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Your Libido Didn't Die — It Got Silenced: Reignite Desire in Midlife · The Diva Details

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Welcome to the Diva Details. Welcome to the Diva Details.
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Where bold, confident women embrace life unapologetically.
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From love and sex to wellness and reinvention. We keep it.
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Well, hello, this is Diva Mia, and today we're going to talk more about your libido.
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I know it's very important to a lot of women out there because for some women,
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it feels like your libido changes overnight.
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It feels like your hormones change in such a way that everything seems to shut
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down. But let me ask you something.
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Have you ever gone from wanting sex regularly, thinking, oh,
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I need sex at least once a week, at least three times a week,
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at least five times a week, to settling and thinking, I could literally never
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have sex again, and that would be fine with me?
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It happens to people in their middle age, and some women decide they just don't want sex anymore.
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Everyone tells you, oh, honey, it's just hormones, or you'll get over it. It's just a shifting.
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You're going through menopause. You're getting older, or it's just parimenopause. But what if it's not?
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What if I told you that your libido didn't disappear? It just got shut down. It's still there.
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You can reignite your libido, but it takes a little bit of work.
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And it's not done completely by estrogen or by your brain. But there's stress
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too There can be stress There can be exhaustion You might even have some resentment
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That's been building over time That you didn't even know was building.
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That's why sometimes therapy is very helpful when you have libido issues as well.
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We're talking today about why your libido changes, and it seems to happen overnight.
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And the real reason most women are never told this is because a lot of times
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doctors don't realize what's going on.
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And women are very mental-driven. We are very focused on our minds.
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If we don't feel safe, if we resent our partners, if we're not feeling like
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it's a 50-50 or a give-and-take, And if it's just take, take,
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take, women's libido shuts down and we just don't want sex anymore.
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What happens if there's science and psychology behind it all?
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First, let's get kind of straight to the matter of hormones.
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Yes, hormones do matter, but they're not the only driver in libido.
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A lot of times I think people just say, oh, go get on testosterone or go check
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your estrogen or your progesterone or whatnot.
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I don't think people realize that hormones aren't the only thing for women that
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drives their libido. The reality is, is you could be in one relationship and
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have no libido and then get out of that relationship and your libido take off,
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which is a sign that it's not just hormonal.
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It's a sign that there was something in that relationship that was not making
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you happy, that was keeping you down or holding you down, that wasn't making
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you feel satisfied or protected or safe.
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With women, when we're in our minds a lot with sex, we're not going to be able to be
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and we don't feel safe, we don't want to have sex. You don't want to have sex
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with somebody that doesn't make you feel safe, and safety for women is important.
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Here's one thing I've talked to people about is women are always on guard.
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Every time we walk outside of the house, every time we go to a bar,
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every time we go anywhere, we're kind of always looking around to make sure we're safe.
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When you're with the right man, he will make you feel safe, and you can let
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your guard down a little bit.
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But if you're constantly in that fight or flight, trying and desiring to feel
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safe, and you never feel safe around that man you're with, you're not going to let your guard down.
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You're not going to be able to open up and your libido is going to shut down.
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Your libido lives in your brain.
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It's a very big sex driver. It's mostly neurological.
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For women, our key areas involved our hypothalamus, our prefrontal cortex,
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our amygdala, and our dopamine reward path, our dopamine reward center.
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That's why when we feel safe and protected and joyous, our libido kicks off.
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Your libido is a motivation system. It's not just a reproductive system, ladies.
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For women, it motivates us to
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be more in shape. It motivates us to be more sexy. It motivates us to be
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more in our power when our libido is going. The kicker is it's very dopamine-driven for us.
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And our desire, we have to feel that dopamine.
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Cortisol, if you're stressed, will suppress your libido. If you're going through
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a period of lots of stress at work, or if you're going through a lot of stress
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with your children, or if you're going through a lot of stress with your partner.
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Your libido is going to get shut down.
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Sometimes it's chronic stress. I will say I was in a relationship where I had
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chronic stress, where I was working so many hours, like 70, 80 hours every single
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week without vacations.
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My libido, it got shut down because I did not feel safe in the relationship.
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On top of the fact, I did not feel like I had the ability to be free and take
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a day off and take a break because I was constantly in this cortisol cycle.
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When you're stressed, your body releases cortisol.
