Over the past few months, the passion you once shared with your spouse has dwindled by a lot. You don’t have the spark that you once had. It’s starting to affect your entire relationship.
The root of your problem most likely has to do with your sexual health. If you’re feeling stressed or your diet is a little off, it can impact your libido.
The good news is there are ways to fix your problem that doesn’t involve invasive treatment or medication. We can help you get started. Keep reading to learn how to live a healthy lifestyle and put the passion back in the bedroom.
What Causes Low Libido?
Before we talk about how to improve libido, it’s important for you to know what lowers it in the first place. There are a few health issues both, mental and physical that can cause problems.
Mental Health
There’s nothing that can put a stopper in your libido quite like depression and anxiety. It’s hard to get in the mood when your mind is focused on financial struggles or a stressful job.
Most people with depression lose interest in all things that they once enjoyed. This includes sex with their partner.
Aging
As you age, you go through a variety of hormonal changes. These changes can cause your libido to slow down. For men, this starts around the age of 30.
For women, changes begin when menopause starts around the age of 40. Many of the chronic diseases associated with aging can also impact a person’s sex drive.
Medical Problems
Certain medical issues such as heart disease and diabetes can impact blood flow to the genitals. For men, the prostate is an essential part of sexual health and wellness. To this end, one of the leading signs of prostate cancer is erectile dysfunction.
As far as women go, there’s a chronic condition known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder that can stop them from having sexual fantasies or desires.
Some medications can also do more harm than good when it comes to libido. Lowered sex drive is a common side effect of many antidepressants, blood pressure meds, and birth control pills.
Sedentary Lifestyle
Sitting at a desk all day and then coming home to continue to sit can affect your sexual desire. Living a sedentary lifestyle is greatly linked to obesity.
Obesity can lower your body image and confidence, which leads to a lack of sexual desire. Obesity can also cause a lot of the chronic conditions that we mentioned above.
Relationship Problems
There’s a certain level of intimacy and trust that goes into sexual desire. Without either of these things, the time you spend with your partner in the bedroom will suffer.
Even if the frequency that you have sex doesn’t change, the enjoyment will.
How to Improve Libido
The good news is that all of the problems that we’ve discussed can be fixed. With a few lifestyle changes, you’ll get your spark back and start enjoying alone time with your significant other again.
Exercise
No matter how busy your schedule is, you need to pencil in a little time for exercise. Getting off your feet will release feel-good endorphins in your brain that can keep stress at bay.
Keeping a good body image will give you a boost of confidence in the bedroom. Being physically fit will allow you to try out new positions that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. It can add some much-needed spice to your sex life.
Women can do pelvic floor exercises that will strengthen the muscles in the pelvis area. Doing so will increase sexual ability and satisfaction.
Kick Stress to the Curb
We can’t tell you not to feel anxiety. Everyone experiences it now and again, and a little stress is actually good for you. It can motivate you to get things done.
It only begins to impact your sexual health when all you feel is stress. You might not be able to get your mind off of work or your financial situation, but you can take strides to manage your anxiety levels.
You can meditate every night before you go to bed. Doing a few deep breathing exercises when the stress kicks in can stop it from getting out of control.
Again, working out can help you manage stress. Go on a walk each morning before you head to work. Some people use yoga for this purpose as well.
Setting aside a little time to participate in a hobby that you love can help you distract yourself from other things. If your situation is too bad for you to settle down, consider unloading on a friend or making an appointment with a therapist.
Get Some Rest
It’s hard to manage your stress levels if you don’t get enough sleep. Rest plays a huge role in mental health and physical health. Sex isn’t that enjoyable once you hit a certain level of exhaustion, either.
You should be getting your recommended 8 hours every night. If you find that sleep is eluding you, try to make a few changes to your schedule. If you can get yourself going to bed and waking up around the same time every day, that will help you get a good rhythm going.
Drinking a few coffees in the morning is no big deal. It can wake you up and keep you going. You do want to cut off your caffeine intake past a certain time in the afternoon, however.
Caffeine can stay in your system for up to ten hours. That means if you chug a cup of coffee at three in the afternoon, you’ll find yourself struggling to sleep when you lay down at ten or eleven.
Avoid exercising right before you go to bed. Physical activity will hype you up too much to sleep. Set your thermostat down low and keep your room as dark as possible.
Stop staring at screens an hour before you go to bed. All electronics give off a blue light that can disrupt your sleeping patterns.
Work on Your Relationship
If there’s something wrong with your relationship, you’ll need to fix that to open intimacy back up. The biggest piece of advice we have for you in this regard is to talk to your partner.
They can’t make strides to patch up the issue if they don’t know that it exists. After dating for a certain number of years, it’s easy to forget about date night.
Don’t get so busy that you stop doing things with the person you love. Doing activities outside of the bedroom can help increase intimacy between you and your partner.
Foreplay
There’s more to sex than penetration. In fact, most women say that they can’t have an orgasm without a little foreplay. Spend some time focusing on touch and kissing.
Change Your Diet
As we’ve already discussed, you’ll need to be in optimal health if you want to increase your libido. For many people, this means making changes to what you eat.
Eating a balanced diet full of fruits, veggies, healthy fats, lean proteins, and whole grains can keep your body going like a well-oiled machine by preventing obesity and other diseases.
Reduce Alcohol Consumption
Having a single glass of wine every now and again isn’t a bad thing, but you don’t want to overdo it. Too much alcohol can make sexual performance difficult.
It can also prevent you from experiencing REM sleep, and it acts as a depressant.
Put Down the Cigarettes
Good heart health is important for sexual health. Smoking cigarettes isn’t exactly great for your cardiovascular system. Smoking can also put a damper on sperm production.
As soon as you quit cigarettes, your energy levels should increase, and you’ll find that you have a much more active sex drive.
Stay On Top of Your Sexual Health
As you can see, there are a number of things that can drag down your sexual health. You can solve many of these things by taking care of yourself.
Get enough sleep each night, change up your diet, stop smoking, exercise, and do what you can to manage your stress levels. Talking to your partner and trying out foreplay can also get things going in the bedroom again.
For more ways to increase your libido and work on your health and wellness, visit our blog!
