Sex and Stress: Is There Any Connection?

Posted on by penisextension

Stress can be detrimental to the body, causing significant harm to health. For example, chronic stress increases cancer risk and many other diseases by weakening the immune system.

Is this information insufficient to convince you of the importance of regular rest? Keep in mind that stress can have a great effect on the quality of your sex life as well. If you can instantly fix everyday problems with an instant payday loan and get rid of a stressful situation, then the impact of stress on health is not so simple to fix.

Stress affects us physically and emotionally, and it also influences our relationships with other people. So what is a normal sex life? How can you fight stress for better sex life? You will find all the answers in our article.

How Does Stress Affect Sex Life?

Sex can help relieve tension. What’s more, some people get even more aroused when faced with stress. This is a kind of defence mechanism. But for many people, the system works exactly the opposite. When people experience stress, they withdraw into themselves and are afraid that intimacy will make them nervous again, and excitement will cause another unpleasant emotion. As a result, such people spend all their emotional resources trying to avoid any worries and anxieties. And in the end, stress becomes the reason why they stop having sex.

The effect of stress on sex life is due to nature itself. In stressful situations, the main task is to survive, not reproduce. Therefore, stress activates those functions of the body that are critical for survival (for example, speeding up the heart rate and blood circulation) while suppressing secondary functions, including sexual.

Unfortunately, stress can disrupt your sex life on several levels. First of all, on the hormonal. Chronic stress leads to increased production of the hormone cortisol, which lowers libido. In women, stress can disrupt the menstrual cycle, which is hardly helpful for the right mood. Also, regular anxiety and confusion can reduce the pleasure of sex, making it difficult to experience an orgasm.

Fatigue also leads to a sex life crisis. Our main sex organ is the brain. If your brain is busy with completely different worries during sex, you are constantly distracted by inappropriate thoughts. As a result, it is more difficult for you to focus on your arousal, pleasant sensations, and orgasm.

Stress can depress sexuality not only directly but also indirectly. The hormones that the body produces during stress affect metabolism, leading to weight changes. As a result, we begin to feel dissatisfaction with ourselves, with our body, which may lead to the lack of the desire to have sex.

Chronic stress often provokes depression and anxiety disorders, which also negatively affect the ability to enjoy. Some people with chronic stress complain that they don’t have the right mood for sex at all. In addition, under stress, we often drink more alcohol than in a calm state, which also hurts healthy sex life.

How Does Stress Affect Men and Women?

The bodies of men and women experience chronic stress in different ways: men mostly have problems with erection, and women lose attraction to a partner, although this is individual.

In men, the level of sex drive depends on testosterone. Chronic stress suppresses the production of this hormone. As a result, it leads to problems with the cardiovascular system. And circulatory disorders – to erectile dysfunction. Although sometimes, stress becomes the cause of premature ejaculation leading to life without sex. Stress and a decrease in testosterone levels over time lead to a deterioration in the quality of the sperm produced: the number of sperm cells, their mobility, and vitality decreases.

In women, stress suppresses ovulation and the production of estrogens, the female sex hormones that affect sex drive. Their level partly depends on the phase of the menstrual cycle. In the middle of it – about six days before and six days after ovulation – female libido increases.

In the blood of women, there is a small number of male sex hormones – androgens. Their number does not directly affect libido in any way, but when there are too many of them, malfunctions of the reproductive system occur. To prevent this from happening, enzymes in the fat layer convert androgens to estrogens. Sometimes, due to prolonged stress, women lose weight, and then there are not enough enzymes. This leads to the fact that the number of estrogen decreases and the level of libido along with it.

It is impossible to avoid stress, but you can identify its main sources and think about minimizing its impact on your sex life.

How to Help Your Body Relieve Stress?

Fortunately, this problem can be dealt with. Finding healthy ways to relieve stress is important. It can be sports or yoga, massage, relaxing baths. Take the time to take care of yourself and get sex life better.

The solutions are incredibly commonplace: getting adequate sleep, light physical activity, a varied diet, and the skills to manage stressful moments in life.

Although it is impossible to completely avoid stress, it is necessary to highlight several main sources of stress and think about eliminating their impact on our lives.

How to improve sex life? Being intimate with a partner can help reduce stress, so it’s worth trying to find time for it in the afternoon or morning. We often get too tired by the evening. The feelings that sex evokes in us – a feeling of closeness, a deep connection with a partner, calm relaxation – can be our natural defences against stress.

If you cannot spice up sex life on your own, and you are tired of constant fatigue and lack of desire, you can visit a psychotherapist who works in cognitive-behavioural therapy.

Conclusion

Psychologists recommend considering any situation, including the most stressful, from the point of view of a resource and benefit for a person. This period will not necessarily become full of new sexual discoveries for you, but it is quite possible to maintain closeness and find new aspects in it.

Start spending time with your partner; find the opportunity to pay attention to your sex life even in a busy schedule. Make it a priority. Listen to each other; look for different ways to revive passion. This is what your body now demands.

Do you see any connection between stress and sex in your life? Please share your experience in the comments below.

 

Authors bio:

Jade is a finance analyst and has been involved in many successful business projects with a range of companies throughout the country. She started writing 3 years ago and enjoys researching, discussing, and writing on the topics of finances, budgeting, money advice, lifestyle and wellness. 

Jade loves to spend time with her family and has a lot of hobbies including hiking, riding a bike, cooking and traveling. 

Sexual Dysfunctions!

