Anxiety and Decreased Physical Sexual Sensitivity
Decreased Physical Sexual Sensitivity, such as the sensations of sexual stimulation being dramatically decreased, is a common symptom of anxiety, especially anxiety and panic attack symptoms.
Anxiety can significantly impact sexual function and sensitivity for both men and women, interfering with arousal, desire, and physical sensations during sexual activity. Understanding this connection can help those affected seek appropriate treatment.
This article explains the relationship between anxiety and decreased physical sexual sensitivity.
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Common Anxiety Decreased Physical Sexual Sensitivity Symptom Descriptions
- The physical sensations of sexual stimulation are noticeably decreased.
- Sex organs aren’t as sensitive as they used to be.
- The physical sensations on the penis or in the vagina are “dulled” or diminished.
- Reduced physical sensitivities associated with having sex.
- The responsiveness to sexual stimulation is muted, making it more difficult to achieve orgasm (or preventing the sensitivity required to orgasm).
- Reduced genital sensation during sexual activity.
- Difficulty becoming or staying aroused.
- An uncharacteristic lack of interest in sex.
Decreased physical sexual sensitivity can:
- Occur occasionally, frequently, or persistently.
- Precede, accompany, or follow an escalation of other anxiety symptoms or occur by itself.
- Precede, accompany, or follow a period of nervousness, anxiety, fear, and stress, or occur "out of the blue" for no reason.
- Range in intensity from slight, to moderate, to severe.
- Come in waves where it’s strong one moment and eases off the next.
- Occur for a while, subside, and then return for no reason.
- Change from day to day, moment to moment, or remain as a constant background during your struggle with anxiety disorder.
All the above combinations and variations are common.
To see if anxiety might be playing a role in your symptoms, rate your level of anxiety using our free one-minute instant results Anxiety Test, Anxiety Disorder Test, or Hyperstimulation Test.
The higher the rating, the more likely anxiety could be contributing to or causing your anxiety symptoms, including feeling like impending doom symptoms.
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Causes: Why Anxiety Can Cause Physical Sexual Insensitivity
Medical Advisory
Talk to your doctor about all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms as some medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms.
Anxious behavior, such as worry, activates the stress response, which secretes stress hormones into the bloodstream, where they travel to targeted spots to bring about specific physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that enhance the body’s ability to deal with a threat – to either fight or flee. This survival reaction is the reason why the stress response is often referred to as the fight or flight response.[1][2]
Visit the “Stress Response” article for the many ways it can affect the body and how we feel.
The stress response causes many body-wide changes that can affect sexual interest and sensitivity. For instance, the stress response:
- Shunts blood to parts of the body important for survival, such as the brain and muscles, and away from parts of the body that are less important, such as the digestive system, skin, and sexual organs. This shunting action can reduce blood flow to the sex organs, decreasing sexual sensitivity.
- Tightens muscles to make the body more resilient to harm. Tight muscles can interfere with relaxation and sexual arousal, as well as reduce blood flow to the sex organs, diminishing sensitivity and performance.
- Suppresses sexual arousal, further decreasing sexual sensitivity.
- Suppresses testosterone, which can diminish sexual interest and sensitivity.
- Increases activity in the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) and reduces activity in the cortex (the rationalization areas of the brain). This change heightens the focus on danger and reduces the focus on pleasure.
- Stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, the system responsible for emergency action, and suppresses the parasympathetic nervous system, the system responsible for calm and relaxation. Heightened emergency action and reduced calm can reduce sexual sensitivity and pleasure. Heightened awareness of danger can also distract away from sexual pleasure.
Any combination of the above stress response changes can reduce sexual interest and sexual sensitivity.
As long as the stress response is active, we can have an acute reduction in sexual interest and physical sexual sensitivity.
2. Hyperstimulation
Frequently activating the stress response, such as from overly anxious behavior, can leave the body in a state of semi-stress-response-readiness, which we call “stress-response hyperstimulation” since stress hormones are powerful stimulants.
Hyperstimulation is also often referred to as “hyperarousal,” “HPA axis dysfunction,” or “nervous system dysregulation.”[3][4]
Visit our “Hyperstimulation” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect the body and how we feel.
Hyperstimulation can cause the changes of an active stress response even though a stress response hasn’t been activated.
Just as an active stress response can cause acute decreased sexual sensitivity symptoms, hyperstimulation can cause chronic decreased sexual sensitivity symptoms.
Chronically reduced sexual sensitivity is a common indication of hyperstimulation.
Furthermore, hyperstimulation can lead to nervous system dysregulation, causing it to act erratically.[5][6] An erratic behaving nervous system can cause many nervous system symptoms, including a reduction in sexual sensitivity.
Moreover, because hyperstimulation can cause an increase in the electrical activity in parts of the brain, which can cause neurons to become even more unstable, neurons can fire even more erratically and involuntarily when the body and nervous system become hyperstimulated.[7]
Hyperstimulation (chronic stress) can also affect other hormone levels, such as endorphins and dopamine (the feel-good hormones).[8] A reduction in other hormones can cause a myriad of problems affecting sexual responsiveness, performance, and satisfaction.
Any combination of the above can cause a reduction in physical sexual sensitivity.
Other Factors
Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:
- Medication
- Recreational drugs
- Stimulants
- Sleep deprivation
- Fatigue
- Hyper and hypoventilation
- Low blood sugar
- Nutritional deficiencies
- Dehydration
- Hormone changes
- Pain
Select the relevant link for more information.
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Treatment
When physical sexual insensitivity is caused or aggravated by other factors, addressing those factors can reduce and eliminate it.
