How to Get Your Sex Drive Back: What a Sex Therapist Looks at Before You Blame Your Hormones

By Dámaris Tenza, clinical sexologist and couples therapist (Master’s in Clinical Sexology and Couples Therapy), specialising in desire, CBT and Gestalt therapy · Reviewed October 2026

If you want to get your sex drive back, start by asking what your desire is responding to, not what is wrong with you. In my practice I look at four layers: your body and hormones, stress and your nervous system, your relationship, and your history and beliefs. A medical check always comes first. After that, most people find their answer in more than one layer.

Low desire is common, it is not a personal failure, and it can change.

You used to want sex. Not every day, perhaps, but the wanting was there.

Now it isn’t. And the strangest part is that nothing dramatic happened.

You still find your partner attractive. You still love them. You have read the articles, maybe bought the supplements, maybe even had your hormones tested. And yet, when the moment comes, something in you quietly says: not tonight. Again.

If you are asking yourself “Why don’t I want sex anymore?”, you are far from alone. Low desire is one of the most common reasons people come to see a sex therapist, and one of the most misunderstood.

Most advice on how to get your sex drive back treats libido like a single switch: find the broken part, fix it, done. In my clinical experience, desire rarely works like that. It is less like a switch and more like a conversation between your body, your nervous system, your relationship and your history.

When one of those voices gets too loud, desire goes quiet.

This article will help you work out which voice that is.

Low libido is a symptom, not a diagnosis

Let’s start with something that may take some pressure off.

Having less desire than you used to is not, in itself, a disorder. Desire naturally changes across a lifetime, across a relationship and even across a month. Clinicians only speak of a sexual desire disorder when low desire is persistent, causes you real distress and isn’t better explained by something else.

So the useful question isn’t “What is wrong with me?”

It is “What is my desire responding to?”

Because desire is responsive. It reacts to how safe, rested, seen and curious you feel. When it disappears, it is usually telling you something about one of those conditions.

First, rule out the medical causes

Before we go any further: if your desire has dropped noticeably, please speak to your doctor. This is not a formality.

The NHS lists several physical causes of reduced libido, and some of them are easy to overlook:

• Medication, especially some antidepressants (SSRIs), blood-pressure medication and hormonal contraception
• Hormonal changes, including perimenopause and menopause, pregnancy, postpartum and breastfeeding, and low testosterone
• Thyroid problems, diabetes and other long-term conditions
• Pain during sex, which teaches the body to avoid it
• Alcohol and recreational drugs
• Poor sleep, including undiagnosed sleep apnoea
• Depression, which affects desire directly as well as through its treatment

A blood test and an honest conversation with your GP can save you months of wondering.

But here is what I see again and again in my practice: the tests come back normal. And the person leaves the surgery more worried than when they arrived, because now there is no reason.

There is a reason. It just doesn’t show up in a blood test.

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The four layers of desire

When someone tells me “I’ve lost my libido”, I don’t look for one cause. I look at four layers, from the most physical to the most personal. Usually more than one is involved.

Layer 1: your body and hormones

This is the layer most people start with, and rightly so. Hormones, medication, pain, illness, fatigue and sleep all influence desire.

But the body layer is also about something subtler: how much you live in your body at all.

Many high-functioning people spend the day almost entirely in their heads. They think, decide, plan and solve. Their body is mainly the vehicle that carries the brain to meetings. Then, at eleven at night, they expect that same body to suddenly feel sensual.

Desire needs sensation. And sensation needs attention.

If you rarely notice when you are hungry, tense or tired, it is not surprising that you rarely notice arousal either. As I explain in my article on somatic therapy, your mind can understand something perfectly while your body has stopped listening.

Layer 2: stress and your nervous system

This is the layer I find most often, and the one most often missed.

Sexologists Erick Janssen and John Bancroft describe sexual response through the dual control model: we each have an accelerator (what turns us on) and a brake (what turns us off). Emily Nagoski later made this idea famous in Come As You Are.

Most people trying to get their sex drive back press harder on the accelerator. New lingerie. A weekend away. Something to “spice things up”.

But for many people, the problem isn’t a weak accelerator. It is a brake that never comes off.

Chronic stress keeps your body in a state of readiness. Your system is busy scanning for problems, and from a biological point of view, pleasure is not a priority when you are under threat. Research on women under chronic stress, for example, has linked it to lower genital arousal and greater distraction during sexual stimuli.

In other words: your inbox, your mortgage and the argument you didn’t finish this morning are all in bed with you.

This is why a holiday sometimes “fixes” desire for three days, and why it returns to zero the moment you land. If you’d like to understand this layer better, I explore it in depth in Nervous System Regulation: Are We Turning Normal Emotions Into a Disorder?

Layer 3: your relationship

Sometimes desire hasn’t disappeared. It has disappeared with this person, right now.

That can be painful to admit. It doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t love your partner. It may mean that something in the relationship is making it hard to want them.

In a well-known qualitative study, married women who had lost desire described three recurring reasons: the relationship had become too institutionalised, there was too much familiarity, and their roles had become desexualised. Partner, parent, project manager of the household. Very little room left for the lover.

