I’m in my 30s and too young to lose my sex drive

Suzi Godson says a low libido is much more likely to be a response to tiredness, difficult life events, professional stress or interpersonal problems. 

Q. I’m a man in my early 30s and I don’t want sex as much as I used to. I didn’t expect this to happen until I was a lot older.

It’s not drastic, but it’s a huge change from even two years ago. Is this normal?

A. You don’t say whether you are in a long-term relationship, but if you have been with the same partner for several years it would be completely normal to see some decline in your sex drive.

Familiarity is an inevitable consequence of commitment and sometimes closeness takes the edge off desire.

Most younger couples start out having sex every day, but within a year their average frequency is less than twice a week.

Ten years ago the average sexual frequency for men and women aged between 16 and 44 was 6.3 and 6.2 times a month respectively.

Data from the most recent British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles shows that by 2013 those figures had dropped to 4.9 and 4.8 times a month.

It is also normal for libido to diminish with age.

After the age of 30 male testosterone production begins to decline by about 1 to 2% a year; however, this decrease is so gradual that it does not usually become apparent until a man is in his 50s, or even older.

In a man of your age low libido is much more likely to be a response to tiredness, difficult life events, professional stress or interpersonal problems.

Lifestyle choices also have an impact.

Drinking excessively, recreational drugs, smoking or over-the-counter painkillers can blunt the libido.

It can also be an indication of general health issues such as obesity or a side-effect of medication; for example, antidepressants negatively affect desire.

If you can identify contributory factors, improving your general health and finding ways to manage stress more effectively will help enormously.

Eating healthily, losing weight, trying to achieve a better work-life balance, learning relaxation techniques such as yoga or mindfulness meditation, and doing 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day will relax your mind and reinvigorate your body.

Sex is therapeutic too, but you need to take your time. Spend longer on foreplay to allow your arousal to build more slowly, and don’t focus on rushing to orgasm.

Ideally, sex should be about pleasure not pressure, but unexplained changes in libido are unsettling, particularly for men who are conditioned to believe that virility and masculinity are intrinsically linked.

Unfortunately, worrying about your libido will only aggravate this problem.

Libido is governed by the involuntary nervous system, which also regulates heart rate, digestion and breathing, bodily functions that we rely on but can’t consciously control.

When you get anxious, your body releases adrenaline and cortisol.

These restrict blood flow to the genitals, so that it can be directed towards the heart and the lungs in preparation for fight or flight.

As soon as that happens, the desire for sex, and the capacity to perform, disappears.

The drop in your libido is unlikely to have a medical cause, but low testosterone levels can negatively affect libido, so see your GP just in case.

If your testosterone level is low, you should be checked for elevated prolactin because the combined results can indicate an underactive thyroid.

If you have any issues at all with sexual function, tell your GP.

A weak or unreliable erection, or an absence of morning erections, can be an early warning sign of something more serious.

Erections rely on healthy blood flow to the penis, so anything that interferes with circulation, such as vascular disease or diabetes, will affect them.

Men of your age are often very reluctant to go to the doctor, but there are only two conceivable outcomes and both are positive.

Either the doctor will find out what is wrong and come up with a treatment plan to solve the problem, or he or she will give you a clean bill of health, which means you can get back to enjoying life.

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