Whenever I have sessions with women about their low libido, they follow a similar pattern. They want to know if there’s a medication or magical supplement libido booster that will be the secret key to getting their sex drive back. Their low libido is negatively impacting their relationship, and they feel at a crisis as to what to do about it.
While it’s frustrating for me as a sex coach, because I believe low libido is the tip of the iceberg, I don’t blame them. We live in a world that glorifies a quick fix, with our Instagram feeds full of conflicting advice on what we should and shouldn’t be doing.
The pharmaceutical world has been trying to find a libido booster, a pink Viagra—a medication that would be as commercially successful for women as Viagra has been for men—for years, and while they’ve created a few, none have really shown to be very promising in terms of effectiveness.
The wellness industry is no different. You don’t need to look hard for companies and people promising to fix your libido either—from supplements, herbs, adaptogens, aphrodisiacs, nutrition, to vaginal steaming and other health treatments. Remember that the wellness industry is worth around $6.3 trillion, according to Global Wellness Institute.
How to increase libido in women?
While there are many changes you can make that I recommend all the time—like exploring your turn-ons, reviewing your medication, menopause support, understanding how your desire works, creating more safety in your body, debunking myths about sex, and masturbating more to name just a few—there’s one solution that not many women truly consider.
The best thing about it is that you don’t necessarily have to spend much—or any—money on it either! It’s rest.
Not just sleep—although there is more research to suggest that women may indeed need more sleep than men. If you’re highly sensitive, neurodivergent, pregnant, going through menopause, or sick, you likely need even more sleep!
I’m also talking about all kinds of rest. According to Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith in her book Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, there are 7 types of rest humans need: Physical rest, Mental Rest, Emotional Rest, Sensory Rest, Creative Rest, Social Rest, and Spiritual Rest. This means that meeting with friends who make you laugh and fully accept you count as rest. Nature walks, journaling, dancing, making art, playing with your dog, cuddling your kids, and prayer or spiritual practice all count as rest. Whereas lying in bed while doom-scrolling almost certainly does not count as rest!
What’s rest got to do with your libido?
We all know that stress is bad for us, but we do not always know how much it can impact our sexuality. Under chronic stress, our bodies release adrenaline and cortisol, which can interfere with our hormone production, especially the sex and love hormones like oestrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and DHEA. This can mess up not just our libido but negatively impact every other aspect of our health and wellbeing too—particularly the menstrual cycle.
It’s not just about hormones, though. When we’re under stress—be it short-term, long-term, or both—our bodies go into the threat states of fight/flight/freeze. When we’re in these states, our bodies go into survival mode because if your body thinks it needs to run away from a tiger, it’s not going to want to have sex!
In other words, how can you relax into ripples of orgasmic pleasure if you’re burned out?
I remember attending a webinar by a naturopath during my sex coach training, who said that your libido is like the canary in the coal mine of your overall health and vitality. If it’s disappeared, it’s an invitation to explore what needs more support rather than something to be fixed.
If stress can have such a massive negative impact on your health, it makes sense that creating a lifestyle that supports rest and your overall well being is how you can get your libido back.
The impact of stress on your libido
One of the first things I explore with clients wanting to boost their libido is their overall stress levels, how much support they have at home, whether they feel supported by their partner, their relationship with rest, and their relationship with fun, joy, and pleasure. So far, I haven’t had one single person who can happily tick all those boxes!
Usually, there are things that you can change—because if you’re living off caffeine, doom scrolling, and not leaving your desk for hours—is it any surprise that you’ve lost your sex drive? However, I want to emphasize that the larger causes are absolutely not your fault.
The various factors that are making us all chronically stressed, tired, and under-rested are down to the way our society is structured. Having to work long hours for little pay, unaffordable childcare, lack of support for parents of special needs children, general structural inequality, racism, rising costs, and being a single parent, to name just a few.
That’s not counting the disproportionate impact on women, those socialized as women, and the intersections of race, class, disability, and more. Income inequality, diet culture making us obsessed with what we eat and over-exercising, the mental load, chronic health issues, conditioning around being a “good woman” and people-pleasing, the 1980s attitude of, “Women can have it all!”, the relentless pressure to be productive, lack of physical community, hustle culture, and and and—
Are you tired yet?
I sure am.
All of this is keeping us stuck in the stress cycle, so is it any surprise that many of us feel so tired, and it negatively impacts libido?
Tamu Thomas, author of Women Who Work Too Much: Break Free From Toxic Productivity and Find Your Joy, discusses how damaging toxic productivity is. She says, “No amount of money, success, or adaptogenic supplements can make up for the impact a lack of sleep, inadequate nourishment, dehydration, and fatigue has on your body and brain.”
TL:DR: Maybe you don’t need to buy more supplements that promise to “balance your hormones” and try harder to get yourself “in the mood.” Libido booster – I think you need a goddamn break.
Libido booster – start resting more for better sex
So if one solution to combat stress and hopefully get your libido booster back is just to rest more, why isn’t everyone doing it? Oh, if only it was so simple! As a recovering over achiever and perfectionist, believe me when I say I’m in the trenches with you when it comes to giving my body a break.
Think about how easy you find it to let yourself rest. I mean really, truly rest. To actually do things for fun as opposed toyet another project or just numbing out.
So many women and vulva havers are living in a state of over-functioning and overdoing, so learning to slow down can sometimes feel impossible.
I believe the way to start allowing yourself to rest is to reframe how you think and feel about it in the first place. Octavia Raheem, author of Rest is Sacred: Reclaiming Our Brilliance Through the Practise of Stillness, is an advocate for rest as not a luxury, but an essential practice that not only fuels you, but changes the world too.
Think about how you can start to undo the conditioning that any form of rest, play, or joy makes you “unproductive”, “lazy”, or even just a bad person.
Then, think about your health foundations—the care and maintenance of your physical body. That means eating enough, hydration, getting enough sleep, daylight, and moving your body. It might sound far too basic, but remember that not eating enough, being hydrated, being underslept, etc., automatically puts your body under stress without adding anything else!
Now, think about the controllables in your life. It could be as simple as making sure you go to bed earlier to get enough sleep, taking up mindful practices, planning your meals and snacks, taking a nap instead of answering your emails, booking and paying in advance for your weekly swim, and doing more restorative practices like Yin Yoga or Yoga Nidra.
If you know that you will find ways to skip your rest time, you need to be intentional about it. I remember listening to a podcast episode by life coach Kara Lowentheil, who said that the best way to do this is to actively schedule your rest, joy, and pleasure at the beginning of the week before any work things. I challenge you to try that for a month and see what changes.
Sadly, many of us don’t take rest, play, and joy seriously until burnout or another crisis hits us. What if your low libido is that canary in the coal mine asking you to slow TF down?
Instead of looking for another magical supplement to try and prop up your depleted libido, maybe you just need a nap. And possibly a wank afterwards, too.