Natural Herbal Remedies for Sexual Libido for Men and Women
What is a natural remedy to increase libido/sex drive and sexual dysfunction? Will a supplement really work? I will share notes about how to naturally enhance libido without the side effects of getting jittery or having a crash that follows a high.
Too many sexual enhancement supplements, especially for men, create side effects which are reported to feel like being over-caffeinated, or cause a jittery-feeling anxiety that seems to affect the heart rate.
Some libido supplements have ingredients in them that cause what is similar to a sugar high; stimulation that causes the metabolism to spike and ends up burning out quickly causing an energy crash. Many consumers looking for sex drive and performance support supplements report hit-or-miss results about the products.
So here is where I come in to let you know; the way to really get libido going is to adjust your diet. It will take care of whatever ails you at the source. No more buying combo-pills that have 'secret' natural herbal blends.
The formulated combo-supplements out on the market are rated to have mixed results with consumers. Why? Because herbal supplements work with what you eat.
What you eat needs to be harmonious with what you are trying to accomplish.
The labels on the packaging do not say it, but that is how it always goes. The industry has capitalized so much on putting together secret proprietary formulas; tree barks from Africa, bushes from India, roots from China - there really is a lot of craziness going on to make money on it, even fraud. A good herbal nutritionist will not treat you like a pharmacist and hand you
this or that supplement without also telling you what needs to change about your diet to get everything into sync to start working with you and for you.
The best way to start improving your sex drive is to adjust your diet. Restrict your intake of the following:
Anything Fried. Yes, that includes donuts. It also means french fries, potato chips, KFC, Gorditas and Chalupas. Fried foods affect the circulatory system. The foods also affect the performance of other major systems to stay clean and work the way evolution intended. The consumption of fried foods is a foe to sexual staying power and does not help with endurance or energy stabilization either.
Additives and Preservatives. This is the stuff that keeps your bread and cookies from becoming novelty paperweights in a short period of time. Excessive consumption of foods with preservatives causes oxidation of cells in the human body. Oxidation is the cause of cellular damage. It leads to the creation of free-radicals roaming around in the body. Without in-taking enough
antioxidants, the body is likely to feel run down and fatigued pretty consistently.
If you are looking to eat a pre-packaged dry snack food or frozen meal, it is likely to have loads of preservatives in it. Many processed foods, unsuspecting snacks such as 'healthy' granola and protein bars, candies, crackers and certain cereals have them. We cannot avoid them entirely. In the modern world they are regular ingredients in foods we purchase.
Do what you can to avoid packaged foods with additives and preservatives. Counteract their negative effects by increasing your consumption of antioxidants and freshly made foods. One can never get enough antioxidants, even on the cleanest of diets.
We may be so accustomed to the tired and run-down energy from processed foods, we don't even recognize it. Once you get off of the processed foods for a while and let the body experience running on 'clean energy' it really is a breath of fresh air for all of the systems in the body.
Refined Sugar. With as many pages that exist on the internet about why consumption of refined sugar is evil, I could add a few more, myself. There are too many options these days (especially natural alternatives) to continue to be using refined sugar for anything. Alternatives are worth researching.
Sugar causes hormonal fluctuations to swing up and down so wildly, all the body can do is try to deal with the fluctuation. If sugar shocks are a regular occurrence, the body tries to cope by going into overdrive to keep all of your organs and other systems running clean. The body becomes too busy with cleaning up after sugar to start serving up the hormones which regulate the sex drive. Give it a chance to produce them.
By restricting those three items from the diet alone: within two weeks, sustained energy will be a notable. Possibly for some, it will be a very radical improvement. It is the first step toward rejuvenating libido and correcting some issues associated with sexual dysfunction.
Next, limit the intake of dairy. Take a break from consuming :
•Cheese
•Cottage Cheese
•Milk including Lactaid
•Creams primarily milk-based
It may be a shocking surprise to have to put the brakes on dairy after the health agencies keep pushing to consume more.
Really you don't need the dairy. You need the vitamins and minerals added to it when it is fortified.
