Sexual desire, or “libido,” is an important part of most romantic relationships. When sexual desire fades, or disappears completely, it can impact your quality of life and your relationship with your partner. For most people, sexual desire fluctuates over time. It’s natural to go through phases when you don’t crave sex as much. But, if your libido has been low for an extended time, and if it’s causing you stress or sadness, it might be time to consult.
People with depression also have decreased energy, feel badly about themselves and might view their partners through a negative filter, all of which impacts sex drive. Here, we are providing guidelines on 23 useful ways to overcome fading of libido associated with depression.
Glittering oneself
1. Practice self-care
Self-care is all about identifying your own needs and meet all those needs. Focus on yourself and do some activities that nurture your physical, mental, and emotional health. Practicing good self-care can improve your mood, reduce anxiety, and teach you how to treat others.
It’s so important to make sure you take good care of your body, mind, and soul every day, not just when you get sick. Learning how to eat right, reduce stress, exercise regularly, and take a time-out when you need it are touchstones of self–care and can help you stay healthy, happy, and resilient. Hence, it improves the need to be love and enhance the sexual desire and libido energy to improve relationship.
2. Regular exercise
Strength training, Kegels, yoga, walking, and swimming may all improve sexual function and libido in both men and women. One-time acute exercise sessions seem to boost sexual arousal via activation of the sympathetic nervous system, but it’s unclear whether this finding holds in habitual exercisers.
3. Avoid drugs and alcohols
Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol over a long period can reduce your sex drive, so it is a good idea to not drink excessive amounts. Men and women are advised not to drink more than 14 alcohol units a week on a regular basis.
4. Avoid use of contraceptives
Certain medicines can sometimes reduce libido including medicines for high blood pressure, antidepressants, anti-psychotic, and hormonal contraception. Before taking medicine, check the leaflet that comes with medicine to see if low libido is listed as possible side effect.
If you think a medicine is affecting your sex drive, then consult your doctor and switch to alternative medicine.
5. Make time for relationship
Depression can make someone feel very alone. When you love someone who is depressed you may feel isolated from them. If you and your partner are trying to work through sexual difficulties in your relationship that stem from depression, approach the problem solving from a team perspective. Remember, you are in it together. Reinforce your partnership often and in ways that are separate from sex.
6. Start opening up
Communication is an important part of a healthy relationship. When you and your partner are dealing with sexual difficulties, it’s even more important that you can talk to each other. Discussing these topics may be emotionally intense and will require both of you to find (or make) time for the conversation, but it’s important that you do. Maintaining open dialogue is part of keeping your relationship strong.
You might be hesitant to acknowledge the difficulties, but you won’t be able to work toward a solution until they are out in the open and up for discussion. Talking with your doctor or therapist first can help you figure out how to best approach the conversation with your partner when you’re ready.
Pop up in mind
7. Redefine intimacy
You don’t need a hot and steamy tangle in the sheets to reap the benefits of a close physical relationship. If you’re not up for going all the way or even part of the way simply holding hands, snuggling or laughing together is helpful.
8. Don’t make comparison
There’s no right amount of sex. Do what feels right for you and your relationship. Everyone is unique in its own way. Bill Gates Quote: “Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.”
9. Re-spark sex life
Remember, you should never compare your beginning to someone else’s middle. You don’t know what they’ve been through, and instead you should be happy. Sex is not always spontaneous and easy. Like any other aspect of a healthy relationship, good sex takes time and energy.
10. Focus on sensations
One thing that caused butterflies when you first met was the chemical cocktail in your bodies. Recreate this by doing something novel. At the beginning of a relationship, couples often enjoy deep kissing but over time they tend to stop. Continuing to hug, kiss, cuddle is an important component of a healthy relationship.
There’s nothing wrong with getting comfortable in your relationship, it’s actually one of the best parts of being in a long-term relationship, but it’s imperative that this comfort doesn’t cause you to overlook your partner or to give up on the possibility of a little excitement.
Relieve stress
11. Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is a holistic healing treatment that uses natural plant extracts to promote health and well-being. Sometimes it’s called essential oil therapy. Aromatherapy uses aromatic essential oils medicinally to improve the health of the body, mind, and spirit. It enhances both physical and emotional health.
It may promote relaxation and help relieve stress. It has also been used to help treat a wide range of physical and mental conditions, including burns, infections, depression, insomnia, and high blood pressure.
12. Meditation
Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that can benefit both your emotional well-being and your overall health. And these benefits don’t end when your meditation session ends. Meditation can help carry you more calmly through your day and may help you manage symptoms of certain medical conditions.
It isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and get backs sexual energy.