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It can flood. When you're chronic stressed, it never stops. Chronic stress levels
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can elevate your cortisol two to three times, your normal levels in people.
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Women, we just take that cortisol and we just keep going.
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We have the ability to withstand a large amount of pain.
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That's why we do so well with childbirth, because we can handle a lot of pain.
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And we can also handle a lot of mental pain.
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All this stress and this high cortisol is going to suppress your dopamine.
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When your dopamine gets suppressed, your testosterone gets reduced as well.
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So your testosterone comes down, you may gain some weight. You may lose some
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muscle math. And women, we need testosterone.
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We need just as much as men. Maybe not at the high levels that men have it,
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but we need testosterone as well.
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So once our testosterone goes down, we start to gain weight.
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We get even more stressed out. It's kind of like an endless cycle downward.
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And our oxytocin, it lowers as well.
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That's our bonding response to our partner.
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If our oxytocin's gone down because we're constantly stressed out,
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we're not going to feel that deep bond that we used to feel with our partners.
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Then we'll have reduced blood flow to the genital tissue in general.
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And with that reduced blood flow, we are not excited by our partners.
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You have like a double, triple, quadruple-edged sword of your libido when you're
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under stress and the high cortisol that's created.
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Then research has shown that, you know, 30 to 50 percent of our sexual desire
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can be reduced when we're under chronic stress.
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So you used to have sex five times a week. Now you may only want it once every two weeks, once a week.
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It depends on you, but you may not want it at all because it's completely shut down.
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You'll have increased difficulty to even get aroused. And when you do get aroused,
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you may not have an orgasm because your orgasms may decrease because your hormones are messed up.
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Your cortisol is elevated. Your testosterone is down.
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So there's hormone relations and people, the hormone, a lot of the hormones
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that affects libido is cortisol and stress and exhaustion.
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If you're not sleeping well enough that can also affect your
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cortisol levels and all that exhaustion can lead to a lack
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of desire a lack of orgasm a lack of intimacy with your partner most women in
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their 40s all the way up to the 70s honestly we're feeling career pressure that
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we've never had before we also feel caregiver stress it may be that you're in
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the point where your your child's going off to college it may not be you could
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be in your 40s and still have a.
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A toddler. There's a lot of caregiving stress. You might also be taking care
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of your parents at this age.
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Sometimes, if we're honest ladies, a lot of times we feel like we're taking
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care of our men to a level that a parent would a child.
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We feel like we're taking care of our partners.
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There can be financial pressure because not only are you taking care of everyone,
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but now you're taking care of all the finances too.
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Women, we have put a lot on ourselves.
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And men, you've got it easy. I know men think, oh, we've got it so tough.
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But women are doing a lot more than they've ever had to. Because not only do
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we take care of the family and the household, but now we're also running businesses
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and companies, and we have a lot of financial pressure.
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And we have aging parents that we might be taking care of. And teenage children.
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This can cause marital strain. It can cause pressure that we're not used to having.
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It can burn us out, big time. And on top of it, the men tend to go through their
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midlife crisis and behave badly at this age. so then we're taking care of that situation as well.
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Our nervous system, it doesn't prioritize sex when it thinks we're just surviving.
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If we're trying to just survive, we can't prioritize sex because we're barely getting by as it is.
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Our stress is going off the charts. We're running businesses.
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We're taking care of children. We're taking care of households.
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We're taking care of all kinds of things and possibly our parents as well.
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Then you add a little bit of sleep deprivation and that drops our testosterone levels even more.
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Sleep deprivation can drop your testosterone by 10 to 30% in a week.
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I'm just sleeping five hours or less. I know for myself, it's rare I get over
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five hours. This can drop your testosterone as well.
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In women, poor sleep is associated with decreased sexual desire.
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It just does. No matter what you do, if you're not getting sleep,
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you're not going to be able to get aroused.
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You might even have pain during intercourse, because I know that when I don't
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get sleep, I am definitely, I have a drier issue.
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If I don't get sleep, I'm not as aroused. I'm just not as into it.
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One, there was a study done at the University of Chicago, and it found that
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women who slept an additional hour were 14% more likely to engage in sex the next day.
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If you can just get six, seven, eight hours a day, you're more likely to be.
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Well, first of all, it decreases your cortisol levels as you sleep.
