3 Natural Ways to Boost Your Sex Drive
Low libido. A common experience that is nothing to be ashamed of, but is oftentimes a subject we tend to shy away from.
There are many common challenges that get in our way of a satisfying sex life. Things like changes in our relationships, prescription medications, hormones, alcohol use, lack of sleep, and stress.
(Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash)
With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, we decided to do a little research (okay, a lot of research) to figure out what natural supplements, vitamins, and minerals could have an effect on low libido.
Let’s take a closer look at the major causes of a decreased sex drive as well as natural supplements, vitamins, and minerals that can help in each of those areas.
Sleep
Besides making you too tired for sex, lack of sleep opens the door for all sorts of mental and physical health complications. Things like Anxiety and Depression are often worsened by lack of sleep and can also have an impact on your libido.
“The connection between sex and sleep goes much deeper than the fact that both are typically done in bed; often, a healthy sex life will lead to better sleep health and vice-versa. If your sex or sleep life is suffering, chances are that one can be improved by improving the other.“
- Psychology Today
A study by The Journal of Sexual Medicine has shown that sleeping just an hour longer can increase a woman’s libido (1). Another study by the American Medical Association states that a lack of sleep ‘kills a man’s sex drive’ (due in part to a reduction in testosterone) (2).
Luckily, in addition to creating a healthy sleeping routine, there are several natural minerals that have been proven to help you get a better night’s sleep so that you can be up all night ;)
Magnesium for Sleep
Research has shown that supplemental magnesium can improve sleep quality and have a stabilizing effect on mood (3). The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine found that when magnesium levels are low, it’s harder for us to stay asleep (4).
Did you know Insomnia is just one common symptom of Magnesium deficiency?
Maintaining healthy magnesium levels often leads to deeper, more restful sleep. Magnesium plays a role in restorative sleep by helping maintain healthy levels of the neurotransmitter GABA that promotes relaxation and sleep.
Magnesium also helps regulate the hormone melatonin, which you’ve probably heard of especially if you’ve ever had trouble sleeping. Melatonin helps your body to know when to be awake and when it's time to sleep (5).
When your body's Melatonin production is out of whack, it can cause your body to feel away when you're trying to go to bed, and groggy when it's time to wake up in the morning.
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Stress
From busy lives to work or relationship stress, from taking care of the kids to low self-esteem or body image, stress comes from all areas of life. If not properly managed, stress can cause physiological damage and can really put a damper on your libido.
In stressful situations, your body releases a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is responsible for setting off physiological responses associated with stress. If you look back on a high-stress situation in your life, sex was likely the last thing on your mind. Chronic stress diminishes your sex drive and may also lead to things like insulin resistance (which we’ll touch on later) and infertility.
Supplements may not be the first thing that come to mind as something that can help with stress, but there is actually a fair amount of research behind the stress-reducing abilities of several vitamins and minerals.
Vitamin B12 for Stress
B vitamins may have many positive effects on mood, cognition, and general health (6) including stress.
B vitamins support your adrenal glands by helping to prevent the breakdown of too much dopamine and serotonin during stressful times, leaving enough for us to remain resilient and energized (7).
Research states that there is a reason to believe that supplementing with B-vitamins including B6, B12, and B9 may influence cortisol secretion (8).
Numerous studies have been done in which subjects have reported decreases in stress, reductions in scores on a Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, reductions in fatigue and improvements on a multi-tasking stressor test, alleviated chronic stress, significantly lower ratings of personal strain on an Occupational Stress Inventory, and improved emotional recovery following a substantial acute stressor after several weeks supplementation with a vitamin B complex (9).
Supplementation has also been associated with significantly greater improvements in mood, anxiety, and stress.
A recent meta-analysis concluded that supplementation with multivitamins and minerals, particularly those with high dose B vitamins, has a beneficial effect on perceived stress, mood, and mild psychiatric symptoms in healthy individuals (10).
Vitamin B12 also helps our bodies maintain magnesium levels, therefore helping additionally with both stress and sleep.
Magnesium for Stress
Being deficient in Magnesium is associated with heightened stress and anxiety.
Recent research indicates that magnesium deficiency can negatively affect gut health and is linked to anxiety behaviors (11). Supplemental magnesium has been shown to have a stabilizing effect on mood (12).
Stress and Magnesium work in a cycle: stress can cause the body difficulty in maintaining magnesium levels and getting enough magnesium can help improve your resilience to stress.
