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Too tired of getting intimate, please help

Between The Sheets

Dear Eve,

I am too tired for sex. I don’t know what is really going on but I am rarely in the mood and even when I am in the mood, I am too tired. What’s happening to me? Please help me.

 

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your question. I can feel your frustration just from reading it. My hope for you is that today will mark the beginning of a new sexual experience for you.

I cannot tell from your question whether you are a man or a woman, or even your age so let us look at a few general reasons for the kind of fatigue that you are describing.

Stress

Many sex lives, work lives and more have been sacrificed at the altar of stress. To make matters worse, we seem to be living very ‘naturally’ high stress lifestyles. I put ‘naturally’ in quotes because there is nothing natural about it, and yet we act like there is. For some people, stress has become a way of life; I’m sure you know people – maybe even you – who constantly brag about how “busy” they are. “Busy” has become the new, socially-acceptable word for “stressed”.

However, stress has literally no upside. It keeps your body functioning on high adrenaline, reacting to everyone and everything, which is not how our bodies were meant to be. Stress inhibits your ability to focus, interferes with your appetites for all things – food, fun, sex, work, life – causing you to over indulge or forget yourself completely.

Stress is a killjoy; it robs you of many good things while only offering you a mirage of other things but never quite delivering on them. Even if it does deliver the good that it promises, you are unable to enjoy it because your mind and body are simply too tired from being alert and over-stimulated for days, weeks, months and even years!

If your life has become more stressful than usual in recent weeks or months, your declining sex life could be the wake-up call that you needed in order to pay attention to stressors in your life and manage them accordingly.

Illness

Have you a medical checkup recently? If not, please do. It’s a small thing that can make a big difference. In fact, make it a habit to have a yearly physical so that you can have the best opportunity for early detection and treatment of any illnesses that may be lurking.

When it comes to fatigue, some of the culprits include thyroid disorders such as hypothyroidism – where your thyroid is not producing enough of the hormone (thyroxine) needed to manage your body at its optimal state. There are also blood sugar disorders such as diabetes or hyper/hypoglycemia – where your body struggles to process sugar and you end up with blood sugar that is too high or too low.

Another culprit is anaemia – where your blood count is too low either due to not having enough iron in your body or because of other underlying disorders. In this category also lies mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and other mood disorders. Whatever the case, you need to see a doctor so that they can examine, advise and treat you accordingly.

Diet

There is no other way to say this; you really are what you eat. If your eating habits have changed e.g. skipping meals, eating more of the unhealthy foods and less of the healthy ones, over eating or under eating, be aware that this can have a major impact on your mood, your energy and ultimately your life, including your sex life. If you are the sort of person that likes to skip meals, you should know that this can cause problems for your blood sugar so please do better on that front by eating small, regular meals. 

Think about it; it is difficult to desire sex or enjoy it if you’re hungry or lethargic from hunger because you skipped a meal or started on a ‘crazy’ diet. This is therefore where I say to you that if you need to lose weight to be healthy, do it. Even if you are happy with your weight, you still must eat well and move often i.e. exercise.

Sex is exercise, and if you are finding that you cannot sustain this level of activity because it feels like you’ve been running up a staircase, watch that weight. If you are having problems engaging sexually because you’re running out of breath, sweating or shaking, then please see a doctor because there may be an underlying condition. Sexual activity can be rigorous but it should not feel like you are beckoning death’s door every time you engage in it.

So, dear reader, I hope these three points have given you some insight on what could be going on with you, and how you can begin to address the issue at hand. Take care of your body and your body will take care of you, in and out of bed. Here’s to a happier, exhaustion-free sex life!

 

Maggie Gitu holds an MA in Marriage & Family Therapy. She practices as a Marriage, Family & Sex Therapist. Reach her at [email protected] or via her Facebook page: Maggie Gitu

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