Are you feeling less sexy or less like sex? Or maybe you feel like you are not living life to the full and are at a loss of how to improve it. If your libido is low, your naturopath has many tools that can help!
Naturopathic medicine recognises that health is very individual, so we start by assessing your overall health. Stress alone can rob you of the important pre-cursor hormones that would normally go on to be converted to those lovely libido enhancing hormones we all need, especially in later life.
The Effect of Stress
It works like this: Your Adrenal Gland converts cholesterol to Pregnenolone which is a major pre-cursor hormone from which all of your Oestrogen and Testosterone is made and this works fine when we are reasonably well balanced in our health and dealing with stress. However, when we are under chronic stress the Pregnenolone is shunted down a different pathway toward making Cortisol to help the body deal with stress. In women, this can be even more of a problem because Cortisol robs from Progesterone, a key hormone in women to keep them balanced and relaxed and prevent Oestrogen dominance and the significant PMS symptoms many suffer with.
Herbal Medicines to Balance Stress
Within the world of Naturopathy, we use the tools of herbal medicine and nutrition to help bring the body back into balance. There are simply amazing herbal medicines for stress that consistently drive wonderful results.
- My favourite, Zizyphus, is a wonderful nervine tonic and anxiolytic (reduces anxiety) used in stress and anxiety.
- Withania is an adrenal adaptogen which means it helps support the body in times of stress and support the adrenal glands production of hormones. It is also a nervine tonic so it’s great for soothing over stressed people and particularly useful in times of ongoing stress.
- Passionflower is another anxiolytic herb that helps reduce stress.
These herbs can be used alone or in combination and a Naturopath would typically take a very detailed case before choosing appropriate herbs for your situation and mixing them in a personalised medicine for you.
Hormonal Drivers
Apart from stress there are other areas that can assessed when it comes to libido. For example, are your hormones low? Or generally out of whack? Is Oestrogen too high making you weepy and overweight and is Progesterone too low causing a weeks of PMS symptoms and affecting your libido? Is Testosterone too low? This can cause a major decrease in libido. Fortunately, we can choose specific herbal medicines to help in all of the above situations. Sometimes it’s necessary to test the hormones to really be sure we are on the right track while for other situations it is just a matter of recognising the symptom patterns and going from there.
Herbs such as Tribulus can be really helpful in both sexes to increase testosterone. Tribulus has been involved in a number of small clinical trials to prove it’s effectiveness on both free testosterone levels and libido.
Traditional Chinese Medicine
I often use Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) symptom patterns to help me assess a person’s case. In cases where a person has no libido, I might look for signs such as lower back pain, fatigue, muscular weakness, dry skin, dizziness, insomnia to choose the correct herbs for what is called Qi (energy) and Blood deficiency, Kidney Qi Deficiency and Liver Constraint.
Sexual function in TCM is often seen as Deficiency of the Kidney Yang Essence. In western terms we would say low adrenal function, particularly of the male hormones. The symptom pattern many include symptoms such as Low Libido, Fatigue, Frequent urination, lower back pain, cold hands and feet, sensitivity to the cold or feeling cold often, forgetfulness and a pale tongue.
If a woman is having hot flushes or generally getting symptoms of dryness and overheating or even suffering from hair loss it tells me to support her adrenals and particularly choosing herbs that support the Kidney Yin.
As with all things about Naturopathy, it is about assessing each individual’s health, stress, diet and lifestyle and choosing appropriate herbal medicines and supplements based on this. I love to look at the jig-saw of each person’s health or illness and put the pieces together for them. Book in for a consultation with me today so we can get your Mojo back!
