Like squats, meditation and Duolingo, dilation has to be kept up to start making a difference. Some turn it into a special ritual. Others make it part of the mundane. Either way, getting it into your routine can really make a difference to your progress.
It’s about finding time in the day where you can fully focus on dilation – even if it’s just for five minutes. First thing in the morning can be a great one: the extra ten minutes you’d usually hit snooze for, or have recently snatched back from the commute. Before sleep works too: for everyone who isn’t sharing a bed or feels comfortable enough dilating alongside a partner.
If a set time really doesn’t work for you, then how about being a total opportunist? Let’s say any hour of the day is up for grabs (cheeky 11am working from home break?), as long as it absolutely gets done before the next morning.
Your sexual health and happiness is so, so important and absolutely worth making time for. If you’re really struggling to squeeze dilation in, time might not be what’s getting in the way.
Over to Kate…
Routine helps us to get used to doing things without even having to think about it, or give the event or experience much conscious awareness as we become used to it; and that's the beauty of building in, integrating, and forming positive habits around using dilators.
For many women with vaginismus, it becomes necessary for dilators to be incorporated into their routine, at least for a period of time until they feel confident and comfortable. What this can also take off is any pressure of expectation that you may put on yourself for making time, or beating yourself up for that 'I'll do it tomorrow and tomorrow doesn't happen mentality'.
Also, we know that the things that we do every day and more regularly become our comfort zone, and by definition of becoming 'used to' it, and comfortable that anxiety around dilating is reduced. One of the most common ways of managing anxiety is avoidance, and including dilators in your routine is the opposite of that.