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How To Increase Libido: Best Ways To Boost Low Sex Drive

What are the best ways to boost testosterone and low sex drive? Is it with capsules, products, foods, or supplements?


Last updated Fact Checked: Feb 7, 2022

Is it better to source a natural extract like Maca or Ashwagandha or some kind of organic formula? Let us find out.

Having low male libido can impact not only yours but also her sex life.1 Everybody deserves to be happy and have a loving relationship. Relationships are built upon many things, one of those things is sex. Sometimes sex can make or break a relationship.

The fact that you have been searching for low libido shows that you are trying to find a resolution to your decreased libido problem. It’s sad enough knowing that you are suffering as a result of it, but it’s worse when you think about the implications that it has on your partner.

Sometimes it’s better to speak directly with your doctor. As embarrassing as it may seem, there should be nothing to be embarrassed about. But, as a man I can imagine you must be tutting and shaking your head as you read this.

Stop Trying To Keep It A Secret!

There are many reasons for reduced libido in males. Some are more severe than others. Sometimes it can be caused by the physical condition, emotional problems, effects of certain medications are a factor or more than one cause.2 Lack of female libido and vaginal dryness is increasingly becoming more and more common in women.3 But, we will focus on men in this article.

When it comes to women’s health, it is much easier for them to communicate their feelings and problems regarding their low sexual response. But, since being a relationship coach for many years now, it’s far less likely that a man complains about a lack of sex drive or disinterested sex.4 The reason could be that men are generally the prouder part of the species.

Low libido in men is usually brought to light and highlighted by the partners.5 Men do not admit such things and will try to hide them away even though it may be as clear as the day to see that it is a problem. Even with more severe conditions and issues, men are far less likely to seek any type of help from a doctor let alone a counselor.6 That means that the problem of low sex drive is far more widespread than the statistics might indicate.

What’s The Underlying Cause Of Your Low Sexual Desire?

The wife of one of my patients was convinced that her husband was cheating on her. She tried her best to investigate who this lady is and why her husband is having an affair.

The husband still found his wife very attractive and was very much in love with her. The stress at work was making it difficult for him to cope and as a result, sexual activity was the last thing on his mind. The wife had gotten the wrong end of the stick.

The Moral of the story is that if only they had communicated, they would not have reached the wrong conclusion and all of this could have been resolved much sooner.

It is essential to understand what the initial cause of your problem may be. It could easily be solved with a simple conversation with your partner or with some form of stress relief such as hypnosis.7 If the problem is worse than what you may think, you should have a word with your doctor as they will be able to inform you better than most.

Does Age Play A Role?

Contrary to popular belief, a lack of sex drive is not due to age. A university study conducted by the University of Adelaide has confirmed that it is depression and lifestyle factors that cause a lack of desire rather than maturity.8

The issue arises due to a low testosterone level in men at the population level. So, therefore, we thought that men over the age of 40 would generally feel less lustful which is understandable.

The testosterone levels play a significant role in the sex drive in males.9

Does Medication Play A Role?

Depending on which type of medication you are taking, it could either have no effect or have adverse effects on your sexual drive.

Six medications are known for causing low libido

1. Medicines For Hair Loss

Certain drugs used to treat hair loss issues can dramatically reduce and create a steep decline in sexual desire according to science news reports.10 Propecia is the name of one of the hair loss drugs which causes not only a loss of arousal but also erectile dysfunction and problems with orgasming.11

What’s more alarming is that even after patients had stopped using Propecia, such adverse effects had lingered on and carried on affecting them and their sex lives.12

2. Antidepressants

Just being depressed alone can take its toll on sexual performance and result in an uninterested in sex. To add insult to injury certain antidepressants such as SSRIs, MAOIs, and tricyclics will further deplete sexual arousal if it wasn’t due to the anti-depressants in the first place.13

Sometimes doctors may get it wrong and maybe help in the destruction of your sexual pleasure. Men have sometimes been prescribed antidepressants because they are depressed about their relationships. It can be frustrating to know that the antidepressants may be making things worse.

3. Epilepsy Medication

Carbamazepine is known to cause impotence.14 Unfortunately, if you are taking it for epilepsy, there’s not much you can do about it and is just something that you will have to bear.