Posted on by penisextension

Sexual function is often an important part of a relationship. This kind of physical intimacy brings couples closer together with passion and desire and allows for a particular bond that non-sexual partners can’t attain. When sexual dysfunction occurs within a relationship, it can dampen the passion and intimacy and ultimately put a strain on the relationship. For the most part sexual dysfunctions are not impossible to overcome, and even dysfunctions which are seemingly debilitating, does not mean that sexual intimacy needs to stop.

A lot of people feel that all sexual activity involves penetrative sex and this is not the case. As such, we are not limiting the definition of sexual activity to penetrative sexual activity but including within that definition the ideas of sexual intimacy as the stimulation of the genitals, being naked together etc. This article will explore sexual dysfunction, types of sexual dysfunctions and how to overcome them to keep the passion alive in a relationship.

What Is A Sexual Dysfunction?

Sexual activity occurs as a part of the body’s sexual response cycle and this is driven by desire, arousal and passion. This cycle involves three phases; excitement, plateau, orgasm. The body will undergo changes through each stage of the sexual response cycle indicating arousal and the first stage can include such physiological responses such as the hardening of nipples, increased blood flow to the genitals, increased heart rate and breathing, self-lubrication etc. The second phase will see the responses to stage one increase and this will lead to stage three which is sexual climax which entails muscle contractions, ejaculation, sex flush etc.

Sexual dysfunction is an issue which affects any of the above stages during sexual activity. Despite having a fairly common prevalence in society (40% of women and 32% of men) – sexual dysfunction is rarely spoken about, and as such it is subjected to grandiose claims by malicious companies offering all sorts of potions and cures which promises all sorts of sexual satisfactions without a guarantee in delivering those. This leaves many people struggling to reignite the passion in their relationships. So how do we move towards bringing back passion and intimacy and ultimately sexual satisfaction?

Types Of Sexual Dysfunction:-

We can begin to answer that question by exploring the different types of sexual dysfunction and how it affects both men and women. Sexual dysfunction is traditionally separated into four categories.

1. Desire Disorder:-

Defined as a lack of interest or a distinct lack of sexual desire, often referred to as a low libido. There are often significant issues surrounding the idea of a desire disorder and it is often overly medicated. The stigma is that male libido is thought of as being much higher than women and it is often thought to be ‘cured’ with potions and pills such as Viagra. The recent push for a female Viagra is also problematic as it will complicate the idea of a desire disorder. People will naturally have highs and lows in terms of their passion and desire levels and this can correlate with age, mental health, physical health, diet, stress and a whole range of issues. Often low libido is medicated without exploring potentially underlying factors within an individual or a couple. Generally, a medical diagnosis will indicate lower than ‘normal’ levels of estrogen in women, and testosterone in men. Not to be confused with Asexuality.

2. Arousal Disorders:-

Defined as a body’s lack of response or an inability to become excited or aroused during sexual activity. This is not to be confused with the inability to obtain an erection for men, although this condition used to be classified as an arousal disorder, impotence is now considered to be an erectile dysfunction and not an arousal disorder. Men suffering from arousal disorder may still be able to gain and maintain an erection (or partial, or none) but the primary factor to an arousal disorder in a male is that they will often receive little to no pleasure in a sexual activity. For females, an arousal disorder can often not become sufficiently lubricated, or no natural lubrication will be released at all.

3.Orgasm Disorders:-

Defined as a significant delay to orgasm, or an inability to orgasm at all. A delayed orgasm, especially in a male, may not necessarily be attributed to an orgasm disorder, but it is generally diagnosed when an orgasm is not obtained, or that it is obtained far beyond normal time expectations. The issue with this is the idea of what is normal. For females, it is generally likened to an orgasmia, or having an ability to gain an orgasm only when certain conditions are met. A variety of factors can create orgasm disorders and these could be illnesses, medications, repeated drug use, or physical factors.

4. Pain Disorders:-

Defined as experiencing pain during sexual activity. This category is primarily restricted to women, though men can experience pain during sex if they suffer from a form of priapism, or engage in risky sexual activity which tears the membranes of the penis. In women, the majority of pain related disorders are as a result of insufficient lubrication. The result is that excess friction can tear and disrupt the delicate walls of the vagina and bring forth pain. Anxiety as a result of trauma, bad sexual experience or some other event causing anxiety. Pain may also be caused by the condition vaginismus – which is a disorder in which the muscles of the vagina will sporadically spasm involuntarily during sexual activity.

We are familiar with the idea that sexual functioning and the passion within a relationship changes over time and that’s not to say sex and passion no longer exist, just that it has manifested into something that differs from the beginning of a relationship. These disorders may exist from the beginning of sexual experimentation, or they may develop after a significant event, or they may develop naturally over the course of time. The reasons for these changes have been well documented and can include relationship quality, a person’s age, time together, mental well-being, health and a variety of other factors as well.

Unfortunately, when it comes to thinking about and discussing sexual dysfunction, the majority of people will generally throw it in one of two categories – erectile dysfunction for men, and low libido for women, effectively rendering other forms of dysfunction silent. This is problematic, it places undue pressure on men and women in terms of their sexual function – it is more problematic in women as there appears to be a distinct lack of ‘treatment’ options.

Since the causes for female dysfunction are poorly understood the treatments suggesting a cure aren’t necessarily effective in their one size fits all approach. Indeed a recent study by Ph.D candidate Annika Gunst, which was published in Psychological Medicine Journal, examined the relationship between relationship status and female sexual desire. The report concluded through studying over 2,000 Finnish women that passion and sex drive was influenced by the length of a relationship. Whilst this study has indicated one potential issue, when it comes to sexual function it is largely misunderstood and a highly stigmatized hot topic. In our next article we will look at ways of overcoming sexual dysfunction and bringing back the passion into the bedroom.