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If you're sleeping three to five hours, like most high-performing women are,
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people that are running businesses, because we got so much on our minds running
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companies, we're taking care of people on top of that.
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Your libido is biologically suppressed, it's no wonder that a lot of high-powered
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women, a lot of professional women, their libido just shuts down.
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Because we don't have the ability to do anymore. We're tapped out. We are done.
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When we do so much that our partners don't help pick up the slack,
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we have even less and less desire.
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That is a problem for men and women.
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And men, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to come and help a little bit nowadays.
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Because women, we're doing way too much. There can be resentment as well.
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And resentment will shut down libido faster than men and paws ever could.
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If you resent your partner for not helping out at home, if you resent your partner
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for making you the primary breadwinner, if you resent your partner for disrespecting you or
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any of a number of things, your libido is going to shut down.
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Here's why. Your brain associates sexual intimacy with safety.
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Trust, and emotional connection. If you're not feeling safe because they're
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not stepping up when you need them, or you don't trust them because when you
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ask them to do something, they don't do it.
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This happens a lot, man. We ask you to do stuff and we have to tell you 10 times.
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Every single time, that chips away at our trust of you.
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Or we expect you to show up on time and you show up 30 minutes late consistently,
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constantly or 15 minutes late consistently, that violates our trust.
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If we have to fend for ourselves constantly, you're not doing your job,
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man, because your number one job is to make your woman feel safe.
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What that does, it causes our emotional connection to start to fade.
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Ladies, once the emotional connection starts to fade, your libido fades with it.
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It can be in a new relationship where this happens, or it can be in an existing relationship.
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Time doesn't have to. It's more about the connection and what your partner is
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doing to help you through this.
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If you're taking on 100% of all the stress and strain, you're not going to perform.
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It just, you just don't. You might feel underappreciated. If you want to feel
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unappreciated for all you do, that can have an effect on your libido or you're
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overburdened or unseen.
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Or I will say for me, disrespect is the number one reason why my libido shuts
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down. If I feel disrespected, I'm not having sex.
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I'm just done. if you're trying if your lover is not doing enough and you feel
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like you're taking care of him like a mother.
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Instead of his lover, you're going to start to separate and drift away as well.
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Your brain's going to shift from being a sexual partner to having a partner
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that's dependent on you.
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When you have a person that's dependent and you're constantly taking care of
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them and your brain's shifted to that, it's not very attractive, man.
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We don't want men that are making us take care of them. We don't want men that
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have us being their mommy. It's not attractive.
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We are mothering our children as it is. Why do you think that women want to
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take care of another man?
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If you disrespect your woman, she's already started to pull away.
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The more you disrespect, the more she pulls away. That's one thing that men, I don't think it.
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I think they think that there has to be this massive shift, or you have to cheat
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on your partner, or you have to...
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Granted, that does affect it as well. But women, they start to detach every
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time you disrespect them. After a while...
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They will just walk away, depending on how big the disrespect is.
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But it could be just a final straw that you disrespected them one too many times and then they're gone.
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The female brain doesn't sexualize someone if it feels responsible for them.
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If we feel responsible for everything you do and then you disrespect us, we'll walk away.
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But if you make us your mommy as well, we're going to walk away.
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But we're not going to feel sexual to you. If we feel like we have to take care
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of you, we're not going to feel sexual.
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Dissatisfaction occurs. It correlates very strongly with low libido in women
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as our hormone changes and we get over 40.
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It's because we just don't want to take care of men anymore.
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We expect a man by the time he's 30 to be able to take care of himself and at
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least add support to the woman.
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I will say, I mean, I went through pregnancies all taking care of myself throughout my whole pregnancies.
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When you realize you're doing everything yourself, taking care of yourself for
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your pregnancies, running your companies while you're pregnant,
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taking care of the household, running the bills, taking care of everything.
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You're no longer sexually attracted to your partner. I don't know how much I
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can repeat that. Men, you're doing it to yourselves. You're getting lazy.
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You're getting comfortable because your wife has done everything for you.
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Women, I mean, quite frankly, part of it is on us because we do tend to take care of people.
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But we are looking for them to reciprocate. When they don't,
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we still keep taking care of them.
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What ends up happening is men, they just get lazy.
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They're like, ah, she's doing my laundry. Ah, she's doing the dishes.
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Ah, she's taking care of the household.
