The Everything Orgasm Book (5 page)

The third step is to find people you know who are open to discussing sexuality in a new and enlightened way. Talking to a lover or to friends about your attitudes and views about sex can help you both clarify how you feel and possibly give you new perspectives that you would not otherwise have accessed. Hearing people you know describe their sexuality can help give you courage to articulate your own feelings and desires.

If you don't know of anyone to do this with, consider using the Internet to help you connect with others who are also exploring new horizons in the realm of sexual attitudes and behaviors. There are also a growing number of sex therapists and clinical sexologists who are able to assist your growth process. Ultimately, your sex life will be most enhanced if you can talk openly with your lover. But if you need some support toward that goal, you can get it.

Having considered your general attitudes about sex, let's now explore your feelings and attitudes about your body. Your body image is your subjective concept of your physical appearance. It includes both how you see your body and how you feel about what you see. People form their body image partly on self-observation and partly on the reactions of others. Your body image may or may not be aligned with objective measurements. A person suffering from anorexia, for example, may perceive her emaciated body to be grotesquely fat.

A culture's standards of attractiveness exert a strong influence over how most people feel about their bodies. We are taught that certain features and dimensions are attractive and others are not. These lessons are constantly reinforced by images in the mass media. In reality, however, even these cultural standards are subjective. Ideal body prototypes vary from decade to decade and century to century. Even individual people of the same culture and time period vary widely in their perception of what is attractive to them. Thus, it is safe to conclude that there is no body type or physical look that is inherently more beautiful than another.

Consider these questions pertaining to your body image:

• How important are looks to you?
  

• How do you feel about how you look?
  

• Do you look at yourself in the mirror and like what you see?
  

• Do you ever wish something were different about your facial features?
  

• Do you wish you weighed more or less?
  

• Do you wish you looked stronger, leaner, or more shapely?
  

It is your birthright to feel and know yourself as beautiful. Nobody can take that away from you. If you have lost your ability to perceive yourself as beautiful or if you have never known yourself as beautiful, you owe it to yourself to find the ability to perceive yourself as such. If you do not feel good about your body or are ashamed of what you see when you look in the mirror, it may be hard to allow another person to see and appreciate your body and give you pleasure. And it may even inhibit your own enjoyment of your body. Chances are, you are your own worst critic when it comes to how you look. While you can't always change what you look like, you can change how you feel about how you look.

Does your overall health affect your orgasms? You betcha! It's great to become sex-positive and shame-free, love your body, and be open-minded to all your sexual potential. But without overall good health, your body-mind instrument will not be well tuned. In other words, the more you keep your body healthy and functioning properly, the more it can sing out its gloriousness.

Your diet is perhaps the first frontier in improving your overall health. What and how you eat affects not only your digestive system, but also your entire body-mind, including your orgasms. The food you take into your body feeds your nervous and endocrine systems, the two most important systems involved in your orgasms. If you give your body the nourishment it needs for optimal health, you will reap its rewards in orgasmic bliss. Start paying attention to how your food affects your mood, as well as your sex life.

What you eat prior to having sex can also have a direct effect on your sexual experiences. Eating too much or too soon before sex can preoccupy your body with digestion and divert attention from sensual pleasure. The best meal prior to sex would be one that can help you sustain your energy for several hours, without bogging you down or causing wide fluctuations in your blood sugar levels. Try a meal with a good source of protein and fresh vegetables. Stay away from sugar and starchy foods that your body will burn too quickly, leaving you depleted before your sexual fun is over.

Staying fit with regular exercise is also key to sustaining and enjoying a more fulfilling sex life. Good sex is not only about well-functioning genitals. In fact, many of the blocks to vibrant sex as people age reside in other parts of the body. You have more options in sex, for instance, if you have a strong, flexible spine. Certain sexual positions require good arm or leg strength. Sustained sexual encounters require good cardiovascular health and endurance. The more energy you put into keeping your body fit, the more it can reward you with the capacity for vigorous sexual satisfaction.

Regular exercise does more than just keep you in shape. There are numerous other benefits as well. Exercise helps to relax tense muscles, allowing you to better luxuriate in soft, sensual sex. Staying fit also helps with overall relaxation, which can help you sleep better. And since being too tired is one of the most common reasons to miss out on sex, better sleep may directly improve your love life.

