Manage Stress and Have a Healthy Sex Life

 Hey there. 🙂

Do you often wonder if sex and stress are friends or foes? At first glance, the answer might seem simple – stress kills desire. But I can tell you it’s a little more complicated than that. And even if stress does kick your libido to the curb, there are many ways to manage stress and have a healthy sex life while keeping your connection strong within your relationship. 

Sex and Stress= Increased Desire

Sex and stress – are two key elements you hear about all the time, and usually, it’s about how stress negatively impacts sex drive. But for others, it’s about how stress propels them towards sex. 

The reasons for stress increasing sex drive are several. We all have a way of relating to people in our lives. For some of you, your way of relating to people in times of stress has evolved to create a desire for sexual connection. 

This means the more stressed you are, the more passion and arousal you’ll want and can experience. 

When you’re in a relationship and going through stress, that stress gets your libido going because you know it’s your favorite decompressing activity.

Did you know that the act of sex releases feel-good hormones and combats negative stress hormones, ultimately leading you to feel more relaxed, happy, and blissful about life? So, instead of having to wind down to have sex – you have sex to wind down. ​

However, for the majority, stress has the opposite effect on sex drive. 

Sex and Stress = Low or No Desire

Stress is a psychological and physiological experience, and did you know that stress floods you with stressful thoughts and stress hormones? These hormones signal to your brain that you’re in danger. And when your brain thinks it’s in danger(whether it’s a deadline at work or something about the kids), – the thought of having sex goes right out the window. 

Here are four examples of stress that can put a wrench in your sex life.

1. Stress Over Work

When you’re caught up in thoughts about an upcoming presentation to prepare or a frustrating client – sex is the furthest thing from your mind. It’s one of the reasons why sex and stress don’t mix well: you’re not thinking about sex when you’re stressed. What you focus on tends to grow—the stuff you don’t focus on tends to vanish (like your sex drive). If all you think about is work, expecting yourself to want sex is like expecting a miracle.

I don’t say this to be rude, but your view of your sex drive can be a bit off and may come with unrealistic expectations of yourself, your partner, and your sex life. You expect to want sex spontaneously, out of the blue, no matter what you’ve got going on or how stressed you are.

If not tended to, these expectations can make you believe something is fundamentally wrong with you when there isn’t. And when you think you’re broken, it becomes increasingly more challenging to feel a longing for sex. 

Understanding that sex and stress are natural opponents can help you see nothing wrong with you.

2. Stress Over Taking Care of Your Kids

Knowing how important your brain is to sexual desire – it’s easy to see how the day-to-day of raising kids can negatively impact your desire for a quick romp in the sack. If your brain needs to focus on sex to want sex, drying snotty noses or helping your kids with homework isn’t the most excellent foreplay. The stress of caring for upset babies, kids, or teenagers quickly shows how your state of mind can lead to little to no desire for sex with your partner.

3. Stress About Your Relationship

Along with the daily stressors of work and kids, the state of your relationship is also a critical factor in whether you feel like having sex. And this is where managing expectations in relationships is so crucial. 

If you want to stay close to your partner and increase intimacy, you need to get realistic about what this entails. Expecting to be as sexually turned on by your partner of eleven years isn’t (for most people) realistic. 

This doesn’t mean long-term relationships can’t be sexually and romantically fulfilling. It means getting clear on whether or not your expectations of your partner and yourself are fair. Suppose you’ve been annoyed with your partner lately, fighting over finances, or struggling to commit to ten minutes of intimate time. In that case, whatever it is, expecting these stressors not to affect your sex life isn’t fair to either of you. 

Communication is key here, as is seeing yourself and your partner in a different light. When you talk about the things that bother you, you can often view things with an open mind rather than a defensive mindset, creating intimacy where there wasn’t before.

4. Stress Over Having Sex

Alongside all the stressors of work, kids, and your relationship, – there is stress over having sex that can put the kibosh on your desire. 

Stuff like: 

Feeling like you have to have sex once a week. 

Feeling like you have to perform during sex by having explosive orgasms. 

Feeling like you have to get turned on as quickly as your partner does.

These stressful thoughts can make it increasingly tricky to feel like you want to have sex with your partner. And if this sounds like you, know it’s okay that you don’t want sex right now. However, understanding the relationship between stress and sex is good for you and your partner as it will open the lines of honest communication about your wants, needs, and desires.

Keep Your Connection Strong When Little to No Sex Happens

So, what’s the solution if stress is a regular part of your life? Well, there are lots of them, and it depends on the stressor and how you’d like to deal with it. 

You must learn how to deal with stress in a way that honors you and, at the same time, discover ways to connect with your partner. 

You can keep your connection strong when you develop stress management techniques and pair them with low-stress ways of connecting with your partner. You both must agree on ways to connect. Sometimes, it’s about establishing a morning ritual for sex and emotional connection. Other times, it’s about making a commitment at the end of the day for intimate eye contact or cuddling and touching each other. And maybe it’s about holding hands when you go for a walk together.

Creating rituals that infuse your relationship with intimacy, even when you’re short on time or stressed, can deepen a deep bond between you and your partner. You both agree that sex, intimacy, and connection are vital to nurturing what you have built. 

Final Thoughts on Sex and Stress 

Whether stress kickstarts your desire or blocks it – it’s apparent stress is a powerful force you cannot control – yet you need to learn how to deal with it in ways that resonate for you. It could be a daily gentle yoga practice, meditation, breathwork, or other self-care methods, such as carving out a candlelit bath for yourself or taking a long walk on the beach or in a beautiful forest or park. Maybe there’s that Jazzercise class that makes you feel like you are on top of the world – whatever it is -do it for you. 

When you pair taking care of yourself and managing your stress with ways to boost connection in times of little to no sex, your relationship will hold firm.

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Thanks for reading; I hope you leave with insight on managing your daily life stressors so you can have a healthy sex life in your relationship. Remember that sometimes stress can increase sexual desire, and other times it can put a wrench in it -if you allow it to. 

There are many ways to manage daily stressors so you can be present and with your partner during sex on all levels- physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

I'd love to hear from you by a comment.

-Shannon Marie