Other things I often see in this layer:

• Unspoken resentment.It is very hard to desire someone you are quietly angry with.
• Emotional distance.You live together, but you no longer really meet. (I write about this in Emotional Disconnection in a Relationship.)
• When one partner keeps asking, the other often starts avoiding all touch, just in case it leads somewhere.
• The kind of sex you are having.Sometimes you don’t lack desire. You lack desire for that.

If you recognise yourself in a long period with very little or no sex as a couple, you may find my article on sexless marriage helpful.

Layer 4: your history and beliefs

The deepest layer is the one we carry with us from long before this relationship.

What did you learn about sex growing up? Was pleasure something to be ashamed of? Was your body commented on? Were you taught that a “good” woman, or a “real” man, should feel a certain way?

Past experiences matter too: a painful or non-consensual experience, a betrayal, years of having sex you didn’t really want. The body remembers what the mind has filed away.

And then there is attachment. For some people, closeness itself feels risky. As intimacy grows, desire drops, almost as if the body were creating distance to stay safe. If that sounds familiar, read Attachment Styles and Intimacy.

None of this means you are broken. As I wrote in Signs of Sexual Blocks, your sexuality may not be broken at all. It may be communicating.

Which layer is yours? A quick self-check

Read each layer and notice which statements feel true. Don’t think too long. Your first reaction is usually the honest one.

Layer 1 · Body and hormones

• ☐ The drop began after a new medication, a birth, a change in your cycle or an illness
• ☐ Sex is uncomfortable or painful
• ☐ You are exhausted most days

Layer 2 · Stress and nervous system

• ☐ Desire returns on holiday and vanishes at home
• ☐ You find it hard to switch off your thoughts during intimacy
• ☐ You feel “on” all day and flat at night

Layer 3 · Relationship

• ☐ You still feel desire, just not for your partner
• ☐ You avoid affection in case it leads to sex
• ☐ There is something you haven’t said

Layer 4 · History and beliefs

• ☐ Sex has always felt complicated, not just recently
• ☐ You feel guilt or shame around pleasure
• ☐ Desire drops as closeness grows

Most people tick boxes in two or three layers. That is normal, and it is actually good news: it tells you where to begin.

This self-check is a starting point for reflection, not a diagnosis. If you’d like a more structured picture, our free Intimacy Wisdom Test looks at how you relate to your body, your emotions and intimacy.

Spontaneous vs responsive desire: you may not have lost it

Here is something many people have never been told.

There are two ways desire tends to show up. Spontaneous desire seems to appear out of nowhere: a thought, a look, and suddenly you want sex. Responsive desire appears after something has started: a kiss, a touch, a moment of closeness. First you’re willing. Then you’re interested. Then, sometimes, you want more.

Physician Rosemary Basson described this pattern in her model of the female sexual response, and it applies to many men too. Responsive desire is common, healthy and especially frequent in long-term relationships.

The problem is that we have learned to treat spontaneous desire as the only real kind.

So if you are waiting to feel like it before anything happens, you may be waiting for a kind of desire your body simply doesn’t lead with. Not because something is wrong, but because your desire works differently.

This doesn’t mean you should push yourself into sex you don’t want. It means creating situations where desire has the chance to respond, without any obligation for it to.

How to get your sex drive back: what actually helps

There is no single exercise that works for everyone. These are the steps I find most useful, depending on the layer.

1. Take the brake off before pressing the accelerator

Ask yourself: what turns me off? Not in theory. Tonight.

Unfinished work, a messy kitchen, a phone on the pillow, worrying about being heard, feeling that you “owe” sex. Removing one brake often does more than adding three new accelerators.

2. Build a transition between your day and your body

You can’t go from a board meeting to intimacy in ten minutes. Give yourself a bridge: a shower without your phone, a walk, slow breathing, music. Anything that tells your nervous system the day is over.

3. Bring attention back to sensation

Several times a day, pause and notice: what do I feel right now? Temperature, tension, texture, breath. Mindfulness-based approaches have shown promising results for women with low desire, largely because they train exactly this.

4. Separate touch from sex for a while

If touch always leads to the same place, many people start avoiding touch altogether. Agree with your partner on a period of affection without any expectation of sex. It sounds counterintuitive. It is often what allows desire to come back.

5. Say the thing you haven’t said

If you identified the relationship layer, the next step is usually a conversation, not a technique. Speak about your experience rather than your partner’s faults: “I’ve noticed I pull away, and I want to understand why” lands very differently from “You never…”.

6. Get curious about your story, not just your symptoms

Write down, without judgement, the messages you received about sex and pleasure growing up. Notice which ones you still live by. Many people are surprised by how loudly an old belief is still speaking.

What to do and what to avoid

Why high achievers often lose desire first

I work with many people who are extraordinarily capable. Founders, partners, senior executives, doctors. They are brilliant at solving problems.

And so they try to solve desire the same way: research it, optimise it, schedule it, fix it.

