When it comes to female libido, sex drive, and performance, the prevalence of advertisements for products addressing erectile dysfunction and low testosterone lead many to believe that these issues belong exclusively to males. Unfortunately, females are just as susceptible to sex drive and performance issues.
Not all females are as oversexed as the lead characters in Sex and the City or Cosmo contributors who freely share stories about their sexual exploits and sizzling romances. Many women and others with female physiology suddenly realize that sex is no longer pleasurable, or they just aren’t as interested in it as they once were.
Is that a problem? Well, it could be. Not only does this issue have the potential to significantly lower your quality of life, but it can also be symptomatic of an underlying hormonal imbalance. And it can actually cause or worsen such an imbalance. Believe it or not, orgasms help maintain a healthy balance.
What’s Normal and What’s Healthy?
When it comes to sex drive and performance, what’s normal or healthy is relative to the individual. Some people naturally have a higher sex drive than others. In addition, various factors impact sex drive, including levels of sex hormones (testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone); stress (financial, work-related, or emotional); illness (diagnosed or not); anxiety; depression; lack of sleep; and any issues related to your partner — after all, sex is generally a team sport.
Avoid the common mistake of comparing yourself to others. Compare your sex drive and the degree of pleasure you feel to your own baseline. Sex drive, performance, and the degree of pleasure can dip below or rise above that line routinely. That’s to be expected. But if these metrics drop too far below baseline or stay there too long, that could be a sign that it’s time to take action — through self-help, medical intervention, or a combination of the two.
Self-Help Approaches for Boosting Your Libido
If you have a mild reduction in libido, the following approaches may provide just the boost you need:
- Consume healthy fats. Avocados, coconut oil, olive oil, nuts, seeds, and small oily fish such as sardines increase levels of good cholesterol, which is a key ingredient for the production of sex hormones.
- Take a Maca supplement. Maca is a South American plant that some studies suggest may be helpful for increasing libido in females, especially those whose lower libido is linked to a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), which is commonly prescribed to treat depression.
- Be more physically active. You don’t have to hit the gym every day and pump iron — light exercise such as walking or normal physical activity such as gardening may be enough to get your blood pumping and increase your sex drive.
- Address any emotional, psychological, stressful, or social issues that may interfere with your sex drive. Most “sexperts” agree that great sex is more mental than physical. Address any sources of psychological or emotional stress, such as work, finances, spirituality, or relationships. Improve your social life by focusing on friendships and social activities and making life more fun in general. Even trying too hard or overthinking sex can throw you off your game, so get out of your head and focus on the wonderful world around you.
- Increase your sensuality. Sensuality is defined as the enjoyment, expression, or pursuit of physical pleasure. The word relates mostly to sexual pleasure, but anything pleasurable increases your sensuality. Focus on all five senses — sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Listen to your favorite music during the day. Surround yourself with eye candy. Use organic body lotions or perfumes that appeal to you. Wear some article of clothing that makes you feel sexy. Indulge in your favorite meal or dessert. When you have sex, engage senses that you normally ignore; for example, if you normally focus mostly on visuals, shift your focus to smells or tactile sensations.
- Research your own sexuality. Find out what turns you on sexually and sensually. Read tasteful erotica and entertain your own sexual fantasies. As you discover what turns you on, get your partner involved in making it happen, assuming you have a partner. If you’re without a sexual partner, indulge in your fantasies on your own (if you catch our drift). Steer clear of vibrators and porn for the most part because they tend to overstimulate in the short term and can lead to long-term issues that reduce a person’s libido.
Seek Functional Medicine Help for Low Libido
Sometimes the spirit is willing, but the body just won’t cooperate. Regardless of whether you’ve tried any of the self-help approaches presented in the previous section, it’s a good idea to get checked for any medical issues that may be standing between you and great sex. Here are some ways that we here at BioDesign Wellness Center may be able to help improve your sex drive and increase the pleasure you feel during sex:
- Order targeted lab tests. Certain biomarkers, such as low testosterone or sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), may indicate underlying imbalances that we can address via hormone treatment or supplementation. If you’ve ever been on the Pill, you should have some labs done to identify any imbalances in your body chemistry the Pill may have caused.
- Conduct a medically supervised and gentle detox. Regardless of whether you’ve taken the pill, you could be estrogen-dominant, which can cause numerous symptoms, including reduced sex drive. A medically supervised, gentle, and natural detox can safely flush excess hormones from your body, restoring your natural hormone balance and thereby restoring your sex drive. Visit our Detox page for details.
- Address micronutrient deficiencies. Micronutrients, such as iron, are essential for establishing and maintaining healthy hormone levels. We can order lab tests to identify levels and prescribe supplements to address any deficiencies. Don’t try to “self-medicate” with supplements. Unless you test, you have no way of knowing whether you have too much, too little, or just the right amount of any micronutrient. Taking supplements without knowing your levels can do more harm than good.
- Provide bio–identical hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Unlike conventional HRT, which uses synthetic hormones, our HRT uses natural hormones that are identical to those your body produces. We offer testosterone therapy via pellets, creams, or injections, and HRT with estrogen or progesterone to balance your hormones based on your lab test results and symptoms. Visit our Hormone Therapy page for details.
Remember, if something doesn’t feel right with your body, then something is wrong. This is as true regarding your sexual health as it is in any other aspect of your health and well-being. If your sex drive seems to have been driven right out of your life, or you’re not getting the same pleasure out of it, find out what’s wrong.
We encourage you to start with possible physical causes and then proceed from there. We can quickly identify and address any physical/medical issues, or we can rule them out. Either way, you will be that much closer to reclaiming your sexual vigor.
– – – – – – –
Disclaimer: The information in this blog post about boosting female libido with functional medicine is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect current medical thinking or practices. No information contained in this post should be construed as medical advice from the medical staff at BioDesign Wellness Center, Inc., nor is this post intended to be a substitute for medical counsel on any subject matter. No reader of this post should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, this post without seeking the appropriate medical advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a licensed medical professional in the recipient’s state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction.