Hello again, dear friend Anonymous. Welcome back to our sex-talk column where readers submit questions, then we do our research and craft a story to answer as many questions as we can. The topic of our latest submission: building confidence in the bedroom. Below are six of our favorite tips to help everyone do just that.
1. Send your body love, right now!
“In order to feel your best naked and to truly connect to your body, changing your attitude will be much more influential than changing what you see in the mirror,” says Katie Beecher, MS, LPC, a medical and spiritual intuitive and licensed professional counselor. Feeling “hot” is all about your mindset—she shares more tips on shifting your mindset to feel your best naked here.
2. Do something that makes you feel sexy
“It might be belly dancing, pole fitness, or aerial arts. It might be yoga or interpretive dance. These are not just activities for people with ‘perfect’ bodies,” Beecher told us. “Taking up pole fitness and aerial arts is one of the best things I ever did for my overall health and body image.” This will help you connect to your body.
3. Get out of your head
“Dropping down into your body is key in both sexual and nonsexual moments,” sex therapist Dr. Kate Baliestri previously told us. “Practice some somatic mindfulness exercises, kegel exercises, intentional breathing, or sensory exploration, and stay in the moment. This will help you retrain your focus on the language of your body, making you more apt to notice signals of pleasure and to be able to stay with those sensations in the heat of the moment, and less likely to get distracted by negative thoughts.”
To get started, try this quick guided meditation.
4. Never underestimate the power of pretty undergarments
If you’re anything like us, you’ve spent a lot of time wearing sweats over the past couple of years—while they’re comfy, we’ve found that swapping them out for something a little more risqué (like these pearl panties) on occasion is a major confidence boost. Yep, even if we’re just wearing them for ourselves.
5. Try self-tanner
These are the clean-ish self-tanners we rely on for a little pick-me-up pre stripping down.
6. Don’t brush off compliments
DYK: people only accept compliments one-third of the time and deflect or reject compliments the other two-thirds of the time. We’ve gotta stop that. “Learning to receive compliments becomes an act of self-love and allows us to have an open mind and adopt another person’s perspective as a new potential truth about us,” licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Jennifer Galvan previously told us.
“It takes courage to be able to consider these viewpoints and respond to them with acceptance … Learning to accept and absorb the compliment not only feels good for the giver of the compliment, but you may be surprised to find yourself feeling good too!”
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