When this anxiety symptom is caused by anxious behavior and the accompanying stress response changes, calming yourself will bring an end to the active stress response and its changes. As your body recovers from the active stress response, normal sexual sensitivity should return.
Keep in mind, it can take up to 20 minutes or more for the body to recover from a major stress response. This is normal and shouldn’t be a cause for concern.
When physical sexual insensitivity is caused by hyperstimulation, eliminating hyperstimulation will end this anxiety symptom.
You can reduce and eliminate hyperstimulation by:
- Containing anxious behavior.
- Reducing stress.
- Regular deep relaxation.
- Relaxed diaphragmatic breathing.
- Regular light to moderate exercise.
- Getting regular good sleep.
- Eating a healthy diet of whole and natural foods.
- Avoiding stimulants.
- Passively-accepting your symptoms until they subside.
- Being patient as your body recovers.
Visit our “60 Natural Ways To Reduce Stress” article for more ways to reduce stress.
Recovery Support members can read chapters 5,6, 7, and 14 for more ways to reduce stress.
As the body recovers from hyperstimulation, normal physical sexual sensitivity will return.
However, eliminating hyperstimulation can take much longer than most people think, causing symptoms to linger longer than expected.
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, even slightly, it can present symptoms of any type, number, intensity, duration, frequency, and at any time, including this one.
Since worrying and becoming upset about anxiety symptoms stress the body, these behaviors can interfere with and stall recovery.
Passively accepting your symptoms – allowing them to persist without reacting to, resisting, worrying about, or fighting them – while doing your recovery work will cause their cessation in time.
Acceptance, practice, and patience are key to recovery.
Recovery Support
The Recovery Support area of our website contains thousands of pages of important self-help information to help individuals overcome anxiety disorder, hyperstimulation, and symptoms.
Due to the vast amount of information, including a private Discussion Forum, many of our Recovery Support members consider it their online recovery support group.
Therapy
Unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors cause issues with anxiety. As such, they are the primary reason why anxiety symptoms persist.
Addressing your underlying factors (Level Two recovery) is most important if you want lasting success.
Addressing Level Two recovery can help you:
- Contain anxious behavior.
- Become unafraid of anxiety symptoms and the strong feelings of anxiety.
- End anxiety symptoms.
- Successfully address the underlying factors that so often cause issues with anxiety.
- End what can feel like out-of-control worry.
All our recommended anxiety therapists have had anxiety disorder and overcame it. Their personal experience with anxiety disorder and their Master's Degree and above professional training give them insight other therapists don't have.
If you want to achieve lasting success over anxiety disorder, any one of our recommended therapists would be a good choice.
Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to treat anxiety disorder, especially if you have persistent symptoms and difficulty containing anxious behavior, such as worry.[9][10]
In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.
Research has shown that therapy is the most effective treatment for anxiety disorder, and distance therapy (via phone or the Internet) is equally, if not more effective, than face-to-face in-person therapy.[11][12][13]
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Common Anxiety Symptoms
Additional Resources
- For a comprehensive list of Anxiety Disorders Symptoms Signs, Types, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment.
- Anxiety and panic attacks symptoms can be powerful experiences. Find out what they are and how to stop them.
- How to stop an anxiety attack and panic.
- Free online anxiety tests to screen for anxiety. Two minute tests with instant results. Such as:
- Anxiety 101 is a summarized description of anxiety, anxiety disorder, and how to overcome it.
Return to our anxiety disorders signs and symptoms page.
anxietycentre.com: Information, support, and therapy for anxiety disorder and its symptoms, including Anxiety and Decreased Physical Sexual Sensitivity.
References
1. Chu, Brianna, et al. “Physiology, Stress Reaction.” StatPearls, 7 May 2024.
2. Godoy, Livea, et al. "A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications." Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, July 2018.
3. Elbers, Jorina, et al. "Wired for Threat: Clinical Features of Nervous System Dysregulation in 80 Children." Pediatric Neurology, Dec 2018.
4. Teixeira, Renata Roland, et al. “Chronic Stress Induces a Hyporeactivity of the Autonomic Nervous System in Response to Acute Mental Stressor and Impairs Cognitive Performance in Business Executives.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2015.
5. Yaribeygi, Habib, et al. “The Impact of Stress on Body Function: A Review.” EXCLI Journal, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, 2017.
6. Justice, Nicholas J., et al. “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder-Like Induction Elevates β-Amyloid Levels, Which Directly Activates Corticotropin-Releasing Factor Neurons to Exacerbate Stress Responses.” Journal of Neuroscience, Society for Neuroscience, 11 Feb. 2015.
7. Laine, Mikaela A, et al. “Brain Activation Induced by Chronic Psychosocial Stress in Mice.” Advances in Pediatrics., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2017.
8. Goliszek, Andrew. "The Stress-Sex Connection." Psychology Today, 22 Dec 2014.
9. Hofmann, Stefan G., et al. “The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-Analyses.” Cognitive Therapy and Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Oct. 2012.
10. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.
11. Thompson, Ryan Baird, "Psychology at a Distance: Examining the Efficacy of Online Therapy" (2016). University Honors Theses. Paper 285.
12. Kingston, Dan.“Advantages of E-Therapy Over Conventional Therapy.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 11 Dec. 2017.
13. DISCLAIMER: Because each body is somewhat chemically unique, and because each person will have a unique mix of symptoms and underlying factors, recovery results may vary. Variances can occur for many reasons, including due to the severity of the condition, the ability of the person to apply the recovery concepts, and the commitment to making behavioral change.