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Ah, she goes to work 40 hours a week. And she takes care of the kids.
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And she picks up the kids. And she runs everything for the kids.
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And she puts them to sleep at night.
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And she helps them with their homework. Then a man shows up and expects respect. We give it to him.
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But at the same time, that level of disrespect, it just keeps chipping away at the relationship.
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It keeps chipping away at the sexual desire.
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Relationship dissatisfaction, it predicts
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if you're dissatisfied, you're going to have low desire. The low desire,
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just from the lack of respect and the dissatisfaction in the relationship.
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Can be bigger than a very low estrogen levels.
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Because again, remember ladies, it's in our brain. If we're not turned on,
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if we have too high of cortisol and our dopamine is low, we're just not going to be sexual.
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Sex researcher Dr. Emily Nagoski explains that your libido, you have an accelerator
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thing that turns you on, But they're brakes that turn you off.
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Those brakes are disrespect. Those brakes are stress.
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Most women in midlife, our accelerator hasn't broken, but the brakes get slammed on.
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If we feel too, if we have too much of a mental load or we have body insecurity
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because our man makes us feel disrespected or unspoken anger or our needs aren't
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being met, our brakes are starting to get slammed on.
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You'll find that when you get into a different relationship with someone that
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respects you and cherishes you, your accelerator will be on and your brakes
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won't be slammed on anymore.
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Your libido's not gone. It's just vanished because you're with the wrong person. It's blocked.
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That person's not helping take care of you. They're actually chipping away at you every single day.
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But how do you fix it? I know we've talked a lot about what it is and why, but how do we fix it?
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You don't start with hormones, although it's important as we get older to manage
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our hormones, but that's not the only thing.
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Your nervous system regulation has clarity and it's deregulated right now.
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The first thing to do though is let's fix our sleep.
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It's a non-negotiable. You have to start sleeping over six hours a night, over.
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Seven to eight hours should be your minimum goal because you're hormonally handling,
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you're capping yourself anyway. You're gonna gain weight if you're sleeping under six hours.
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Seven to eight should be your minimum and it should help you get through some
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of the stress and decrease some of the cortisol as well.
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You can do this by taking magnesium glycinate around 400 milligrams a day if
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you can, depending on how stressed you are.
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Put your phone away 60 minutes before bed. Don't even look at it.
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Don't have it next to the bed because if you wake up in the middle of the night,
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you turn on that phone, it's going to keep you up longer. If you're having blood
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sugar issues, have some protein at dinner.
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Don't eat high sugar foods at night. It also messes with your liver.
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You don't digest things as well.
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Protein at dinner is better to stabilize your blood sugar. And keep the bedroom
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between 65 and 68. Now, for me, that's a little cold.
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I like mine around 69 to 70, but 65 to 68 is what they recommend for most people.
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It helps improve your sleep. If you can just improve your sleep by one hour,
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your desire is going to go up 14%. You have to lower your cortisol throughout
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the day as well. You need to downshift your nervous system.
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This is a five-minute reset that you can do every day just to downshift your
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nervous system. It's a 4-7-8 breathing.
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10-minute walking in sunlight helps as well. So the 4-7-8 breathing helps.
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10 minutes walking in the sunlight.
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Sunlight helps, especially with your circadian rhythm as well.
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A 30-second shower at the end of the shower also helps. You can also do 10 minutes
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of deep belly breathing before bed.
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That helps with stress to release some cortisol.
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Research shows that slow breathing lowers your cortisol by up to 20%.
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If your body feels safe and relaxed and respected, your desire is going to return as well.
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If you're in a relationship where you don't feel safe, if you don't feel respected,
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it may be time to end that relationship. If you carry emotional loads...
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That you shouldn't have to be carrying, then you need to talk to your partner.
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Here's a script that you can use.
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All right, so if you're with a partner and you're feeling overwhelmed, here's what you say.
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I love you, but lately I feel overwhelmed and unsupported.
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When I feel like I'm carrying everything, I don't feel connected to you.
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When I don't feel connected, I don't feel desire.
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I need partnership to feel passion. This is not going to blame your other partner. It's.
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Honestly, they're kind of dense when it comes to this. I know I've been in relationships
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where it started off great and then it just started to fizzle.
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I felt like I was picking up the slack on everything and it just got boring.