4. High blood pressure medication

Medication to regulate blood flow can often result in a loss of sexual function.15 That’s why we advise that you try your utmost best to try and counteract your high blood pressure with lifestyle changes rather than resort to medication. It is better to use natural nutritional supplements and herbal remedies over prescription drugs.

5. Medication For Peptic Ulcers And Reflux Disease16

You may not be able to ease off these types of medication abruptly. Instead, you will need to slowly make lifestyle changes and adapt your diet accordingly so that you may soon be able to talk to your doctor about reducing the dosage of medication.

6. Benzodiazepines17

Benzodiazepines are prescribed for patients who are suffering from anxiety and depression. These two conditions are manageable and fixable without the use of medicines. It may take some time, but you will get there in the end.

Stress And Depression

Excessive stress, anxiety, and depression are the main culprit for lack of desire in the majority of men who suffer from it.18 It is imperative that although you may be feeling crappy and down in the gutter when depressed that you strive as hard as you can to suppress those feelings and rise above them.

The earlier you begin the striving, the quicker you can get out of that hole that you are in without it becoming more prominent and engulfing you. You have to recognize the fact that you’re suffering from this problem for you to be able to fix it. Don’t delay and try to come to terms with it right now.

Problems get bigger and bigger the more you put them off. Just by putting it off doesn’t make the problem much smaller and when it eventually and inevitably catches up with you, it will be a much more significant bombshell than it is right now.

Now that you know that antidepressants will make the problem worse, you know that you should avoid them at all costs so you should be exploring more natural ways to get an increased sex drive.

Hypnotherapy can help in this regard.19 It is entirely natural and will only assist you if you’re willing to help yourself. You can find some hypnotherapy/hypnosis sessions which are prerecorded from licensed hypnotherapists here.

Stressed At Work?

Just when we had enough reasons to hate work, here comes another one. Work stress is prevalent, especially for those men who are in high position jobs which require a high level of responsibility or entrepreneurs trying to keep things afloat.

Sometimes, and in most cases, men do not want their families to participate in the stress that they feel as not to burden them.20 Their intention is good, but they are not very good at hiding the stress. The fact that they are stressed will inevitably begin to seep into other aspects of their lives such as family, children, etc.

It is easy to cope with short bursts of stressful periods but when these times become longer or more frequent and begin to take their toll and result in a lack of sex drive.

Many things happen in our lives that we have no control over, this seems to overwhelm us as we tend to overemphasize things beyond our control. Ask yourself honestly, do you tend to focus more on the stuff which is not in your control and overlook the things which are?

Smoking And Its Effects…

I don’t think we need to go into too much detail with regards to smoking, do we? We all know it is wrong, we all know that no good can ever come from it. Yet we do it still, why?

Some of you will say that you smoke so that it reduces stress. Is it a form of stress relief?

You keep telling yourself that! But here are some key facts that you should get acquainted with.

Smokers…

More Disturbingly…

Since this information was publicized and the facts were available the realities of smoking have become even worse due to succeeding findings and evidence. If you want to know more details about the harms of tobacco, you should do further research. But for now, the information presented above should be more than enough to make you reconsider your life choices.

Do You Suffer From Anxiety?

Anxiety can be much more severe than it sounds. Most people seem to think that you should just get over it, but it’s far more challenging than that. It can be crippling and take over your whole psyche.

If you do suffer from anxiety, there’s no surprise that you are having trouble in bed. An interesting fact is that by orgasming you can release some tension because it releases the stress hormone oxytocin.27

That’s not to say that you should go and quickly whack one out. Preferably, you should try to fix your mental health and not be content with a moment of partial relief.

If you do decide to whack one out then be sure to return promptly to read the rest of this article, as it was intended for someone exactly like you.

Relationship Problems And Marriage

60% of people suffering from depression also have relationship problems.28 That’s a staggering percentage so you should pull your head out of the sand and stop turning the other cheek and pointing the finger at your woman.

You must begin to start taking responsibility for your actions, and the role that you play in your relationships breaks down. Lowered libido might be a secondary or even a tertiary problem when you begin to delve deeper and try to rectify the relationship issues that you both have.

The Link Between Sexual Desire And Impotence

Sexual desire and impotence are two separate entities. Impotence refers to the inability to maintain obtain an erection. Sexual interest is the same as libido which is how quickly you are turned on or how highly interested you are in sex.

