Using Mindfulness to Improve Sexual Functioning
In sex therapy, you learn to understand how your sexual distress or dysfunction developed, what thoughts and feelings you experience during sexual response, and the ways that your body and nervous system operate during intimacy. Individuals with sexual distress or dysfunction have been found to have more negative thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations than individuals without sexual distress or dysfunction.
Your central nervous system, attention, and thought processes can be trained through a series of directed and targeted practices, which you can learn with mindfulness practices.
How Mindfulness Can Make a Difference
Practicing mindfulness occurs with turning your attention inward and focusing on your breathing, bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts, or whatever else you may be noticing. Research has consistently shown that greater levels of mindfulness lead to higher levels of sexual satisfaction, particularly in women.
Many people may not be aware of the nuances of sexual arousal and response, which involves both subjective and genital arousal.
Subjective arousal: Your subjective feelings of being turned on
Genital arousal: Your physical reaction to sexual arousal
Often in sexual distress or dysfunctions, one or both types of arousal may not be occurring, or arousal is occurring with negative thoughts, feelings, or body sensations.
Research has shown that even one mindfulness meditation can lead to greater sexual function. Developing your ability to be present in each moment — aware of your body sensations, emotional state, and the nature of your thinking — will directly impact your ability to be present during sexual intimacy, with yourself or a partner.
Practicing mindfulness to impact your arousal can create something that’s referred to as sexual concordance, or when you experience both subjective and genital arousal.
Experience an Awareness of Thoughts guided meditation with Kimberly.
Practicing Mindful Meditation
Many mental healthcare providers learn some aspect of mindfulness practice during their professional education and training. Kimberly Keiser has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 2006, and started a two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program through the Awareness Training Institute and the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley.
The program trains an interdisciplinary group of professionals to provide mindfulness meditation programs and teachings to a broad range of individuals. It includes comprehensive training in how to teach mindfulness practices in the Vipassana tradition around awareness of breath and body, lovingkindness, working with pain, awareness of emotions, mindfulness of thoughts, forgiveness, equanimity, and compassion.
The course also includes several practicums that Kimberly will be developing courses for available on Mend Education or at Kimberly Keiser & Associates. The goal of participating in this advanced training is to further provide comprehensive and effective sex therapy to patients in Sioux Falls, SD, and surrounding areas as well as nationally through MendEd.
Build Mindfulness Skills and Improve Your Sexual Health
We work with clients of all kinds to educate them on how sexual arousal and response works, as well as teaching them mindfulness skills that they can use in their intimate lives.