Understanding how your mind affects your sex drive will help you to understand how to increase libido for you and your partner.

Your mind is the control centre for your body, how you think, will have an effect on your emotions, feelings, actions and bodily functions and this is no less true for your sex drive or libido than it is for motivation, fear or happiness – it all starts with how you think.

Your libido is affected by the physiology of your body, the chemical balance and how you think has a direct influence on the neurotransmitters and hormones you produce so depending on whether you are thinking in a way which produces the neurotransmitters which enable you to cope with life and make you happy or you are thinking in a way which creates stress hormones, making you anxious or not producing any neurotransmitters causing depression will affect your libido.

Imagine, for a moment, you come face to face with an angry polar bear!  Which is going to come first in that moment – survival or reproducing? – well if it’s not survival, then you’re not going to be around long enough to have children at all!

When you are faced with danger, adrenaline floods your blood stream activating your flight/fight response.  You know it’s danger because you have already learned polar bears, for instance, are dangerous.  But your mind only knows something is a crisis, emergency or danger because you have decided to believe it is.  I’m not saying that polar bears aren’t dangerous, they clearly are, but our minds also believe inappropriate things are a crisis, emergency or danger.  Mostly, in these modern times where there are no imminent dangers in our every day lives, it acts on our imagination, on forecasted worries such as how to pay an unexpected bill, because our minds do not understand the difference between imagination and reality.

So, your mind will activate the flight/fight response in precedence of libido when you are worrying about a bill that has arrived, an argument or the possibility of redundancy in exactly the same as it will coming face to face with a polar bear (maybe not as extreme, but you get the idea).  In these circumstances, when you are worrying, stressed or anxious, your chemical balance looks a bit like this.

When adrenaline floods your bloodstream, your body is prepared for fighting or running away from danger, not an intimate experience with your partner.

At the other end of the scale, depression occurs when the negative thinking leads to inactivity.  As people become overwhelmed and withdraw into a depression, they gradually do less and less of the necessary functions and activity which create the neurotransmitters that motivate them into action, so not only do they find it difficult to find energy and motivation to do anything, their negative introspecting develops a lack of self confidence and self worth and lack of interest in anything.

 

 

A healthy libido, important if you are trying to children, is linked to having a healthy balance of neurotransmitters and chemicals.

So how to you make that happen of you, and your partner – also important!  Well, first of all, it’s important to understand that you can’t change the way someone else is thinking, so telling them to not worry and be happy, isn’t going to work, but if you look after yourself, as a priority, so you are happy, relaxed and calm, your positive, happy influence can help your partner get into the same place – be example, not by instruction.  When you are in a good place and happy, it’s much easier for you to think of fun, relaxing and happy things to do, which you know your partner will enjoy – inspiring them to relax by taking their mind off what is troubling them, not trying to control how they are feeling.

If you are currently in that anxiety or stressed space with your adrenaline levels higher than serotonin and dopamine, first a foremost, positive activity, in particular exercise will help burn off the adrenaline and reduce your anxiety levels.  Learning how to think positively will reduce the anxiety your are creating in the first place.

If you have slipped into depression learning how to create serotonin and dopamine is a priority.  Step by small step and consistency is important, but as you begin to create serotonin, you will begin to feel a little more motivated to do something else and create some more.  Slowly, with consistency, the levels will build until you feel better.

Hypnotherapy can help you to learn how to reduce anxiety and how to cure depression by helping you to create more positive activity, interaction and thinking in your life and less unnecessary and subconscious negative thinking.

But perhaps one of the most important changes in thought patterns, whilst you are rebuilding and balancing your positive neurotransmitters and chemicals, is to not put pressure on yourself.  Focus on doing the things which may you feel happy, relaxed and calm, do not beat yourself up for ‘not being able to..’.  Focus on the positive, rebuild your serotonin levels, reduce the anxiety or adrenaline levels and the rest will follow, naturally.

PS.  Chillies and Kissing also produce dopamine 🙂

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