The link between the two though is that a lack of sex drive can and will inevitably result in impotence and erectile dysfunction.29

The inability to get an erection can cause lots of embarrassment, stress, anxiety, and other avoidance behaviors that are associated with shame. All of this will consequently result in the relationship and marital breakdown. If these problems persist and become manifest, then it may lead to depression.

Do You Have Any Other Health Issues?

Having problems getting an erection or premature ejaculation will inevitably happen to all of us every once in a while. It may happen more than once or even throughout a short time.

The testosterone levels in men play a role in the drop in sex drive. That’s why older men, above the age of 40 and also a fifth of men suffering from sexual dysfunction all have this one trait in common – testosterone deficiency.30

Go and visit your doctor so that he or she can isolate the problem and investigate if it’s linked to issues such as diabetes or heart disease. It’s better to get diagnosed early so the problem can get treated before it gets worse.

Try and quit or limit your intake of alcohol as this is another common cause of such issues.31

Vitamin D Deficiency?

Vitamin D deficiencies are more prone to people who live in colder climates or in places that are further from the equator. That’s because there is less sunlight and the primary source of vitamin D comes from the sun.32

If you always remain indoors for work purposes or maybe due to depression, you should try to get out and about more to expose your skin to sunlight.

If you fit the criteria of somebody, who may be deficient in vitamin D, then try to use supplements at the very least.

Oh, and an extra benefit of sunlight is that it boosts your testosterone levels too!33

Are You Overweight?

Having an excessive amount of weight can shift the hormonal balance and regulation in your body. The fatter you are, the higher your estrogen levels will be which is precisely the opposite hormone that we want to have an abundance of causing a hormonal imbalance.34

Lose weight, and you will begin to see how your libido improves. There are also secondary and tertiary factors such as negative body image and embarrassment that come along with being overweight.

This will make it more difficult to have better sex without being overly conscious about your body and overthinking, which will take your mind off of sex resulting in impotence.

Is It Time To Visit The Doctor?

The doctor is probably the most qualified professional that should be your first point of call regardless of the nature of the sexual health issue in question. So you should visit the doctor if you are concerned about anything.

Now that you have read this article, you will be much better equipped with the necessary information regarding libido; its causes, and treatments. The doctor can promptly investigate further by doing the required tests and diagnostics to diagnose you correctly.

Don’t forget to ask your doctor about any medications that you may already be on and if they pose a risk in contributing to your lack of libido.

If after you’ve had all the tests from your doctor but haven’t given you the all-clear and the underlying cause is unknown, you should take this as a warning sign. It could be a good thing that your impotence/lack of libido issue is nothing to be concerned about or maybe a bad thing that the underlying problem is still not resolved.

In most cases, especially if the condition is not severe, it will naturally begin to improve with lifestyle improvement such as diet, etc.35

One thing that you don’t want to do is become overly anxious which will make the problem worse.

NOTE:

If even after all our persuasion to go and visit the doctor, you still won’t, there are options available such as the ones mentioned earlier to use herbal supplements. Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis will have to be given to you on a prescription from a doctor, but we would advise you to steer clear of prescription sexual medicine altogether due to the adverse side effects that come with them.

We recommend you begin using VigRX Plus, Male Extra, ExtenZe, or ProSolution Plus Pills. All of these mentioned supplements are completely safe and have been rigorously tested and reviewed by qualified professionals regarding their efficacy, effectiveness, and safety. You can opt for whichever ones you prefer but make sure it’s one of the ones that we recommend.

You can read individual reviews of each one of the pills we have mentioned or browse our side-by-side comparisons to figure out which would be the best choice for you. They all come with a full money-back guarantee, so there’s nothing for you to be wary about.

Sources

Body Freedom exclusively utilizes the best quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts in our content. Read our editorial process to learn more regarding our fact-checking to maintain the accuracy, reliability, and trustworthiness of our content.

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Shahrokh Shariat, MD

Prof. Shariat has published over 1400 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. In 2014 he received the Matula Award from the European Society of Urology (EAU), in 2017 the Gold Cystoscope Award from the American Society of Urology, probably the most important urologist award worldwide.

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