Most importantly, regular exercise increases testosterone levels. Testosterone is a hormone that is known to have a strong impact on the human sex drive. In fact, doctors prescribe testosterone to some women as a treatment for a low libido. Exercise naturally increases testosterone levels, while improving just about every other system in your body.

Many people report noticeable increases in sexual desire, activity, and enjoyment simply as a result of beginning to exercise regularly. Integrate this habit into your life and notice a big shift in your overall mood and enjoyment of sex.

Here are some tips on how to safely bring aerobic activity into your daily life:

• Choose an activity that you find enjoyable and that does not cause you any pain.
  

• Start out at a slow, comfortable, and steady pace.
  

• Increase your workout's intensity and duration in stages in order to reap the greatest benefits with the fewest risks.
  

• Plan a workout schedule you know you can adhere to.
  

• Maximize your comfort and safety by selecting quality equipment and attire for the activity.
  

• Encourage your lover, friends, or family to join you.
  

• Challenge yourself by setting reasonable short and long-term goals, and celebrate every success along the way.
  

Accumulated stress can affect your overall mood greatly and take a toll on your sex life. It's hard to enjoy sex when you can't relax. Unfortunately, many people live very stressful lives. Their bodies are constantly in a state of alertness that biologists call the
fight or flight response
, the body's reaction to a perceived danger or threat. During this reaction, hormones such as cortisol and adrenalin are released. These cause the heart to speed up and digestion to slow, redirecting blood flow to major muscle groups and giving the body a burst of energy and strength, preparing it to be able to fight or run away when faced with danger. This response is normally followed by the relaxation response, which returns all systems to normal.

In modern life, however, the fight or flight response is often activated in countless daily activities such as driving, parenting, being a student, earning a living, dealing with bosses and co-workers, and paying the bills. Many people live their lives bombarded by stressful situations and encounters, and the relaxation response has a hard time keeping up with all of the demands. Depending on the number and degree of stressful situations in your life, you may have accumulated stress in your body-mind. Sometimes people are so accustomed to being in a state of fight or flight that they are not even aware of their high levels of background stress.

Sadly, people often resort to relieving stress in unhealthy ways. In the long run, this ends up doing more harm than good. Habits like drinking and smoking may feel relaxing, but they actually make your body work harder to maintain its health. Fortunately, there are many healthy habits you can develop to help you reduce and eliminate stress. It is definitely worth your while to explore the options.

Because your body and mind are so closely connected, quieting your mind can have a profound effect on your body. There are many ways to achieve this, so some exploration may be necessary to find the practices that work the best for you. Meditation is one very effective way to quiet the mind. Meditation relaxes the mind and nervous system through stillness. In meditation, you learn to stay in the present moment with your present experience. When done successfully, mediation induces a deeply relaxed state of being. This can carry over into sexual enjoyment by way of an increased ability to stay focused on your subtle bodily sensations, as well as the present moment interactions you have with your lover.

Sensory awareness practice is a particular type of meditation. In sensory awareness, the mind is focused on all the subtle sensations your body can perceive by being in a relaxed state. To try it, simply lie down somewhere quiet and open all your senses — sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. It requires getting out of your thoughts and into your body. It requires slowing down, quieting down, and listening acutely but in a relaxed manner. Closing your eyes can help you pay better attention to your other senses.

Learning to focus on your physical sensations through a sensory awareness practice can have a profound effect on your sexuality. The more you are able to dial into the subtleties of your experience, the more pleasure you will experience in your sexual encounters.

Hatha yoga or any similar stretching practice can also provide multiple benefits to your general health and your enjoyment of sex. Stretching muscles helps them relax and maintains flexibility. If sitting still in meditation or sensory awareness is not relaxing for you, try stretching or yoga instead. You can either quiet your mind to relax your body or relax your body to quiet your mind.

Have you ever paid attention to your breathing? The breath has a tremendous effect on your body-mind. That's why meditation, yoga, and almost every other relaxation practice involves some amount of focus on your breathing. If your breathing is shallow, it is possible that you are experiencing contraction or tightness in your chest and not getting enough oxygen to optimally support your body and your brain. You may have been breathing this way for so long that you don't notice anything different. Bringing more awareness to your breath and then focusing on deepening and expanding it will help oxygenate your blood, which will in turn lift your mood and improve the functioning of your whole body. Also, the deeper your breath, the greater your capacity for orgasm. Focusing on the breath is an important aspect of some of the enhanced orgasm practices that are discussed in Chapter 14.