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You need to just clarify how you feel with your partner.
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Another way is to say I miss wanting you. I think that it's because I'm exhausted.
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I need us to rebalance responsibilities so I can feel like your lover again, not your manager.
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This is important, guys, because I think a lot of times we feel like we're managing
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our men. and it's exhausting and then you don't realize it and then you wonder
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why your wife or your girlfriend's not turned on for you anymore.
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Well, it's because she's exhausted because all she does is work,
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work, work to make sure that everything's taken care of and you're not picking up the slack.
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Desire is trainable. We have to rewire our brain, but you can boost dopamine
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naturally. You can do date nights.
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I mean, I know date nights would help if you were in a relationship,
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whether it's a new relationship or an old relationship.
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Strength training helps too because it increases your testosterone
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you can also be very flirtatious on text i know some people think it's weird
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but if you're flirting on text it does help as well with your dopamine levels
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and then when you're kissing someone make sure you're kissing them or hugging
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them for at least 20 seconds before you touch someone kiss them kissing helps with.
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Such a rush, a dopamine rush when you kiss someone.
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But exercise will increase your testosterone by 15 to 20%. You know,
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post-workout, you may be more excited than you are first thing in the morning. Just remember that.
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And your libido will respond over time as anticipation grows.
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Sometimes the newness is great, too. If you're stuck in a routine,
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your libido will respond more if you try something new.
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Get more excited about something. Check your testosterone. okay
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many women are told estrogen is the only thing when it
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comes to libido but testosterone is extremely important it
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drives your desire check your testosterone as well
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because low levels will correlate with low libido low motivation fatigue and
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your orgasms won't be as good ladies and i know that's so important so if your
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testosterone's too low you may need to start lifting weights you may need to
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get put on testosterone because it decreases as well as we get older we're we're.
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Our hormones decrease about 90% by the time we're post-menopausal.
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So if you think you can function as a 20, like you did when you're in your 20s,
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when your hormones are 90% left, think again.
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And your hormones are also, cortisol is all heightened.
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And then we wonder why we gain weight, because our testosterone is down,
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but our cortisol is up. Then we add stress to it, and it's just a double-edged sword.
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If sleep, stress, and resentment are handled, and desire is still low,
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then definitely go and get a full workup done of your hormones.
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Because hormones are step four, not step one.
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Step one is just decrease and work your stress out first.
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So your libido doesn't disappear. It just got suppressed. Just remember that.
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It's suppressed by stress, sleep deprivation, emotional imbalances,
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mental overload, and unmet needs from your partner. You're not broken.
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You're just overstimulated. You're unrested. You need more sleep.
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I know for me, I think if I had limited funds, the first thing I'd do is just
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sleep. Here's the truth. Your desire requires safety.
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It requires safety and support. Support requires standards.
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If this episode resonated with you, share it with a woman who thinks that she's
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just aging and her libido's down, or she's just not as attracted to her husband
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or her new boyfriend that she used to be.
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She's not broken. She's just exhausted. And exhaustion is reversible.
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Lack of sleep, though, ladies. You gotta fix that first.
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Decrease your stress. If you want more.
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Information, please reach out to us. Leave a review, share this episode,
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and remember you don't lose your fire.
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You just need more oxygen for your fire. That oxygen is sleep.
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That oxygen is decreasing your stress and being with a partner that respects
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you and picks up their share of the burden.
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Until next time, stay bold, stay powerful, and stay a diva. I hope this has helped you.
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I hope that you can share this. Have a wonderful week. Ciao, ciao.
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Drop a comment. We love hearing from you. Visit thedivadetails.com to connect.
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financial advisors, or legal professional.
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Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider for medical advice,
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diagnosis, or treatment.
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Any financial topics discussed are based on personal opinions and experience
23:18
and should not be considered professional advice.
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The content provided does not constitute legal advice. the details and its affiliate contributor
23:22
and guests are not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of
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our content the opinions expressed in the podcast are solid those of the speakers
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and do not necessarily reflect the views of any affiliated organization sponsors
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or partner all facts discussed in the podcast are researched and accurate to
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the best of our knowledge at the time of recording information may change over
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time no guarantees are made regarding the accuracy completeness or reliability
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of any statements or opinions presented it is a responsibility of the listener
23:37
to verify any and all facts that may influence their decision this podcast is
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for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.