Sex: Relaxation and Beyond

When we think about relaxation there many things we think about: a massage, a vacation, a glass of wine and so on. One thing we might not immediately think of is sex. However studies show that sex (and orgasm) reduces stress, pain and helps you sleep better. All things that help you relax, improve your well-being and quality of life. These are great benefits we might not have considered and lose sight of when we are caught up with all the day-to-day concerns. How often does sex get pushed to the back burner? What do you notice for yourself when you have sex consistently and when you do not? I invite you to consider treating sex as a vital part of your well-being. In addition to things related to relaxation, it improves heart disease, burns calories and improves intimacy.

However if we were to boil it down to the simplest thing, sex provides pleasure, which has us feel good and be relaxed. I was just speaking at a conference in DC at the end of March where I heard Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former US Surgeon General say “It’s time to admit sexuality is about pleasure.”

I’d assert for many people we still have a hard time with the pleasure piece. We have a lot of questions, confusion, shame and fear in America when it comes to sex. We get a lot of mixed messages of what’s “normal” and what’s “weird”, what’s too much sex, what’s too little, as a culture we use sex to sell things and yet are often afraid to talk about sex openly and honestly. We let things get in the way of us experiencing full joy and pleasure when it comes to sex.

So what to do about it? One of the first things is to start building some awareness of where you’re at with your sexuality and where you’d like to be. Here are a couple of questions to consider:

1. How empowered are you about your sexuality on a scale of 1 to 10?

1 being I have a lot of fear and shame around sex...
10 being I feel full joy and pleasure around sex

2. What gets in the way of you experiencing full joy and pleasure when it comes to sex?

3. If you were to consider creating three goals for yourself and sex, what would they be?

Now comes the fun part! Are you willing to take some action to create that? Do you need some support?

(This is a repost from Lisa's coaching blog)