More sex, less stress

Stress affects me just as much as the next woman. I break out. I become short-tempered. And, of course, I reach for the nearest chocolate. But worry never seems to rock my sex life.

Or it didn’t, until a few months ago, when an unusually large number of looming deadlines began to curb my once unshakable libido. My husband, Steve, and I were under constant pressure, and at bedtime, I was so not in the mood. Steve’s blasé reaction to my refusal showed he wasn’t either. After two weeks without action (a long time for us), I began to worry.

“The grind” used to be what we did every night. Now it had become the definition of our days. They say stress kills, and I would argue that it’s true, especially when it comes to sex drive.
“Stress makes you tired, distracted and unmotivated to do anything, much less have sex,” says Laura Berman, Ph.D., director of the Berman Center for women’s sexual health in Chicago. “When a woman is stressed, the hormonal changes in her body trigger a chemical reaction causing sex hormone–binding globulin to bind with testosterone cells, so they’re unavailable for libido and sexual response.”