Start the new year with a bang - 8 tips for improving your love life in 2025
Make a New Year's resolution to perk up your love life today, with our expert tips
The New Year is the time of year for making resolutions and upping our game and, for many of us, one of the areas of potential improvement is our sex life.
As we get older, libido diminishes, in both women and men. However, feeling sexy at any age comes down to a complex set of variables, so it rarely makes sense to spotlight sex in isolation from other parts of your life. How to have better sex is strongly connected to a good life in a holistic sense, and often, focusing on a different area that needs a boost. Communicating better with your partner, improving your fitness, and reducing stress at work will lead to you feeling more sexy. You also need to make space in your life for sex, and that takes effort.
"When you’ve been with your partner for a while there can be what Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, calls 'desexualisation over time'," says Karen Aram, a London-based psychosexual therapist. "What that means is you can become over-cuddly, over-friendly if you like. Couples need to be mindful about how to keep the eroticism going." So what can you do? These ideas will help bring back the buzz.
1. Introduce some mystery
Introduce a bit of mystery into your relationship. You don’t necessarily need to tell your partner everything that’s going on in your life, and you don’t always need to be available. Keeping some things out of the daily conversation will mean you also have more to talk about on date night.
And speaking of adding a little mystery and date night, while this might sound a bit cliched, pretending to be something you’re not can be a technique worth trying. "Lots of couples find roleplay an easy way to switch up their sexual routine," says Sammi Cole, a sex and relationship expert with Lovehoney. "The great thing about the 'strangers meeting in a bar' scenario is that it can help to recreate that fizz of excitement from when you first met."
2. Go the extra mile
Whether it’s taking extra interest when listening to what your partner is saying or complimenting them, good sex in a long-term relationship emanates from showing one another that you still care.
It has to be coming from both directions though. If you feel like your partner isn't paying you the same attention they used to, or doesn't care, it's worth bringing this up with them - in a non-confrontational way.
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3. Get nostalgic
When it comes to feeling closer to your partner, Karen says think about what attracted you to the other person in the first place.
"It might be a decade or more on, and you can’t seem to find the time for sex any more - but back then you easily found time for it. If you can get back to how you felt about your partner then, you’ll feel closer."
4. Make the most of your time apart
Recognise there’s a paradox, says Karen, in that what we want is love, comfort and security, but sex always thrives where there’s something fresh and novel.
More couples these days are choosing to live separately and sleep separately (in what's become known as a sleep divorce), but unless that works for you in a practical sense, it can be an extreme solution.
Instead, embrace time when you or your partner are away with family, friends or for work, to put some distance between you that can lead to renewed desire. See time apart as an opportunity, rather than a difficulty.
5. Let go of inhibitions
Sex is about fun, so try including the other fun stuff in life – for example, booking a hotel room for your date night occasionally, or you could watch a sexy movie together.
Drinking too much alcohol is a definite downer, but a small or moderate amount can help ease things along. Research conducted by the University of Florence found that a moderate amount (that’s one or two glasses) of red wine gave women higher scores for sexual desire and vaginal lubrication than were recorded in teetotal women.
You could also try out a new sex position. Alternative angles and different speeds mean you might discover an erogenous zone you never knew you had - or a different route to orgasm. Need inspiration? Take a look at our guide on the best sex positions, write a description of each and put them in a jar. Pick one out each week in 2025.
6. See a therapist
Sometimes, there’s more going on in our heads than we realise, and that’s where a therapist can be a game changer. "If you’ve taken the courage to explore what’s going on in your sex life, but you can’t seem to engage with the things you want to engage with, it might be worth considering therapy," says Karen.
"It’s not necessarily about some huge problem. It might be something small that puts a brake on some area of your sexuality."
7. Practise self-love
Focus on yourself - and we don't mean masturbating. Libido starts with liking yourself, with being in a positive relationship with your own body, and in appreciating your sensuousness. You don't even need to go to extreme lengths to boost your libido either, research suggests.
The study found practising Pilates twice a week could improve low libido and a woman’s ability to reach orgasm, with noticeable changes in just three months. Those who got into a regular routine also reported a significant decline in instances of pain during sex, which may be a problem if you're going through perimenopause.
You could also try a sex toy for solo fun - it might be something you introduce to your relationship later on.
8. Have fun with sex toys
Don’t forget that sex is playtime for adults, and a pick of the best sex toys – while not essential – can help a lot. They’re especially good for introducing that element of surprise or newness into a relationship that’s feeling a bit samey. So if you tend to always have sex the same way, or on the same night of the week, introducing a toy can shake things up a bit.
Of course, you can choose the toy together but another way forward is to choose it on your own, and then show it to your partner when you’re alone together. Your partner will probably be very curious about what you’ve chosen and why. The choice you’ve made may prompt an interesting and sexy conversation – and one thing leads to another.
It can feel daunting to go into a high-street sex store, especially if you’re a bit older and you feel you’re different from the rest of the clientele, so looking online is a good way to explore sex toys. "A lot of women feel anxious and unsure about what they want," says Karen.
With a growing sex toy industry – by 2030 it’s estimated it will be worth more than £61 billion annually – toys arrive on the market all the time. New products include increasingly sensitive clitoral stimulators – these mimic oral sex, and some have ‘lips’ or ‘petals’ that flick across the clitoris. Other new items include increasingly sophisticated remote vibrators, which can be controlled via a remote or a smartphone app.
Smile Makers' The Poet uses air pressure to provide focused, consistent or pulsating stimulation to the clitoris in a way that resembles oral sex. It's the perfect clitoral vibrator for a slow build, giving gentle air pressure that increases when you want it to with a simple squeeze of your fingers - no button pressing required. To change the stimulation style from consistent to pulsing, a button on the bulb of the toy does the job.
Settings: 5 pulsation modes
Reasons to buy: Offers air suction, simply squeeze to intensify, easy to use
Reasons to avoid: Button to change stimulation type/turn off can be hard to press in the heat of the moment
Smile Makers makes The Artist - our pick of the best rabbit vibrators. This toy works to stimulate the G-spot and clitoris at the same time, taking you on the road to a combined orgasm. While it might be one of the best luxury sex toys thanks to its price tag, the premium functions, materials, and general design make it well worth the investment.
Settings: 9
Reasons to buy: Two motors, squeeze sensor, easy to use
Reasons to avoid: You'll need good dexterity
Tease Us is one of the best sex toys for couples, offering two options (a clitoral vibrator and a cock ring or two clitoral vibrators) for dual stimulation and sexual satisfaction. While I was initially concerned about having to use an app, this wasn't as interruption as I thought it would be on the more basic settings and you can use the toys without app connectivity if you want to.
The remote works up to three meters away as well - as tried and approved by us - making it a great option for getting physical outside of the bedroom.
Settings: 10 modes
Reasons to buy: Hands-free clitoral stimulation, dual stimulation with a partner
Reasons to avoid: Requires app connectivity to make the most of the toy, which some people prefer to do without
This article first appeared in woman&home magazine. We have added some additional fresh advice and products from our buying guides. Subscribe to the magazine for £6 for 6 issues.
- Grace WalshHealth Channel Editor
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