Both stress and low magnesium levels play a role in things such as headaches, disrupted sleeping patterns, Fibromyalgia, tremors, panic attack disorders, generalized anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, and asthma (13).
Simply put, Magnesium is vital to healthy cell function and therefore to our overall health and wellness.
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Hormones
Best-selling author, leading expert on hormones, and Harvard-trained MD, Dr. Sarah Gottfried put it like this,
“I consider sex drive to be the canary in the coal mine of overall physical and mental health—and sadly, the state of women’s health, longevity, and happiness is declining in many ways.
As a result, low libido is common, but few understand that the root cause is hormonal, not some intrinsic problem or lack of love and connection. Or people know hormones and sex go together but don't really know which hormones matter or how they interact to create sexual interest, toe-curling orgasms, or robust health. Or even more important: what to do about it.”
Hormonal imbalances play a significant role in things like libido for both men and women. Let’s look at some minerals that can help balance hormones that influence sex drive.
Zinc for Hormones
Erectile dysfunction (ED) is one of the most common sexual problems that men deal with. There can be many causes of ED from nutrient deficiencies to depression. While your doctor can further help you identify the cause of your ED, in recent years, erectile dysfunction has been found to be a symptom of Zinc deficiency.
Zinc helps boost the male body’s testosterone production, low levels of which can lead to things like ED, low sex drive, and premature ejaculation (14).
Testosterone levels decrease naturally as men age. A 1996 study examining zinc supplementation in elderly men showed that with increased zinc intake, testosterone levels in the elderly men almost doubled (15).
For those with zinc deficiency, it seems zinc can have quite a dramatic impact on testosterone levels.
Magnesium for Hormones
Magnesium is needed for more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body, so it’s no wonder it keeps coming up!
Magnesium is required for adequate production of hormones, including progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, leptin, cortisol and growth hormones.
Magnesium helps make it harder for testosterone to latch onto proteins in the body, allowing it to more easily be distributed to the blood (16), helping it to kick up your sex drive.
Being deficient in Magnesium can also cause insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is a condition in which your body does not respond to insulin as it should, resulting in increasing blood sugar.
Among other things, high insulin levels and insulin resistance creates sex hormone problems and can lead to infertility. It can also create fatigue after meals, sugar cravings, blood sugar swings, high blood pressure, problems with blood clotting, and increased inflammation often accompanied by (you guessed it) low sex drive.
For men, some symptoms of Erectile Dysfunction can include low sex drive and premature ejaculation. In a study published by BJU International in 2006, it was determined that,
“premature ejaculation is significantly related with a lower level of seminal plasma magnesium” but that, “the pathological physiology of this relationship requires more investigation” (17).
(Pictured: Passion cream formula by Herbal Mana)
Passion
Introducing our newest blend just in time for Valentine’s Day: Passion
Passion cream combines all natural ingredients like Magnesium, Zinc, Vitamin B12, MSM, and a blend of 5 essential oils specifically chosen to help increase sexual desire and function, improve your mood and boost energy:
- Clary Sage: May help balance estrogen & progesterone hormones, boost mood, reduce cortisol levels (the "stress hormone"), and increase sexual desire.
- Geranium: May help balance sex hormones, relieve stress, reduce symptoms of depression, and reduce anxiety.
- Rose: May help balance sex hormones, relieve stress & anxiety, boost mood, reduce symptoms of depression, and increase sexual desire.
- Sandalwood: May help improve mental clarity & focus, relieve anxiety & stress, reduce symptoms of depression, and increase sexual desire.
- Ylang Ylang: May help uplift mood, increase sexual desire, relieve stress, increase energy, increase circulation, reduce inflammation, promote a healthy heart, and may reduce blood pressure.
Passion is great for both men and women with cute, natural pink coloring (from the Vitamin B12) and an amazing smell - you won’t want to wait to put it on each day!
Try Passion cream and Passion diffuser drops to help bring desire into the bedroom and a spring in your step this Valentine’s Day ❤️
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25772315
https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/2011/may/sleep-loss-lowers-testosterone-in-healthy-young-men
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5452159/
http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1988/pdf/1988-v03n04-p197.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12030424
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3847740/#B10-nutrients-05-04429
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4772032/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3847740/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3847740/#B22-nutrients-05-04429
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23362497
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25773775
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5452159/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507250/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8875519
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8875519
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3958794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16879686
**These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition.