Losing your job also puts desire at risk

Suddenly being out of work is not only detrimental to finances. It is often also the couple’s life that suffers.

Sexual desire varies from person to person and may depend on the circumstances, but also on the quality of the couple’s relationship or on the greater or lesser satisfaction with one’s body. When sexual difficulties are related to desire, it is called “disorders of desire”.

If sexual desire decreases around the age of 50, the disorder could depend on the fact that in mature age the hormonal balance of the organism begins to lose some blows: these are situations that unfortunately are increasingly frequent.

Among the causes of these disorders, however, we can also include those coming from external stresses: in this case we are talking about non-organic dysfunctions. One of these, especially in times of economic crisis, can be determined by worries arising from job loss.

An unstable working condition can also affect already consolidated love stories, especially if it is the man who has professional problems. Suffering a dismissal or seeing one’s business fail has a deleterious effect on male self-esteem: to pay the price is in particular the frequency of intimate relationships, which tends to drastically decrease due to a progressive decrease in desire.

Erectile dysfunction

In addition to declining libido, worries about job loss can worsen intimate relationships due to repeated “faillance” under the sheets. In this case the disorder is called erectile deficit.

It is a recurrent inability to get or maintain a full and adequate erection for the completion of sexual activity.

“In most cases, dysfunction occurs on an organic basis – i.e. vascular – and it is estimated that about 35% of men aged 50 or over have had an episode of erectile dysfunction at least once in their lives. Among the risk factors there are also psychological disorders, in particular the anxious/depressive syndrome, which can cause or aggravate an erectile deficit» says Vincenzo Mirone, secretary general of the Italian Society of Urology and full professor of Urology at the University of Naples Federico II.

Analysis and therapies

First of all, to check if there is a real erectile deficit, it is necessary to perform an ultrasound examination called penile power color doppler, which allows to discriminate between arterial, venous or mixed dysfunction.

There is also the evaluation of physiological nocturnal erections, an examination mainly used to rule out an erectile deficit on a psychogenic basis. “Patients suffering from vascular erectile deficiency and, in some cases psychogenic type, can benefit from treatment with drugs inhibiting the enzyme phosphodiesterase type 5,” Mirone points out.

There are also natural remedies that can affect total testosterone levels. It is in fact essential that the levels of this hormone are high enough in order to trigger a good erection.

“A tip is certainly to reduce your weight in relation to height (therefore aspire to a normal body mass index) and practice physical activity daily. Medium-lasting, but intense, physical activity is the most effective way to improve one’s circulating testosterone levels,” concludes Mirone.