Stress affects our sex life in many ways. Many of us already have experienced a low sex drive after a stressful week. Stress by playing a hand in lower sex drive, having sex when stress out can be a great stress reliever, and boost your mood. Stressors in life can impact your sex drive and lower libido. Job stress, financial stress, relationship stress lowers your libido, and causes stress in another area of your life.

When stressed out, your body undergoes changes through which you prepare to fight or run away from the situation. This change causes release of cortisol from your brain. If this response doesn’t get reverted, chronic stress is caused which interferes with the hormones responsible for sexual activities. The result is lower libido and loss of sex drive. Try to relieve stress and learn stress management techniques.

Many people are so occupied with their professional and social responsibilities, that they feel exhausted at the end of the day. This is very common for women who work in the day, take care of children in evenings and have to do the chores of household activities. Being packed with work, there’s hardly any time for you to relax. Your energies are drained as soon as you complete the work and only feel like sleeping. You don’t get into the mood for sex. Even if you are in a mood for sex, you hardly find time for sex. Try to be less busy by cutting down unwanted activities, you’ll find some free time and have sex to boost your mood. Try to complete the important jobs first and seek assistance from your spouse on some work. He’ll be more than helpful, especially since he is getting sex afterwards.

Relationship issues are another reason for lower sex drive. Conflicts and arguments often arise in a relationship. Work through tough times and resolve the matter. Support your partner, and communicate with each other. Understand each other’s expectations. Sex after a fight is often a great boost, as sex brings people closer.

Want to find out more truth about sex and stress, here are a few excerpts from researches

• Arizona state university studied 58 middle-aged women. They stressed the women through out the day, and their partners got intimate with them the same night. The next morning, these women were in better mood. Orgasm has many benefits for health and stress relief. But when these women had an orgasm without a partner, their mood was still negative. Positive physical contact is important in relieving stress.
• These women had a better sex drive on the next day. Being in good mood meant their partners got more physical affection and sexual activity.
• Another study revealed that positive physical contact helped women relieve stress. Emotional stress alone didn’t work effectively.

It can hence be said that having sex when stressed out leads you to good mood. This good mood will get you good sex and very often.

1. Palpitations – Heart beating harder, faster or pounding

Palpitations can be felt in throat, chest or neck. This may be felt during emotions such as excitement or fear. Normally a person is unaware of heartbeats, but due to anxiety, a person can sense his own heart beating.

2. Sweating – severe perspiration

Sweating is natural for human body especially when subjected to hot weather or when carrying out heavy jobs or exercises. Emotional activities like anger, embarrassment, etc also cause sweating. Stress and anxiousness triggers the brain to make you sweat. You can prevent this by relaxing and taking control over stress.

3. Trembling or shaking

Tremors in your body making your arms, feet or entire body feel shaky.

4. Shortening of breath – breathlessness – breathing difficulties

Feeling uncomfortable while breathing, feeling suffocated due to lack of oxygen to the brain, muscles and other organs of the body. This will make you feel dizzy and you may faint.

5. Unable to swallow food

We may feel that food particles are stuck in the throat or upper region of the abdomen. The fear of choking is the main cause when you are under stress. You may feel that you are choking or there’s a lump or something has stuck up in your throat. Having food becomes a challenge for anxiety patients

6. Chest Pains

People tend to feel that chest pains are caused due to heart attack, especially if the person has been hurt emotionally. After ruling out heart attack, most people with chest pain are usually under panic or anxiety attack

7. Stomach pain

It is a common symptom of anxiety, but there are several other possibilities for stomach pain. Before presuming that the pain is due to stress, visit a doctor.

8. Nausea and vomiting

Nausea is caused by involuntary bodily functions, but vomiting could be caused due to several reasons like taste, smell, pain, anxiety etc. Keep drinking water when you are vomiting for prolonged durations, else you are likely to get dehydrated.

9. Dizziness or faintness

A feeling of light headedness makes it difficult to balance yourself whether you are sitting or standing. Do not take it as brain tumor before showing to a doctor. People often mistake this to be due to a tumor in the brain, when it could be due to stressing out too much.

10. Hot and cold sensations

Sweaty palms, feeling hot even when seated in and air conditioned room are all due to anxiety.

Everyone experiences stress like getting lost while driving, forgetting the car keys on the office desk, etc. These are short lived and often leave us worried and anxious .These are healthy, as they teach us something and we become cautious. But at times events like breaking up with you girl friend/boy friend, divorce, life-threatening accidents and diseases can cause you a long term stress and these could affect your health adversely. This can cause depression. Depression and nervous breakdown are likely when someone is working in and extremely stressful condition.

When you experience stress, there is a dramatic change in your mind and body. Stress affects us physically, mentally and emotionally, and 90% of all health problems arise out of stresses.

Stresses can bring about changes in your body which may make you feel ill. Most common problems associated with stresses are

• Difficulty to conceive (infertility amongst women)
• Sleeping difficulties
• Headaches
• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Nervous breakdown
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Stroke
• Weakness or lack of energy
• Irritation
• Inability to concentrate
• Erratic eating habits; eating too much or eating nothing at all
• Feeling sad and deprived
• Losing temper very easily
• Asthma
• Tension
• Stomach cramps
• Anxiety
• Weight gain (Obesity)
• Weight loss
• Heart problems
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Pain at joints
• Less sex drive
• Hair loss
• Hyperthyroidism
• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Tooth aches
• Gum diseases
• Ulcers
• PMS (premenstrual syndrome)
• Migraine
• Auto-Immune diseases
  • Eczema
  • Psoriasis
  • Ulcerative Colitis
  • Oral and genital herpes
  • Crohn’s disease (also known as granulomatous colitis and regional enteritis)
• Possibility of cancer

Some facts about stress and concerns about health

Death due to emotional stress is more likely from cancer or cardiovascular diseases rather than smoking and drinking. A study has revealed that people who managed stress ineffectively had 40% higher death rate than people who were not stressed out

People who experienced heart attacks and got angry during emotional arguments doubled the risk of subsequent attacks.

When stresses are handled positively, they are beneficial to us and help us keep alert and be active, energetic. Too much stress turns into distress, and when we handle them negatively, it affects every part of life. Negative handling of stress affects you physically, mentally and emotionally. To make matters worse, we may break relations and deteriorate our status in the society. Negative handling of stress leads us to depression, and to get over this depression people get attracted to seek help of alcohol, tobacco and drugs. Initially these things make us feel that we are not stressed, and give a sense of relieving stresses. The body remains stressed, and the substance abuse make us addicted to them which help in making matters worse. A stressed out person is be given care and attention as soon as possible with emotional support as well. Stress kills silently and can become fatal over a period of time, hamper one’s happy and healthy life.