Libido and Anxiety
Lynda Martin, LMFT
Head of Sex Therapy at Lasting
"Why might anxiety affect your libido? What steps can be taken to help with this?"
Anxiety may prevent you from being present with your body. It does this by hyper focusing on performance or perceptions. Anxiety may have you running through your to do list, or imagining all the ways your body falls short visually or performance wise when it comes to sex.
Anxiety also creates tension in the body leading to uncomfortable or painful sexual experiences.
Anxiety increases cortisol in your body. High levels of cortisol can suppress sex hormones that lead to desire. It can also decrease lubrication. Anxiety hits the brakes for most people when it comes to sex.
Being stuck in a cycle of criticism, or physically trying to avoid pain is certainly going to prevent you from craving more sex. This in turn may lead you to avoid sex all together. Leaving you feeling deficient and making sex undesirable.
To increase libido, it’s helpful to first decide what are your specific desires you want to feel or see more of. Then see what barriers are coming from external expectations or internal critical talk.
One common complaint I hear is someone saying they are just never in the mood, but feel they need to have sex for sake or the relationship or their partner. However, they also spend little time focusing on the lead up.
When you or your partner expect to just suddenly be in the mood, because that’s naturally what happens in ‘healthy relationships’ you may be trying to override your own arousal cycles.
For those with vulvas, desire often, does not occur spontaneously, it occurs in response to being turned on. Without kissing, talking or touching it’s not unnatural to not feel in the mood, and it certainly does not indicate a sexual issue.
Use consent and communication to explore what brings you pleasure and connection. Find your unique voice to share what feels good, or what you need to change up.
It takes practice and strength in vulnerability to find your voice. It may take some practice tries before you feel comfortable giving or receiving direction around pleasure without feeling critical or defensive.
Think about your senses and what helps you feel more connected to sex. Is it a sound? A feel? A look? Connecting with your senses can create more atunement with your desires and away from the critic or to do list in your head
Featured in Bustle