www.flickr.

com/photos/thatrileygirl/9110214/CreativeCommons

Is Stress Killing Your Sex Life?:

7 Things You Must Do Now
to Keep It Alive
Is Stress Killing Your Sex Life?:
7 Things You Must Do Now
to Keep It Alive
Jed Diamond, Ph.D. has been a health-care professional for the last 45 years.
He is the author of 9 books, including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,
Male Menopause, The Irritable Male Syndrome, and Mr. Mean: Saving Your
Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome . He offers counseling to men,
women, and couples in his office in California or by phone with people throughout
the U.S. and around the world. To receive a Free E-book on Men’s Health and a
free subscription to Jed’s e-newsletter go to www.MenAlive.com.

Many of us find that when we're under stress our sex life suffers. The
problem is that many of us are under stress all the time. We all know that it’s
difficult to feel sexy when we’re exhausted. And this is very common with our
hectic lifestyles and our work hours. A recent study showed that partners of
individuals who worked over 48 hours a week reported that there were major
problems with their sex life. The root cause may be the different ways that men
and women deal with stress. Here’s what you can do to keep your sex life alive
and well:

1. Understand male vs. female reactions to stress.

We’ve all heard of the classic stress reaction being about “fight or flight.” But
it turns out that’s really the more common pattern in males. Females respond
differently. Under stress they are more likely to “tend and befriend.” This basic
difference was first studied in depth by psychologist and stress expert, Shelley E.
Taylor.

In her book, The Tending Instinct: How Nurturing is Essential to Who We Are
and How We Live, Taylor describes her response when it became clear that our
assumptions about stress and strain were wrong. “An epiphany in science is
fairly rare, but when it happens, there is no sensation like it. The sudden
recognition that all of the classic theories of stress were based almost entirely on
males was a stunning revelation.”
 2. Tend & Befriend vs. Flight or Fight has evolutionary roots.

If you think back to the period that encompasses 99.9% of the history of homo
sapiens—when there were roving bands of hunter-gathers—the responses to
acute threat that were most effective for males were angry and violent displays of
counterattack.

When a wild animal was threatening the camp or a rival tribe was coming to
steal your women and children, it made sense for the physically stronger males
to come together and fight to save the lives of those they love. For the women it
made more sense to connect with each other and care for the children.

As J. Douglas Bremner, M.D., author of Does Stress Damage the Brain?

says, “This explains why males exposed to stress are likely to respond with
anger and aggression, whereas women respond with behaviors such as
expression of emotion and talking with others.

3. When stressed, men need to do something physical. Women need to talk

and touch.

We’ve all had the experience of having a stressful day. We come home
looking forward to the safety and support of our family, perhaps a loving and sexy
evening, but something goes wrong and we have a big fight instead.

The male brain is built to respond to stress by being physical. He needs to

exercise his muscles, to run (flight) or to throw his spear or shoot his arrows
(fight). He would do much better to take a break before he comes home to “blow
off some steam.” Trying to do that with his partner is likely to scare her or short-
circuit her way of dealing with stress.

The female brain is built to respond to stress by talking and nurturing. She
would do better to get together with one of her women friends and connect with
each other. Trying to do that with a man when she is stressed or he is stressed
is more likely to lead to a fight than an evening of sex and love.

4. Love takes time.

When we’re under stress, we often look for a quick fix from our partner. We
want them to take care of us, and then we will be able to “get in the mood.” The
key to a good sex and love life is to take care of our male or female brain before
we engage with each other. This takes more time, but it is worth it. Think about
how much time is lost when we try to hurry things along.

Things blow up and it takes us hours, days, weeks, or months to recover.

We all know the line, “you can’t hurry love.” Well, it’s true. Slow down. Take
care of yourself. Take time to approach your partner with care.
 5. Show appreciation for each other’s differences.

Remember when you first fell in love? You loved all those unique differences
that made you feel excited to be with her. Remember when you first fell in love?
You loved the way he acted, so manly and strong.

Too often we forget how much we loved our sexy differences. The longer
we’re together, we come to expect our partner to be more like us.

Appreciate the differences. Let your partner know you love how they love
you. Accept that he’ll get angry more often and express his care for you by
wanting to fight or run away. Help him do it in a way that supports your
relationship. Accept that she’ll want to talk and touch before she can even think
about sex and love. Support her in doing that.

6. Walk and touch and talk.

Men are more comfortable with “side to side” communication, while women
are more comfortable with “face to face” communication. She wants to gaze into
his eyes. His hunger-gatherer brain remembers that the only time a pair of eyes
was intently focused on him was just before the tiger leapt out at him.

He’ll like walking with you, particularly when he is stressed. It allows for him
to be physical. She’ll like holding hands and talking. Try it, you’ll like it.

7. Stay positive.

This is probably the simplest, yet most difficult thing you can do to keep your
sex and love life humming. When we’re under stress we tend to blame ourselves
or our partner. Sometimes we say hurtful and blaming things. “Why are you
being so stupid?” is not a question that will endear you to your partner. “Why
can’t you pick up after yourself?” is not likely to lead to a night of passion.

Most of us have grown up in homes where some kind of criticism was the
norm. Think about it. When you were a kid, how often did you feel your parents
let you know that what you did was wonderful and how often did you feel you
were being criticized or blamed?

We know it doesn’t work, but under stress we often shame and blame. I ask
my clients, “would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?” We fear
that if we don’t correct our partner, they’ll keep doing the wrong thing. What
we’re really doing is trying to prove we’re right.
 After counseling people for more than 40 years, I’ve learned that whatever we
focus our attention on, will increase. If we want our partner to be more negative,
then focus on the things we don’t like about what they do. If we want them to be
more positive, focus on what they are doing that pleases us.

The truth is that our brains—both male and female—are structured to please
our partner. We want nothing more than to feel that our partner is pleased with
us. When they are doing things we don’t like, that’s the time to be positive, not to
tell them what is wrong with them.

We can still have great sex even at times of great stress. We just have to
stay positive (and I do know it isn’t always easy). Carlin and I have been married
for more than 30 years and we still have to work at staying positive. But I’ll tell
you its work worth doing.

If you’d like more information on how I help individuals and couples have the
sex and love life they desire, contact me at www.MenAlive.com