Prioritizing pleasure is something that I think we can all use in our busy modern world. The first step is deciding that you are deserving of pleasure, and that you are going to make it an important priority. This exercise will take five minutes every day, which is not a lot, considering how much time a lot of people spend on social media.

 Finding five minutes during your day is the first challenge. It doesn’t matter when this five minutes happens, although it might be easiest to build it in the morning, since most of us have a morning routine anyway.

 The next challenge is figuring out what the pleasurable activity will be. It could be anything that engages your sensory self. I like to use the example of peeling and eating a clementine orange, since it does use all five senses: you hold the orange and peel it with your fingers, and you can see and smell the orange, and you can even hear the peel coming away from the flesh of the fruit, and then you taste the slice that you pop into your mouth.

Other examples of this pleasure practice might be: dancing to a song, singing along with a song, brushing your teeth in a slow, measured, massaging kind of way, putting oil or lotion on your skin in a sensual way, masturbating, brewing a pot of coffee or tea and noticing the sensual aspects of the steps, eating your breakfast in a slower and intentional way, or stretching your body in a way that feels really good. It hardly matters what you choose, as long as it engages your senses and it feels great, and you devote a full five minutes to it.

What effect will this have on you? It might set you up for having a good day. It might remind you that you are a human and that you deserve pleasure. It might show you that your body is an instrument of pleasure, something that we often forget. It might tell you that you have control over your life and how you spend your time. There’s really no downside. It can be part of your self care.