What Do You Do If You Have Low Libido Due To Stress?
What do you do if you aren’t interested in sex because of all the stress in your life? With Elizabeth Wood from http://www.BedEvents.com and Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com. @elizwoodknow
Cathy: What do you do if stress is killing your libido? I’m Cathy Vartuli from https://theintimacydojo.com/ and this is Elizabeth Wood from http://beyondthebedroomevents.com/. Thank you so much for being here Elizabeth.
Elizabeth: Yeah. It’s good anytime you want to chat with me I am game Cathy. These are…this is a great question because stress can come in so many different forms. So I’m going to specifically talk about physical stress.
Cathy: Okay.
Elizabeth: If somebody has it’s obvious that if somebody has a cold or flu and if someone has recently had some type of surgery and it’s like “oh, we haven’t been physical for six weeks” and it’s a surgery that really needs like two to three months to recover. That physical stress can absolutely cause a….your libido to crash.
Cathy: Yeah, yeah.
Elizabeth: So, we really need to be sensitive about those factors that will come in and….and you know put a screeching halt to our libido and I know there’s emotional stress perhaps you can talk about some of the emotional stress.
Cathy: Well, certainly yeah. For feeling…the physical stress I think they’re….they’re kind of a Venn diagram they overlap the emotional
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Cathy: because they’re there’s no way to dissect them but….but certainly with physical stress our bodies just may not be ready for that and forcing ourselves is….is the worst thing we can do. Emotional stress is our boss is really angry. We’re not sure if we’re going to have a job next week. The mortgage hasn’t been paid. It’s really…really hard to relax and feel sexy and….and focus on that. I do I encourage a lot of meditation, I do emotional freedom techniques, whatever it is to help release because the stress is there like we can’t often we can’t control it. We can change our perceptions about it somewhat but if we’re not sure if we’re going to have a job in two weeks, that’s really scary and it’s like looming there and then may be that we might want to just like we if we do some practices to calm down we still may not want to have sex but emotional support, physical touch those are things that can help actually reduce stress. So if you’re with a person who is supportive you can say like “can we cuddle and can we kind of just be with each other? I may or may not change my mind but I think I don’t want to have sex tonight.” Having those connections to let yourself feel supported to reduce the stress and mean held if you’re sick or what it feel like obviously if you get the flu your partner may not want to be all up in your face but the physical touch, the support they can help us get through a lot of that and that’s important and it may be that sex can blow off some of the steam for you.
Elizabeth: Absolutely.
Cathy: We may just may you know it’s….it’s we get to dance with this. We’re always figuring out where is the boundary between I’m a no and maybe pushing through would be great for me. So like we get to walk that and we get to change our mind so we could be like “I’m not sure what this is. I’m willing to try.” “Oh, okay. I’m clear I don’t want to go forward” or “okay, honey bedroom now” you know like we get to we get to walk that and change our mind as we go and figure out what’s right for us but just because libido….no not having the desire the juicy sexy feeling that doesn’t always mean that sex is not a good choice for us at that time. Sometimes I know I have to almost always if so if I’m not in the mood and someone cuddles me like my partner that I really enjoy I’m like “oh” after 20 minutes like “oh, yeah. Well maybe.”
Elizabeth: Yeah and I think that’s a really good point because that you may not be thinking that you are or may not be feeling that desire but the second that that arousal mechanism kicks in it’s like “hmm”
Cathy: Yeah
Elizabeth: You know so that that our arousal our….our bodies may be the things that lead us to…to you know feel open and juicy. So I know that I….we have a big bathtub getting in the bath and to help reduce that stress with my partner
Cathy: Yeah
Elizabeth: sometimes it’s a little difficult because the water gets too cold but doing things like that will relax your head temper perhaps either solo yoga or partnered yoga or lay down on the floor and do that meditation either and then go into something where we have some type of sensual arousal
Cathy: Yeah
Elizabeth: and that might override not….again not forcing but overriding the sort of a notion that we just don’t want to do it.
Cathy: Yeah, right.
Elizabeth: We might then begin to feel like “oh” this feels really nice.
Cathy: I know that I’m….I’m feeling overwhelmed and stressed for me it’s like what I’m in that space I’m like I don’t ever want to have sex again. Sex is awful. It’s such…. it’s messy it’s noisy it takes up time but when I have it….it felt like “oh my god. It feels so good. I feel connected and alive and if….” So again realizing that what our brains tell us isn’t always what our body is needing at the time and again never about forcing yourself. It is absolutely okay to say no because I don’t you don’t want something but I think that for me I just have had so much joy when at times when I’ve said I’m not really in the mood but let’s cuddle it and see where it goes and the just like afterwards like “that was just what I needed.” So
Elizabeth: Well, absolutely.
Cathy: Yeah.
Elizabeth: You know and there’s that that sweetness that sort of comes with them just “oh, can we cuddle for a little bit?” And then like I’m flooded with his sweetness and have so much appreciation for whoever’s cuddling me
Cathy: Yeah
Elizabeth: and I kind of see them in a new way.
Cathy: Yeah. No, it’s wonderful. Thanks very much. If you have comments, thoughts, suggestions you can leave them below and we’ll get back to you. Thanks Elizabeth!
Elizabeth: Thanks Cathy.
