How to Live a More Pleasurable Life

Sensual Moods is a monthly series centered around a word of the month. This series is to a way for us to provide value to our community, create conversation, and tools all aligning with our mission to help you slow down and connect back to self. 

What's your pleasure?

We're not sure if it's due to the last 2 years (probably), but we want to live more joyful, satisfying, and pleasurable lives. Pleasure is our sensual mood for the month of January. 

Pleasure is defined as:

- a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment.

- sensual gratification

When thinking about ways to bring more pleasure in our lives we asked 3 questions. 

1. How can I bring more pleasure to my life?
2. What makes me feel satisfaction?
3. What brings me joy?

We took these questions and did an exploratory exercise. It involved research, watching youtube videos, and living. Here's what we found. 

How to Live a More Pleasurable Life

Focus on The Little Things

We went straight to Psychology Today when researching this topic. This article about pleasure points out, "Enjoy the little things: Being pleased frequently has more influence on well-being than being intensely happy once in a while." This really clicked and honestly just makes so much sense. 

This maybe enjoying coffee, listening to old records, slow mornings, or going for walks around your neighborhood. Focusing on enjoying the little things will overtime add up to lots of joy and pleasure. 

Gratitude

Having a gratitude attitude is literally the key to everything especially if you want to live a more pleasurable life. Imagine how much joy you could have if you woke up every morning grateful for what you have no matter if it's a little or a-lot. 

Try this exercise right now. Think of 5 things you are grateful for. It's literally an instant pick me up. Don't you feel better already?!

Don't Take Things Too Seriously 

Find the humor in things. Literally that's it. Being able to laugh at yourself or life situations makes life a little easier to navigate. So watch your favorite sitcom, laugh at a TikTok, make fun of yourself, etc. The Psychology Today article we mentioned earlier says this about humor, "Not taking things so seriously can bring hope and happiness. People with a hopeful outlook tend to also be good at laughing." They are definitely on to something. We've all met that person who just seems to be so filled with joy and it's probably because they don't take things too seriously.  

Find A Hobby

Find something to do with your free time. There's nothing wrong with watching your favorite shows/movies on Netflix, but try to find a hobby that allows you to disconnect from technology. Maybe take a pottery class or do like our founder and start rollerskating. Try something that makes you feel like a kid again. Here's a really great guide in the New York Times about finding a hobby. 

Community

Find your tribe. Spending time with friends is a key to a pleasurable life. A bonus if you meet your community through your hobbies because now you have people to spend time with who share your interests. It's a win win. Here's another New York Times article about how having friends is good for you. 

We could go on some more, but we think these 5 tips on how to live a more pleasurable life is a great start. Do you have any pleasurable life tips? Share them with us. 

Also, make sure you join the conversation on our instagram.