Can stress affect your desire or quality of sexual intimacy? Absolutely, in fact, any mental health condition or even medications taken to treat them can cause a decline in desire or sexual functioning. Stress can affect so much of our physical level of functioning, and the longer it’s neglected, the worsening of symptoms can develop. It’s important to address mental health for many reasons, but if your sex life is one of them, this post will help explain why (Brotto & Luris 2020).
Stress affects our bodies in several ways. One of those is our hormone functioning. Hormones, sometimes a reduced amount of one or an increased amount of another, can cause symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, digestion issues, reduced libido, and reduced arousal.
Cortisol is one of the hormones that can go out of whack with stress. In some examples, you can increase and retain too much cortisol, but long-term stress can also deplete your body, and it can struggle to produce a healthy amount that gives you energy. When we have too much cortisol, our libido drops (Chousos 2018). Our body probably thinks that we aren’t safe enough to reproduce, so it depletes the desire to have sex, which for some people can lead to pregnancy. The body’s natural ability to get aroused can’t function well with high cortisol. When we deplete our cortisol and the body doesn’t produce enough, it can cause extreme fatigue and exhaustion which also reduces libido and arousal. Another study found that those with high stress reported decreased sexual satisfaction (Hamilton & Julian 2019).
Depression and anxiety also affect libido and arousal. Symptoms of these disorders can cause people to lose interest in pleasurable things or be distracted by their anxiety and not be able to focus on having intimacy. Certain medications used to treat depression have side effects of decreased sexual interest (Perelman 2019). These medications not only decrease desire but also often create issues with the ability to have orgasm. For some men, they may cause erectile dysfunction. Other studies looking at other disorders like posttraumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder have noted that they also have unique effects on sexual interest.
The issues that stress and these mental health conditions can cause with your sex life can become a vicious cycle. The stress or symptoms arise, they cause a potential issue with intimacy, and now more stress is added because of that issue. The cycle repeats, and it can become difficult to manage the stress at a certain point. Stress management and perhaps even therapy can be helpful to break this cycle and increase your level of functioning.
Another issue that may arise that creates its own unique cycle is in relationships. The emotional disconnect and communication breakdowns that happen because of this decreased sexual functioning can affect the relationship with one’s partner (Bondeman & Lederman 2020). It’s important if you are experiencing stress or other mental health issues that are affecting your sex life that you talk about this with your partner and make an effort to emotionally connect in other ways.
As mentioned earlier, there are some gender differences in stress-induced sexual issues. Men’s and women’s bodies function differently sexually. For men, erectile dysfunction can cause confidence issues especially when we take into account the social influence on performance and its harmful stereotypes. For women, their bodies seem to be more sensitive to stress when it comes to sex. The lack of libido is more commonly present. The reduced arousal can lead to the development of sexual pain disorders if not treated (Smith & Jones 2021).
The good news is we can treat the sexual issues and manage our stress and mental health wellness to reduce the impact. It’s important to first look at managing stress and other symptoms.
- A check-up with your doctor may also be important to rule out any physical causes.
- The next important steps are making lifestyle changes that will reduce stress like exercise, mindfulness, sleep, and developing a work-life balance.
- The next important step can be starting therapy and using an evidence-based tool like cognitive behavioral therapy to treat the mental impact (Brotto 2018). Therapy can also be helpful for couples to work on communication and building emotional intimacy (Mark & Lasslo 2020). Each person’s contributors to stress should be evaluated and treated based on their circumstances.
- Once that stress is managed, if the sexual issues are still there, you can see your doctor to treat the physical side and continue therapy to address intimacy impacts.
