Fatigue and stress can lead to a decrease in libido. Let’s look at the psychological phenomena linked to anxiety that can cause a lack of harmful sexual desire for the couple.
Anxiety and depression are common problems that affect individual productivity and the ability to fulfill themselves. These disorders are a real problem at the health and social level, sincemore than 300 million people suffer from depressive disorders and 260 million pathologies related to anxiety. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, on average, one in four people has an emotional problem in the world.
Anxiety, stress and emotional fatigue do not manifest themselves solely with negative thoughts and lack of concentration. Clear physiological signs also appear, including intestinal problems, weakness and tiredness, rapid breathing (hyperventilation), rapid heart rate and lack of sexual desire, among other things.
Like any other pathology, these emotional pictures manifest themselves both physically and psychologically. Again, just like a sprain or bacterial infection, these clinical entities should be taken seriously and treated as soon as possible. Here you will find a summary of the mechanisms that translate into lack of sexual desire as a result of fatigue and stress.
- We recommend you read: “6 possible causes of loss of sexual desire in the couple”
The basics of anxiety and fatigue
Anxiety is a normal emotion in living beings, as it occurs in situations in which the subject feels threatened by an intrinsic or extrinsic danger. This evolutionary response is vital to understanding life on Earth, as animals must be able to perceive danger and react quickly to it. When a threat arises, long-term physiological functions are relegated in order to achieve an immediate and effective response capacity.
Studies have shown that people with anxiety disorders (chronic anxiety lasting more than six months) have higher than average circulating levels of noradrenaline, a hormone and neurotransmitter involved in the stress response. This catecholamine influences the heart rate and involuntary muscle contraction, increasing the rate of beats per minute.
In addition to this, noradrenaline allows the release of stored glucose, an increase in blood flow to voluntary muscles and an increase in the amount of oxygen the brain receives. All these physiological events have a common goal: to prepare the individual for flight and fighting.
These and other hormones keep people with anxiety disorders physiologically “worried” for varying periods of time, beyond the immediacy of the danger posed. This usually translates into fatigue and asthenia, that is, both physical and mental exhaustion due to the effort and demand involved in the mere fact of existing in a condition of constant alertness.
It is not entirely clear whether fatigue is caused by the symptoms of chronic anxiety (muscle tension and lack of sleep, among others) or by the intrinsic activity of the circulating hormonesalready described, but one thing is clear: both sensations are two sides of the same coin.
- We recommend you read: “Muscle problems and anxiety: are they related?”
How are anxiety and fatigue related to lack of sexual desire?
Several authors have postulated thatanxiety interferes with the functioning of the patient’s autonomic nervous system, which prevents their adequate sexual arousal from a physiological point of view. The correlation between the two events may seem clear, but you will be surprised to know that causality does not always have to appear.
Some studies have shown that women with anxiety may show greater subjective sexual desire than females in a normal emotional state. On the other hand, the research “The Different Female Sexual Dysfunctions and the Relationship with Trait-State Anxiety” found that, in a group of 200 women, those with a hypoactive (reduced) sexual desire had greater anxiety patterns.
It should be noted that there is no entirely clear link, that is, not all people with anxiety will have a diminished libido, nor will all “healthy” ones show a perfect sexual desire. In any case, although there is no high comorbidity between anxiety and sexual dysfunction, the attitude in anxious people towards the sexual act is usually very different (and more negative) with respect to those who do not suffer it.
Proposing a psychosomatic model that explains all the cases of people with dysfunctionality and anxiety disorders is very difficult, because we are facing a series of both physical and mental mechanisms and, therefore, are highly subjective. In order to correlate anxiety and fatigue with lack of sexual desire, the following three pillars should be analyzed on a case-by-case basis:
- The intensity of the feeling of anxiety. This parameter depends entirely on the causative agent, since it is not the same to have anxiety about a metastasis than to present it sporadically due to a labor conflict.
- The time interval in which anxiety appears. Depending on the cause, the person may encounter triggers during sex, before or after it.
- The individual response to the anxiety reaction. Some people choose avoidance, that is, they decide not to have sex because it encourages their anxious state.
Gender bias and other “buts”
While we have told you that anxiety and fatigue do not always correlate with lack of sexual desire, it is also necessary to keep in mind that biological gender plays a very important role in the development of certain mechanisms. For example, studies already cited have shown that men with erectile dysfunction usually present symptoms of anxiety above the expected average.
On the other hand, much of the literature confirms thatwomen with anxiety and depression are more likely to present sexual dysfunction (despite the outliers cited), but the causal mechanisms are not at all clear: Is anxiety the cause of lack of sexual desire, or is it the fear that the sexual act goes wrong that promotes anxiety? We are facing the chicken and egg dilemma, because knowing if one event is caused by the other or the cause itself in such subjective terms is practically impossible.
Another clear option is that the patient presents a latent substrate of psychological vulnerability, which would translate into depression, anxiety and lack of sexual desire. Several studies, including A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis of the Relationships between Depression, Anxiety, and Sexual Problems over Time, support this idea.
This drastically changes the paradigm of understanding the lack of sexual desire as a consequence of fatigue and stress. Rather than seeing one as the cause of the other, there is a chance that all three events (dysfunction, anxiety, and fatigue) are caused by a single underlying problem. Thus, the treatment and the problem to be addressed should be common.
Anxiety in the sexual act
Finally, it is also necessary to bear in mind that thelack of sexual desire can come from the fear of the sexual act itself. Especially in the male gender, it is common for men to worry about “not measuring up” (among other standards dictated by classical masculinity) and, indeed, this ends up translating into the events that you want to avoid: erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation.
Pre-act sexual anxiety may also occur in women who have suffered abuse, rape or bad experiences with people of the opposite gender. It is not the same to have anxiety and that sex is difficult to the impossibility of practicing the sexual act because of the anxiety it generates (being linked to a traumatic event).
This further complicates the matter, becausesexual desire itself can be the cause of anxiety. This is where the pillars previously described come into play, especially in the second point: every patient must ask himself if the anxiety was “before…”, during or after the act. This is key to understanding anxious conditions and whether there is a disorder or a response within the normal range.
Summary
As you can see, lack of sexual desire as a result of fatigue and stress is a possibility, but not a rule. Although there are a series of clear physiological patterns during the pictures of generalized anxiety and stress, we must not forget that our mind largely conditions physical processes and, therefore, a universal explanation and tendency cannot be established.
If you feel a lack of sexual desire and believe it is linked to fatigue, depression, stress or anxiety, you should ask yourself if these feelings were present before the sexual act was raised, during or after it. In any case, it is always better for a psychology professional to help you answer these questions and overcome the problem through a process of therapeutic intervention.
To the classic question “what do you do?” I always answer “basically I am a psychologist”. In fact, my academic training has revolved around the psychology of development, education and community, a field of study influenced my volunteer activities, as well as my first work experiences in personal services.
