Better Sex through mindfulness

Better Sex Through Mindfulness is the promising title of psychologist Lori Brotto’s book when it comes to alleviating sexual problems – especially in women – through the practice of mindfulness, the art of non-judgemental and loving awareness of what is (rather than what should be). In this article, I summarise the basic ideas of this practice as described by Lori Brotto in her book.’

How can we learn mindfulness?

We can learn mindfulness and have better sex by practising the following:

• We direct our attention inwards
• We focus on our body sensations: Breath, warmth, coolness, pressure, tension, tingling etc.
• We notice so-called distracting thoughts and emotions and
• Let them go the moment we realise that they have distracted us
• We regard such distractions as mental phenomena, as a by-product of the brain –
• We re-dedicate ourselves to the physical sensations in the here and now
• We overcome lack of desire by practicing mindfulness

Many people – especially women – complain that they don’t feel like having sex. They expect to be seduced by the partner and if this doesn’t happen, they withdraw all the more. They often blame themselves because they seem to be functioning poorly. What they fail to realise is that many women experience what is known as responsive desire. This term was coined by Rosemary Basson, an expert in female sexuality at the University of British Columbia. She describes it as follows: Many women expect a reaction similar to that of men, in which both arousal and desire arise almost simultaneously. As a result, they inhibit themselves by dwelling on negative thoughts instead of focussing on the physical sensations. In such a case it is more important to focus on stimuli and sensations that excite because only then – as a response – does desire, the psychological desire, arise.

Recognising distracting thoughts and feelings

To achieve this, we use the ability to perceive our physical sensations in a focused and benevolent way. In doing so, we learn to let distracting and judgemental thoughts and the negative feelings associated with them pass by. Because in this case the body reacts, but the mind doesn’t realise it. The more we learn to pay attention to sexual stimuli, the more brain-body communication improves in a way that could trigger sexual desire. The more often we succeed in freeing ourselves from judgemental thoughts, the greater the chance that the physical response will be able to unfold at all.

Masters and Johnson postulated that most sexual dysfunctions can be traced back to anxiety. They coined the term ‘spectatoring’, in which a person observes themselves attentively – and unfortunately often critically – during sex and judges both their own performance and that of their partner instead of engaging in the encounter. Spectatoring is associated with anxiety, negative judgement and worry about your partner’s thoughts and behaviour.

Rather sooner than later …

We shouldn’t let too much time pass either, because the more we avoid physical contact, the less likely it is that our body will remember the signs of arousal, which makes it even harder to become sexually aroused.

… we should take a break

According to neuroscientists, multitasking too much is unfortunately not as productive as we think. This term itself is a misnomer because we are not really able to multitask or complete several tasks at the same time. We switch back and forth between tasks in rapid succession. This rapid switching is associated with a cognitive load or a certain amount of mental effort. Each switch is associated with an impairment of our brain’s processing ability and speed. The results suggest that the presence of phones and other electronic devices that gave out email notifications, for example, caused significant distraction, roughly equivalent to a 10-point drop in IQ. Accordingly, it is important to learn to slow down more and more and to focus on the moment, especially when it comes to sex. Too many distracting thoughts take us away from feeling.

Learning to deal with negative emotions as well as distracting thoughts by focussing attention on sensory awareness is central to expanding ‘presence’ in the body and is the main key to increasing pleasure during sex. Mindfulness improves sex!

Sources

Lori Brotto – Better sex through mindfulness