More Body
Start the Day - and the Year - With More Pleasure
Even when our pleasure is derived from an idea—a chess game played out in our mind, the memory of a lover’s touch, the anticipation of a vacation—pleasure is created and experienced in our bodies. We smell a fragrant flower, put on our favorite music, and suddenly, we set off a chain reaction like a Rube Goldberg machine. Dopamine and serotonin lubricate the Vagus nerve, which sends electrical signals from our brain to our throat, passing by our lungs and stomach on their way to our spleen to sex organs. Endorphins follow and pretty soon the hypothalamus starts pumping out oxytocin. The whole thing takes microseconds and leaves us feeling good. Pleasure is medicine. It eases digestion, slows our heartbeat, inhibits pain and autoimmune disease. It lowers anxiety and mitigates stress. It expands our creativity and generosity. And, as a side-effect, it leaves us feeling good. So, why isn’t pleasure the first thing we reach for every morning?
As we start the new year, I invite you to consider a pleasure practice that you can do before you get out of bed. It’s five minutes tops and you can do the whole thing with your eyes closed.
Here goes:
A Pleasure Practice For a Feel-Good Morning:
Stretch your body as long as you can.
Arch your back like a cat.
Notice the texture of your sheets on your skin, the warmth of your lingering body heat on your pillow.
Massage your forehead, fingertips over eyebrows, apply pressure around your nose, those tense jaw muscles – really get in there, put your hands in your mouth, and massage from the inside out, neck and shoulders.
Scrunch up your face and then relax it.
Rotate your ankles, point, and flex your feet.
Run your hands through your hair, give a little tug.
Trace the palm of your left hand with your right index finger. Run that finger up the inside of your forearm. Add a little scratch, a light tickle. Inhale while you do this.
Hold your breath and lift and squeeze the muscles of your perineum. Hold and release and repeat.
Reach your arms over your head and twist your body. Undulate your back.
Inhale and open your mouth wide. Exhale with sound, any sound your body wants to make– a groan or moan or growl or whelp.
Notice the vibrations in your body. The sounds you make are helping to release dopamine and stimulate your entire body.
Roll your tongue around inside your mouth. Feel the glide of lubricated muscles, the contrasting sharpness of your teeth. Take a deep breath and let it out as a whistle.
Now open your eyes wide and stretch your eyeballs.
Rotate your eyes as though looking at an enormous clock.
Closed them tight and then open them again.
There you have it. You are all pleasured up for your day.
Don’t forget to drink a big glass of water before your coffee.
FROM THE INSTITUTE OF PLEASURE STUDIES
Laugh much lately? We just started watching “How To with John Wilson” on HBO. It’s a deliciously meandering and philosophical gaze on the strangeness of humanity.
Get your Groove On and Feel it All. Femme is a 90-minute dance experience (online) where all emotions are not only welcome, they are required. Bernadette Pleasant is a tour guide of feelings and brings the drums and energy needed to clear out all the residual gunk from 2021. Her next class is Sunday at 3 PM EST. Register here.
I am very excited about UPLVL venting, a form of communication created by Kenya K Stevens. I am excited to bring her work to all of you in the next few weeks. Get her book and join us for a discussion and some practices next month.
bell hooks left this world but leaves us with so many words to consider. She didn’t write about pleasure directly, but her definition of stress as “anything going on in our lives that impinges on our capacity to have optimum wellbeing” reminds us that we are supposed to feel good.