Let’s talk testosterone and the menopause connection
With Valentine’s Day in the middle of the month and its association with love and couples, it’s time to celebrate our intimate relationships with our special person.
However, during the perimenopause and menopause, our interest in sex can diminish for many reasons including stress, changes in body image, relationship dynamics, grief, general health, and wellbeing, not to mention of course our hormones.
It’s interesting to note that before the menopause, women produce 3 times more testosterone than oestrogen! (1) Levels of testosterone starts to dimmish with the loss of ovarian function, as it is our ovaries which produce it in the first instance.
Here are some of the symptoms of low testosterone levels:
- Low sexual desire and satisfaction
- Difficulty orgasming
- Anxiety or depression
- Physical fatigue
- Bone and muscle loss or weakness
- Joint pain
- Cognitive changes
- Insomnia
- Dry skin and thinning hair
- Weight gain
- Loss of muscle mass
- Feeling lack of motivation
- Crying easily (2)
There is some evidence that lower testosterone levels can also affect your mood and increase your chance of being depressed and cause inflammation within the body as well.
However, when we listen to current conversations about the menopause especially in the context of a medical (hormone deficient) model that the answer is to replace our reducing hormones and everything will remain just the same! But isn’t life about change, learning, personal growth and evolution?
When we consider it from an evolutionary perspective our sex drive is predominantly about survival and procreation it’s what drives us to search for the perfect mate after all. It then makes sense surely that this drive lessens with time, as we come to the natural end of reproductive years. That’s not so say that we don’t still enjoy and want the benefits of our intimate connections its just that they may be different! We may need to explore our expression of our sexuality in a different way!
Testosterone can be boosted naturally and here are some examples of how you can do it:
Lift weights and get moving.
Lifting weights and high-interval training can boost testosterone temporarily.
Mid-day sunlight boosts vitamin D levels
Reduce stress.
Reduces cortisol levels and improves testosterone production.
Eat foods rich in zinc:
- Including chicken and beef.
- Pumpkin seeds are full on antioxidants which reduce inflammation in the body.
- Beans/Legumes also improve weight management, and blood sugar control as well as improving heart health.
- Eggs
- Wild-caught salmon also contains Omega 3 fatty acids which improve function too.
- Almonds also improve cardiovascular function.
Testosterone Therapy
Testosterone therapy and replacement is becoming more popular when used in conjunction with HRT as advised by the British Menopause Society (3)
From my own experience I can only say that as I moved through the 4th decade and 5th decades of my life, while my sex drive may have waned, my appreciation and satisfaction of my intermit relations only intensified more than I could have imagined when I was in my younger reproductive years. Some things most certainly get better with age!
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References
(1) https://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/health-information/testosterone-low-sex-drive-menopause