Sexual Health and Hormones

Feel exhausted? Always tired? Your sex drive became very low? May be this is stress or lack of necessary vitamins, but it might be your hormones.

Hormones play much more important role in our well-being than you could suppose. Being produced in eleven glands they regulate everything from sex drive and fertility to our mood, appetite and hair growth.

Learn more about hormones that influence your sex drive and your sexual health in general.

Testosterone

How it works. Testosterone is often referred as the male sex hormone. This hormone governs sex drive, mood and immune system function.

Testosterone is produced in testicles in males and in the ovaries in females. Men produce about 8 times more testosterone than women.

Lack of testosterone. Lack of this hormone in men often leads to loss of sex drive.

Too much testosterone. Higher levels of testosterone in males leads to baldness and sometimes to raised risk or prostate cancer. Women who produce too much testosterone suffer from hirsutism, i.e excessive growth of facial or body hair and polycystic ovary syndrome.

What to do: have plenty of food that is rich in B vitamins. Vitamins B are essential for testosterone production. Vitamins B are contained in such foods as bananas, potatoes, tuna and liver.

OESTROGEN

How it works. The role of this hormone in female reproductive system cannot be overestimated, as it is responsible for all aspects of the reproductive system in women: from puberty to conception and pregnancy and menopause.

Lack of oestrogen. Lack of oestrogen causes a great deal of troubles such as irregular periods, low sex drive, early menopause, obesity, painful breasts, increased risk of osteopososis, sometimes it might lead to increased risk of breast cancer.

What to do. Oestrogen levels can be regulated with birth-control pills. Have a 20-minute walk in natural light daily as such a walk causes the pituitary gland to produce ovary stimulating hormones that encourage oestrogen production.

Insulin

How it works: This hormone determines blood sugar levels.

Too much insulin. Surges of insulin are usually caused by a diet rich in sugar. These surges cause weight gain, insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, that often leads to erectile dysfunction in men.

Insulin resistance is also linked to the previously mentioned polycystic ovary syndrome, that has the following symptoms: cysts in ovaries, weight gain and absence of ovulation. About ten percent of women are affected by this syndrome.

What to do. Eat foods with low GI that help regulate blood sugar levels. These foods are porridge, bananas and wholemeal pasta.

Cortisol

How it works. Cortisol is often referred as “stress hormone”. This hormone determines your response to stress and influences blood pressure and heart rate.

Too much cortisol. Too much amount of this hormone puts huge pressure on the heart. Also it causes panic attacks, sweets and feeling sick in general, that decreases sex drive considerably.

Also too much cortisol might suppress the immune system thus making you more likely to get infected.

What to do. Drink less coffee and have less foods rich in caffeine as caffeine stimulates the pituitary gland to produce more cortisol than needed.

Control your stress and relax with a massage (this might be erotic massage) or bath.

Serotonin

This hormone regulates anger, aggression and mood that does influence your sex drive.

Lack of serotonin. Lack of this hormone leads to bad mood, aggression and depression that often leads of lack of sex drive.

What to do. Exercising contributes to release of endorphins and to better serotonin production. Eat dark chocolate, it does increase serotonin levels!

What you can do: Exercise – it releases endorphins and stimulates serotonin production. Eat chocolate – a new study shows that dark chocolate increases serotonin levels.