Stress has a huge impact on our sex lives. It changes everything from the initial desire to have sex, through to arousal and ultimately the ability to orgasm. So, here are five ways you can reduce the negative impacts of stress on your sex life.
1. Have sex earlier in the day
Christianity, to believe that sex should only be done under the cover of night. This is a throw-back to when sex was considered to be sinful and thus improper to be done in the light of day. After all, you might see your spouse naked and be aroused, and we certainly can’t have that. The truth is that chemically, night is about the worst time to have sex.
Cortisol (the stress hormone) is at its peak at night. This is true for men and women, but this tends to effect women more. The entire day’s worth of stress has been building to this point and now you’re about as stressed as you’re going to be. This stress reduces your ability to utilize dopamine and nitric oxide (as mentioned in the reader’s questions), which are both required for arousal and ultimately orgasm.
2. Don’t ignore your health
One of the keys to dealing with sex optimally is to have good health. Our bodies have been designed by an amazing creator to deal with whatever stress throws at us. That said, it does that best when we treat our bodies well. God originally designed us to eat only live plants, get plenty of exercise caring for the garden and lots of sunshine.
Unfortunately in our culture, we tend to eat too much meat, processed food, exercise little (if at all) and rarely see the sun. This is not the best way to deal with stress. So, try to eat more live plants (fresh fruits and vegetables), drink more water (very important!), get out and exercise, even if it’s just a walk around the block, and make sure you get sunshine every day. Take a walk at lunch if you have no other time.
3. Recognize that you’re stressed and talk about it
When we’re stressed, we’re preparing for a fight, to run for our life, or to play dead. And guess what people do in relationships when they’re stressed: They lash out, run away or shut down.
Talking through the stress accomplishes two things:
Firstly, it can help close the stress cycle. Our bodies are designed to handle stress in a particular fashion. In the case of a lion, we get stressed, in order to either fight or run away or play dead until the lion gets bored. But eventually either we kill the lion, escape the lion or the lion leaves. We feel safe even, and the stress cycle is done.
Secondly, talking helps our spouses understand that we’re under a lot of stress and gives them a heads up to give us a bit more grace than usual. We also need to give ourselves permission to give ourselves some more grace than usually as well. They (and we) need to know that when we lash out, run away or shut down, it’s not because of them. It’s because we don’t feel safe and need help getting back to safety.
4. Get more sleep
Sleep helps release stress and thus lowers the impact of stress. As well, a rested mind doesn’t need to sacrifice as many high-brain functions to deal with the stressful situation. Find ways to get more sleep, or better sleep, even if it involves naps.
5. Make sex a priority
Here’s the difficult one. For 90% of the population, stress decreases desire. However, for most people, sex decreases stress. The problem is that our culture teaches us not to have sex unless we’re “in the mood”. This is one of the worst lies married people can be taught. From movies and TV shows, we learn that sex drives are proactive and often spontaneous, but the truth is that almost everyone has a reactive component to their sex drives as well. In fact some men, and most women, only have that reactive component most of the time.
Sex decreases cortisol levels and also helps in a bunch of other ways. It also produces dopamine which can help combat depression, which often either contributes or is a result of stress. As well, oxytocin released during sex actually has repetitive properties that helps fix the physical damage to our systems caused by high stress levels. Cool, right?
Having trouble giving in to sex? Ask for a massage first. That will help decrease the stress levels, hopefully enough to make starting sex possible. But, you have to give your spouse permission to arouse you, and give yourself permission to lean into it.
