Stop menopause and middle-age cramping your love life with these top tips
MIDDLE age and the menopause can play havoc with your love life.
The number of women who have sex regularly falls with age, as does the number who report it being enjoyable, a new study finds. But here sex expert Kate Taylor, shares her tips for revving things up in the bedroom.
Mindfulness
IT’S a sad fact that as women age, their body-confidence falls.
A study found 46 per cent of women believe the menopause has damaged their self-assurance.
This can be a death knell for your sex life, as thoughts such as “I look awful in this position” are the quickest way to kill your libido — psychologists call it “spectatoring”.
To fix this overthinking, stay in the moment by practising mindfulness. When you catch your mind wandering, drag it back by creating a “focussing” action, like kissing your partner, or just simply thinking: SEX.
Then concentrate on the delicious feelings in your body and you’ll reap the rewards in your sex life.
Stop hot flushes
Most women will experience hot flushes when going through the menopause — they are thought by the NHS to be caused by changes in your hormone levels.
For many ladies, simple blasts of cool air can help put out the fire.
To stop hot flushes turning down the temperature on your sex life, invest in cooling fans for your bedroom and make it an opportunity to va-va-voom your room and turn it into a sex nest.
Replace harsh overhead lights with scented candles for instant body-confidence. Swap brushed-cotton sheets for sensuous satin which is guaranteed to get your motor running as soon as you slide into bed.
Then slip some filthy notes under each other’s pillows and let the magic begin.
Slippery slope
Lubricants are the fastest way to upgrade your sex life to new highs, especially if middle age has put you off initiating sex.
Lubes can help men last longer in bed, and help women orgasm sooner — giving couples more chance to climax simultaneously. Adding a drop to the inside of a condom makes safe sex 100 times hotter for a man.
But do not raid the kitchen or bathroom cabinets — because food oils or beauty creams can destroy the latex in condoms and encourage thrush.
Make sure you invest in a good quality water-based lube such as Yes (£5.99, ) for the best results.
Right angle
Some women experience mood swings and anxiety around the time of the menopause — and one thing that can add to these feelings is when your children grow up and fly the nest.
A way to ward off these feelings is to make your home all about you, your partner and your love-life again. It would be a good time to buy new products to boost your sex life — and I recommend you make it a sex wedge.
These soft, supportive wedge-shaped supports such as the G Spot Magic Pillow (£11.98, ), are an easy way to upgrade times of intimacy from “so-so” to, “So THAT’S what all the fuss is about!”
Place a wedge under your hips during the missionary position, and you’ll immediately be at the right angle for G-spot stimulation.
Just make sure you put it in the cupboard when the kids pop over.
Talk to me
A reduced sex drive isn’t an inevitable part of ageing, but if it is something you are experiencing, it helps to talk DIRTY.
You can relight that libido by adding some of this saucy chat into foreplay.
If you don’t know what will excite your other half, a great way to find out your partner’s favourite phrases is to ask them to describe what they’d like to do to you.
Simply copy their choice of words, and level of friskiness, and talk to them in that same way. If you are both a little shy at first, try phone sex.
It may sound a bit retro but when you are face-to-face with a person it can feel a whole lot trickier to talk dirty about the things you are fantasising, whereas talking on the phone can feel freer.
Delay the inevitable
You might already know women can improve their sex life by doing exercises that strengthen the pelvic floor — by repeatedly contracting and relaxing the muscles that form part of the pelvic floor. But middle-aged blokes can do this, too.
Two separate studies have found men can boost erectile function and cure premature ejaculation by strengthening their pelvic floor. To try, men need to lift their testicles without using their hands. The muscles used are the pubococcygeus (PC) muscles.
Males need to practise squeezing them for one to two seconds before relaxing, do this 30 times in one session and aim to do three sessions a day.
Once pelvic floor control is conquered, men will be able to use those muscles to achieve stronger erections and delay orgasms just by clenching.
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Remember the real reason you’re having sex is to show each other how much you adore each other. Kiss every inch of your partner’s body, and tell them what you love about it.
Don’t close your eyes in ecstasy, hold eye contact and let your partner see how much they turn you on. At the moment of the Big Bang, kiss deeply.
Experts say the saliva you produce when you orgasm contains bonding qualities.
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