Take a Chill Pill: Is Stress Ruining Your Love Life?

Stress. Even writing the word makes us feel a bit tense and headachy. Simply put, stress is just not a pleasant emotion to feel.

As well as making us feel anxious and on edge, stress can cause havoc with our physical health. It can mess up our digestion system, it can make us feel sick, upset, depressed – in extreme cases it can even affect our appetite and our ability to sleep. Oh and when it comes to sex, stress can destroy previously healthy and happy relationships.

It is estimated that at least 60 per cent of Irish people experience some level of stress every single day. And did you know that us womenfolk tend to feel the effects of stress more than our male counterparts?

So just what kind of impact can stress have on your sex life and, more importantly, how can you stop it from doing damage? Here are the three main issues stress can cause within relationships.

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Sex makes you feel bad about your body, which results in bad sex:

When we’re stressed out, our bodies release certain hormones that can have a negative impact on our metabolism. Maybe we lose weight when we’re anxious or maybe we go the opposite way and gain a few pounds. Either way, most health experts agree that being stressed is not conductive to having a good body image.

Having a bad body image usually results in less sex and more relationship problems, which in turn makes us even more stressed. If this sounds familiar there are a few things you can do: try to focus on the parts of your body that you do love, ask your partner what his favourite parts of your body are and try to embrace positive self-talk rather than self-criticism every time you see your own reflection. If you find yourself feeling like this, it might be beneficial to take sex off the menu for a week or two and instead spend the time cuddling and kissing and getting comfortable in your skin.

Stress can cause us to snap at our partners without meaning to

Stress affects your libido which results in less sex:

Again, this is all down to those pesky stress hormones. Cortisol is one of the main hormones produced by stress. While we need cortisol in small levels, elevated levels of it actually supress our sexual desire. So how can you cope?

Unfortunately there’s no quick solution. Try to calm yourself down. Do things that will help you relax – maybe make it a priority to have a bath before bed, or switch off your mobile phone as soon as you get home from work – try to remove all stressors in your life. If you’re still not feeling up for it, have an honest conversation with your other half and explain to him why you’re just not in the mood.

Stress makes us question our relationships/partners, which results in confused feelings and less sex:

When we’re stressed, we unintentionally become difficult to be around. We snap without meaning to, we shout because we feel frustrated and we tend to take things out on those closest to us. Relationships always suffer when we’re stressed and when we’re feeling overwhelmed we start to question our relationship and our partner.

We blame them for things, we pick faults to make ourselves feel better and we begin to wonder if this is what we really want. If you’re starting to feel this way then it’s a good idea to talk to someone who is outside your relationship. Tell your GP how stressed you are, or speak to a counsellor. The last thing you want to do is throw away the love of your life because you’re blinded by stress.