Approximately 85% of the world population has some level of intolerance to dairy. As we age, the body's ability to digest it becomes more and more difficult. But the symptoms of intolerance are not the reason to give it up for sex. Here is what is:
These dairy foods are high in casein which breaks apart during digestion. When casein is broken down it produces copious amounts of compounds called casomorphins. They are morphine-like opiates which stimulate a part of the brain that signals indulgence. When exposure to casomorphins becomes regular or even becomes excessive, the brain becomes suppressed from needing or wanting to engage in sexual activity. Casomorphins are so powerful they are known to be the trigger for eating disorders which can lead to obesity. They can increase addictive behaviors and aggravate psychological disorders. Moderating consumption of commercial dairy should be a practice always.
[ When I shared this information with my husband; letting him know what I was about to post to my blog, he freaked out that I would mention to anyone to 'give up the cheese.' He protested with utmost passion about the unfairness of removing a food group that gives so much pleasure! He then posited a question to me after reading about the other preparations of food on the restriction list, "Will anyone want to have sex anymore in exchange for having all of their eating pleasures completely obliterated?!" He was hilarious, but was also serious. My response: I can only hope... ]
To further express how powerful casomorphins are, in scenario-polls asked of men and women about which they would give up for a year, sex or cheese, in exchange for a large monetary reward (a million dollars?) a majority of people will respond that they would give up sex and keep their option to eat cheese. No joke! For many, coming to a final decision about which to choose is a really difficult conundrum. (It really can be an amusing topic of discussion to explore with a group of friends.)
More seriously however, excessive amounts of casomorphins firing through our system is not so amusing. The opiate has negative effects on mental health and mood stability as well as sexual health more than we might be willing to accept. In this case here where I really am talking about enhancing the sex lives of people who may be struggling with lack of sexual desire, not wanting to give up the cheese and dairy in exchange for having their sex-life back can be an eye-opener about just how much control over habit and behavior the casomorphins have. It is a drug misused and abused to feel the 'food high'.
Now that we have yanked all the of stuff to live for out of the regular diet, what's next? (Those are the casomorphins talking, by the way.) Well, all is not lost! These are foods you can eat and reliably expect to support you with enhancing your sex life. I hope the options don't make you cry.
Consume More Amino Acids and Protein Rich Foods
Oysters anyone? Amino acids and proteins are the building blocks of every cell in every system in the human body. It is critical to have plenty of protein to remain functional and healthy in every way. Protein builds and repairs tissues, makes enzymes, hormones and other chemicals. It builds bones, muscle, cartilage, skin and blood. Increase your intake of fish, poultry, legumes, nuts and whole grains and you will be amazed at what kind of sustained, consistent energy you'll have throughout the day, every day. When the body has energy and is producing necessary hormones in abundance (especially sexual hormones), it won't be long before sexy-time is all the time!
This prime vegetable is awesome for your love muscles.
Eat your spinach. Popeye had it right all along. Have it in a salad with different types of nuts. Steam it and serve it with tomato. Sauté it in a pan with some garlic.
...And then start kegeling! For sexual enhancement, spinach is a super-food. Along with its many other nutritional benefits, spinach also contains an opioid peptide that influences the brain to want to get active.
For men, the addition or increased consumption of this food into your diet may significantly improve some symptoms of erectile dysfunction.
An interesting factoid reveals that spinach positively affects muscles to need less blood flow to perform efficiently while at the same time improving circulation and muscle efficiency. One recently published article shares
information about it here. I love this information! Go read more about it.
Spinach should be added to a diet balanced with omega-3, garlic or tomato to help eliminate iron (especiallly for men). The zinc in it helps produce testosterone and helps promote healthy prostate function and sperm count. For women, the zinc is important for regulating hormones associated with sexual health including sex drive. Other foods high in zinc include those darned oysters again, asparagus, broccoli and green peas. Anyone taking certain medications for cardiopulmonary or blood-related diseases may be advised to not consume greens such as spinach.
Now Let's Spice It All Up!
Spices are the aphrodisiacs that can entice the sex drive to wake up. Common or exotic, many of them send signals to the part of the brain that stimulates arousal. The dishes don't need to be peppery-hot. The foods just need a variety of flavor and aromatics.
Cajun and Creole preparations, Thai dishes and Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines are among the many types of foods with recipes that offer richness and diversity in the use of flavoring and aromatic spices. Coriander, cardamom, cumin, turmeric, curry powders, red chilis (such as cayenne), garlic, onions, ginger and nutmeg are excellent. The brain is often stimulated by combinations of spices in a way similar to how it responds to opiates. The resulting stimulus it triggers in the brain can be associated with being subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly hypnotic, euphoric, erotic and aphrodisiac.
