Bring Your Sexual Passion Back to the Bedroom

Depression has a way of seeping into places you least expect it to, and the bedroom is one of them. It drains energy from work, friendships, appetite, sleep. When it reaches your sex life, though, the loss feels especially personal. And the medications meant to pull you out of it often carry sexual side effects of their own, which can make the whole thing feel like a trap with no exit. It isn't one, even if it reads that way right now.

Start with how you're thinking about sex, not the sex itself. A useful phrase to carry around: enjoy more, stress less. A lot of us freeze up in bed because we're straining to meet standards that were never real to begin with. Nobody is having incredible sex every single time. Orgasms don't arrive on schedule for everyone on every occasion. Your depression is likely temporary and treatable, and holding onto that fact matters more than chasing some performance you've invented in your head.

Treating the depression is the real fix for the sexual fallout. Since some antidepressants come with their own bedroom problems, cognitive behavioral therapy is worth considering as a route that doesn't involve a prescription. CBT works on the negative thought patterns and builds up the positive behaviors, and for sexual trouble tied to depression it's a genuine option.

Move your body. Twenty to thirty minutes of exercise can lift both your sexual mood and your emotional state, according to research. Get your blood pumping and endorphins come with it. There's also the slower payoff: as your body starts to feel stronger, your sense of yourself tends to follow.

Touch is central to intimacy, and it pushes back against the way depression nudges you into isolation. Sometimes a back rub and some rest is the whole prescription. More hugging, more cuddling. Play around with massage. And touch doesn't require a partner. Your own hands count.

Women on antidepressants sometimes lose sensitivity in the genital area. Estrogen cream applied to the labia can restore some of that feeling and make arousal easier. Bring it up with your ob-gyn and whoever is treating your depression; some versions are sold over the counter. Dryness is another common side effect, since getting aroused becomes harder, and sex without lubrication hurts, which feeds back into wanting it less. Lubricants are not the hush-hush subject they used to be. They show up in TV shows and ads now, they're simple to buy and use, and they solve the problem. Pick a flavor together and have fun with it.

If arousal is taking longer than it used to, don't treat that as a defect. Stretch out the foreplay. Slow down and actually notice what feels good. The partner who isn't depressed tends to appreciate this too. Go past foreplay into fantasy and experimentation when you want to. An adult film, some lingerie, a steamy novel; any of these can help get past the medication's drag.

Talk to your doctor about the medications. It can feel strange to discuss sex and depression in the same breath, but your doctor has had this conversation many times before. Plenty of prescriptions exist, and finding the right one at the right dose is something you work out together. Antidepressants are sometimes paired with something like Viagra (sildenafil), which can improve sexual response in both men and women.

Sex is where the affection and desire and tenderness you feel for your partner take physical form. It carries the closeness and charge of the relationship itself, and a steady sex life is one marker of a couple that's doing well. Everyone hits stretches where stress piles up and the time you spend wrapped up in each other shrinks, where intimacy slides into routine. Those connections can be rebuilt. The pleasure you've lost track of is still there to be found again, for you and for your partner. - Jeff Stein

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