13. Guided imagery
Guided imagery (also known as guided affective imagery) is a mind-body intervention by which a trained practitioner or teacher helps a participant or patient to evoke and generate mental images that simulate or re-create the sensory perception of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, movements, and images associated with touch, such as texture, temperature, and pressure, as well as imaginative or mental content that the participant or patient experiences as defying conventional sensory categories, and that may precipitate strong emotions or feelings in the absence of the stimuli to which correlating sensory receptors are receptive.
It helps in regaining libido and sexual energy associated with depression.
14. Journaling
Moreover, journaling can help you become more self-aware and pinpoint unhealthy patterns that may be negatively impacting your sex life, such as the partners you’re choosing, the boundaries you’re setting (or lack thereof), insecurities you might have, and so on.
15. Muscle relaxation
Progressive muscle relaxation is a method that helps relieve that tension. In progressive muscle relaxation, you tense a group of muscles as you breathe in, and you relax them as you breathe out. You work on your muscle groups in a certain order. When your body is physically relaxed, you cannot feel anxious.
16. Put bedroom myths to bed
Nothing compounds depression’s sexual side effects like falling for “bedtime fables” tall tales about sex that notch up the pressure and make it impossible to perform. Here’s a reality check about depression and sex. Everyone you know is not having mind-blowing sex all the time. And a real sex life doesn’t mean you have to have an orgasm every single time you have sex. Finally, remember that for most people, depression is temporary and can be treated.
17. Lube up
Women who are having a difficult time becoming aroused because of depression or depression treatment may experience vaginal dryness. Unfortunately, this sexual side effect can create a vicious cycle: Without lubrication, sex is painful, which means you’ll be even less inspired to try again the next time. Fortunately, there is a quick fix: lubricant. Once thought of as taboo, lubricants are now talked about openly and are heavily advertised on television so they’re easy to find (and use!).
18. Keep doing it
Even if sex is the last thing on your mind, it’s important to keep those flames burning. Having sex increases the chances that you’ll return to a regular sex life once you feel better. Intimacy might give you a mental break from the depression.
19. Fool around for longer
The sexual side effects of both depression and depression treatment are highly personal. For some people, arousal might simply take a bit longer than it used to. And few people complain when their partner spends more time on foreplay! Plan on taking your time and playfully experimenting to find out what feels good. An added bonus: taking that extra time will be exciting for the partner who is not depressed, too.
Medication and therapy
20. Anti-depressants
Antidepressants can affect your sex drive at almost any dose. However, it makes sense that higher doses result in an increased risk of sexual side effects. If you are experiencing sexual side effects, ask your doctor about switching to a smaller dose. Never adjust your dosage without speaking with your doctor first.
It’s important to note that if you decide to take this course of action, you will likely need to be monitored closely for several weeks upon switching to a smaller dose.
21. Mindfulness based cognitive behavioral therapy
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) combines cognitive behavioral techniques with mindfulness strategies in order to help individuals better understand and manage their thoughts and emotions in order to achieve relief from feelings of distress.
It builds upon the principles of cognitive therapy by using techniques such as mindfulness meditation to teach people to consciously pay attention to their thoughts and feelings without placing any judgments upon them.
22. Couple therapy
Couples counseling that addresses relationship issues may also help increase feelings of intimacy and desire. Couples therapy is a type of psychotherapy in which a therapist with clinical experience working with couples, most often a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), helps two people involved in a romantic relationship gain insight into their relationship, resolve conflict and improve relationship satisfaction.
23. Sex therapy
Sex therapy is a type of talk therapy that’s designed to help individuals and couples address medical, psychological, personal, or interpersonal factors impacting sexual satisfaction. Sex therapy is a specialized type of psychotherapy, a general term for treating mental health problems by talking with a mental health professional. Through sex therapy, you can address concerns about sexual function, sexual feelings and intimacy, either in individual therapy or couples or family therapy.
Summary
If you’re depressed, you may feel like you don’t have enough energy for sex. Since depression can also cause you to enjoy activities less, you may find that you don’t enjoy sex the way you once did. The process can also work in reverse. The suggested ways are effective in dealing with low libido or less sexual desire. Apart from it, psychotherapy helps in overcoming such issues.
Moving forward with Psychotherapy
Fortunately, Ahealo.com offers a global ePsychotherapy platform that allows clients to book an online anonymous private appointment with a broad skill range of psychotherapists at an affordable cost and desired schedule.
Alternatively, if you need to seek psychotherapy, be sure to check out web.ahealo.com. Ahealo is an online psychotherapy platform with a diverse range of psychotherapists for many different fields of mental challenges. Ahealo provides ePsychotherapy at an affordable price, confidential, convenient (through a web page 1-1 private video call), and at your comfortable schedule.
With these options, we believe your low libido associated with depression issues can be resolved soon.
Stay well.
You must be logged in to post a comment.