninterrupted quality time with your partner, or lengthy amounts of foreplay. As I am sure you could have guessed, breaks are the things that turn you off or decrease interest/pleasure. This can include fear of children busting into your bedroom, low body confidence, and even something as simple as having cold feet! Taking a deep dive into understanding you and your significant other’s accelerators and breaks can help to transform your sex life.
So how do you determine what your accelerators and breaks are? Start by going into detail about a time that you and your significant other had a great sexual experience. Anything from what you did that day to the ways your significant other touched you. The positive experience that you describe will provide you with many of your accelerators.
Now that we have identified some accelerators, think of a time where a sexual experience with your partner was not so great or you found yourself to not be in the mood at all. Were the kids still awake, and you were afraid they may walk in? Was there not enough foreplay to get you in the mood? Had you and your partner gotten into an argument that day? These are the types of questions that can help you to uncover your breaks.
In both situations it is important to keep focus on what your stress levels were like that day and the overall mood that you were in. As we all know, knowledge is power. Identifying your accelerators and breaks can help you to be more aware and therefore adjust your sex life to increase pleasure. The adjustments could be as simple as spending more time with foreplay or putting a lock on the bedroom door. The adjustments could be more of a process though if you or your partner’s breaks include low self-esteem or the relationship between the two of you is poor due to the hurt you both have inflicted upon one another. However, if you can identify those as areas of difficulty you at least know where to start to improve your sex life.
Our minds and bodies do not always align but knowing the thoughts and behaviors that turn us on versus turns us off are the first steps at creating a better sex life for both you and your partner.
Morgan Twidwell, LSCSW, LCSW
Nagoski, Emily author. Come As You Are: the Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2015.