The key is to have a small-to-medium portion of a dish that is rich with a combination of different spices or peppers. Be warned, eating too much in a sitting may cause you to feel tired.
Aside from the benefit of kick starting sexual arousal, depending on which cultural cuisine you choose, the array of spices may open up the blood vessels all the way to the smallest capillaries and the bronchial airways in the lungs, stimulate brain activity, cleanse the blood and tissues, are anti-inflammatory, might aid with digestion and even have cancer-fighting properties, promote heart-health, positively affect prostate health and other reproductive and breast health for women. The list could go on. Big thumbs up to spices.
Lastly, the Information About Supplements.
If you are looking for a remedy that will specifically isolate the function of one single body part and keep it levitated for hours, you are asking for something unnatural. You would be asking for Viagra. After the relatively short-term effects it has, it is a drug that doesn't fix any issues and compounds other ones. Herbal Viagra is pretty much a marketing buzzword. The products labeled like that do not work like actual prescription (or black market) Viagra pills. They won't.
Herbal supplements interact with the whole body and all of its systems. I treat them similarly to pharmaceuticals in that; their use must be respected. I warn that herbal supplements may have interactions with food, prescribed medications, specific diagnosed ailments and chronic ailments just like a synthesized pharmaceutical would. I believe the nature of our bodies appreciates a more natural approach. Going herbal is less likely to present side effects unless misused.
For both sexes:
Gender-based multivitamins help fill in some holes that even the healthiest of diets will not provide with regularity. Vitamins A and zinc as libido boosters for example, work cooperatively with each other as do calcium and magnesium. Trying to balance the intake of all of them with meals is not easy, especially when exposure to stress and not having a long enough, restful amount of sleep causes the use of one or the other to go out of balance.
The recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals (RDA) on packaging information is misleading. RDA only expresses what the minimum necessary allowance of nutrients is to avoid deficiencies which cause illness. It is incredibly easy to fall below the RDA suggestions for any number of vitamins and minerals. This is the reason many adults today suffer from chronic illnesses including depression. The truth is, consuming the minimum RDA barely crosses the line toward sustained good health and it barely keeps busy adults going. Please take your vitamins.
Ginkgo biloba and panax ginseng are a combination of herbs that does wonders for cognitive focus, blood flow and for promoting healthy brain cell communication through neurotransmitter pathways. The combo really should be part of the modern multi- complexes because of the benefits it has shown in numerous research studies. So much of what goes on in the brain and the hormones released from the glands in the brain have a direct effect on sexual desire, a ginkgo and panax ginseng combination is a must-have to help support an increase in libido.
Men:
For men, as you age, no matter what you do, the prostate is prone to becoming enlarged. It is a natural process of aging and can hinder sexual performance. The natural enlargement of the prostate is not in itself dangerous. It is when it is enlarging abnormally that is cause for concern. Stinging Nettle is a supplement that aids with improving prostate health, reducing prostate enlargement and regulating and improving cardiopulmonary and respiratory health. This one supplement combined with the diet I have proposed above may improve your sex life with dramatically surprising results. Some people are allergic. Please do your research on the benefits and side effects of its use.
For women:
Hormonal fluctuations in females will start at the onset of puberty. Interest in sex may repeatedly diminish and return in cycles naturally over the course of a lifetime. A woman's reproductive hormone health can best be supported by supplements of either Red Clover, Black Cohosh or Wild Yam. A Black Cohosh and Wild Yam combination is sometimes sold and marketed to relieve hot flashes, however, the combo also aids with libido and fertility. My personal suggestion for balancing hormone health is to start with Red Clover. Depending on your situation with menopause and if any other prescription medications are being taken, I suggest researching between them all to see which feels best to use first.
Healthy sex drive and reproductive function are important to keep in check. Personal esteem as well as emotional, spiritual and physical well-being are connected to the sexual experience. With just a few adjustments to the normal intake of nutrients, we can insure that one of our major systems in the body remains in good condition and is ready to perform.
Questions are always welcome and comments appreciated.
Wishing you all happiness and good health.
Violet