But desire doesn’t respond well to performance. It responds to presence, play and permission, three things that rarely appear in a high-pressure calendar. As I explore in Why Successful People Still Struggle in Love, the skills that build a career are not always the ones that build intimacy.

If this is you, the work isn’t to try harder. It is to learn to try less.

Not sure which layer is yours?

Take the Intimacy Wisdom Test and get a clearer picture of how you relate to your body, your emotions and intimacy.

Free · Result by email · No obligation

When to see a sex therapist

You don’t need to wait until things are unbearable. It may be time to ask for help if:

• Low desire has lasted more than a few months and it bothers you
• Medical tests are normal and you still don’t know why
• It is creating tension, guilt or distance in your relationship
• You avoid any physical closeness to prevent the possibility of sex
• Sex has been linked to pain, fear or difficult memories
• You have tried “everything” and understand the problem perfectly, but nothing changes

In sex therapy, we look at all four layers together. My work combines clinical sexology, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), Gestalt and body-based approaches, because desire lives in your thoughts, your emotions and your body at the same time. There is no physical contact in sessions and no pressure to talk about anything before you are ready.

Sometimes the work is individual. Sometimes it makes sense to involve your partner. We decide together, based on what your desire seems to be responding to.

How we support you at Intimystique

At Intimystique, I work with desire through the SCALA™ method (Seeing, Consciousness, Attachment, Liberation, Alignment), combining clinical sexology, CBT, Gestalt and body-based work.

• 1-on-1 Solo · Intimacy Pathfinding.Private sessions in Marbella or online: €100 for 50 minutes, or a pack of four for €390.
• 1-on-1 Duo · Harmony Blueprint.If your partner wants to be part of the process: €180 for 90 minutes, or a pack of four for €680.
• Intimystique™ Solo Edition.A retreat for a small, selected group in Andalusia, 11–14 March 2027, limited to 10 places and by application. See if you qualify.

Most people begin with a single session. From there, we decide together what comes next.

When to get help straight away

Some situations shouldn’t wait for a therapy appointment. Please see a doctor promptly if:

• Your desire dropped suddenly together with other physical symptoms, such as extreme tiredness, weight changes, pain or irregular bleeding
• You have new erectile difficulties, which can be an early sign of cardiovascular problems
• You feel persistently low or hopeless, or no longer enjoy anything
• You are being pressured or forced into sexual contact

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call 024 in Spain, Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK, or your local emergency number. In Spain, 016 offers confidential support for sexual and gender-based violence.

Frequently asked questions about getting your sex drive back

Can you get your sex drive back naturally?

Often, yes. Once medical causes have been ruled out, many people recover desire by reducing chronic stress, improving sleep, reconnecting with body sensations and addressing relationship issues. “Naturally” doesn’t mean “alone”, though. Sex therapy is one of the most effective natural routes.

What are the psychological causes of low libido?

The most common are chronic stress, anxiety, depression, relationship conflict or resentment, emotional disconnection, body-image concerns, past negative or traumatic experiences and learned shame around sex. Usually several combine.

Why don’t I want sex anymore even though I love my partner?

Love and desire are related but not the same. Desire is sensitive to stress, routine, unresolved tension and roles that leave little room for eroticism. Many people love their partner deeply and still struggle to desire them, and this can change.

Can stress really cause loss of libido?

Yes. Chronic stress keeps your nervous system in a state of alert, which activates the “brakes” on sexual response. This is why desire often improves on holiday and drops again when daily pressure returns.

How long does it take to get your sex drive back?

It depends on the cause. A medication change can make a difference within weeks. Patterns rooted in stress, the relationship or personal history usually take a few months of consistent work. The aim isn’t speed, it’s sustainable change.

Is low sex drive in women different from low sex drive in men?

The four layers apply to everyone. Women report responsive desire more often and are more affected by hormonal transitions such as postpartum and perimenopause. Men tend to delay seeking help and to look first for a physical explanation. Stress and relationship factors are central for both.

Conclusion: your desire isn’t gone, it’s waiting for the right conditions

If there is one thing I would like you to take from this article, it is this:

Low desire is rarely a sign that something is broken. It is usually a sign that something needs attention.

Maybe it’s your body asking for rest. Maybe it’s your nervous system asking for safety. Maybe it’s your relationship asking for honesty, or an old story asking to be heard.

You don’t have to keep blaming your hormones. And you don’t have to work it out on your own.

References

• Loss of libido.
• Bancroft, J., & Janssen, E. (2000). The dual control model of male sexual response. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 24(5).
• Basson, R. (2000). The female sexual response: A different model. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 26(1).
• Hamilton, L. D., & Meston, C. M. (2013). Chronic stress and sexual function in women. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 10(10).
• Sims, K. E., & Meana, M. (2010). Why did passion wane? A qualitative study of married women’s attributions for declines in sexual desire. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 36(4).
• Brotto, L. A., & Basson, R. (2014). Group mindfulness-based therapy significantly improves sexual desire in women. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 57.
• Nagoski, E. (2015). Come As You Are. Simon & Schuster.

This article is for information only and does not replace medical or psychological care. If your desire has changed suddenly, please consult your doctor.