Dopamine, Sex, and Working Through Depression

It comes back to that old riddle about the chicken and the egg. People living with depression and anxiety tend not to be in the mood for sex. Yet research points to sex as one of the stronger antidepressants a body has access to. We are wired to reach for other people. And that creates a strange knot inside medicine: depressed people already have a lower sex drive, and the drugs prescribed for depression are known to lower it further. So you have to wonder whether a flattened sex drive feeds the depression by cutting off chances to connect through intimacy.

Then there's the far end of the mood spectrum, what used to be called manic-depression and is now Bipolar Disorder. Someone with a bipolar diagnosis generally can't take antidepressants on their own; they need a mood stabilizer alongside. Sexual promiscuity shows up as one marker of the manic phase. Is the disorder itself driving the hunger for more sex, or is a depressed person chasing pleasure to push their dopamine up, trying to balance themselves out and not quite managing it?

Most people know low serotonin tracks with depression and anxiety. Dopamine plays a different role. It's the reward chemical, released when we hit a goal or connect sexually, and it tends to leave us feeling more charged up. Push it too far, though, and a person can lose their footing in reality. The extreme cases of schizophrenia involve exactly that, too much dopamine. Given how these transmitters interact, if someone turns promiscuous while depressed, the real wound underneath might simply be loneliness. We're built for relationships, some closer than others, and a shortage of real connection can be what drags the mood down.

The hard part is this: how do you reach toward another person when you're already deep in the depression and can barely function? A useful starting point is remembering that sex is not only a physical act. When the physical act is all there is, that's lust rather than love. Sex builds the base for a strong emotional bond, one that stretches into every kind of care two people give each other.

The Bible frames a life partner as a help, someone who carries you through sickness as well as health. That's part of why choosing a partner deserves weight and care. Sleeping with anyone and everyone tends to leave emotional wreckage that can follow a person for years. When the spiritual, emotional, and physical connection to someone is genuine, the sex life, in all its forms, mostly sorts itself out.

A married man once described a penny jar he was handed on his wedding day. He and his bride dropped a penny in every time they had sex during that first year. Every year after, they took one penny out. You can see where it goes. Couples have less sex after year one, and maybe that's because the first year of near-constant sex forged a lasting bond through oxytocin. Bond, bond, bond. That bond is what keeps people together. It may also explain why plenty of couples fall apart fast: they ran on lust and never grew the emotional link. Their passion was never tied to any intention to love and care for the other person. Intention might be what decides whether sex releases only dopamine or also oxytocin, the bonding hormone.

You've probably heard that love conquers all. The stretches when you feel most depressed and want to hide may be the very times you need more contact with people, not less. You can't predict who you'll meet or where. Maybe the low periods are when connection matters most. Give it time, get to know someone, let something grow.

The largest sex organ in the body isn't the genitals. It's the brain. Getting the most out of sex with a partner means being inventive about expressing a love that keeps growing, pulling in the whole brain: thoughts, intentions, emotions, memories. Not a mechanical genital exchange aimed only at sensation. Tie those sensations to a mental picture of why this person matters to you, the reasons you want to be this close and this open with them. Talk about what you fantasize about, maybe try some role play.

Sex can be therapeutic, which is to say it carries medicinal effects. Better heart health, steadier blood pressure, higher self-esteem, among others. We live in a century where people keep turning back to nature for remedies, and sometimes the best move under stress is to be with the person you love. No partner? Then go out and meet people and start building a loving connection. The plain act of connecting with others may be the steadiest mood stabilizer there is.

On the subject of natural health, a handful of foods act as aphrodisiacs. The list runs long and includes avocados, chocolate, nuts, and strawberries, which trace back to Venus, the Greek goddess of love. Chili peppers belong on it too, if you can take the heat; they're hot in more than one sense.

Maybe the real gift of a loving sexual partner is knowing they'll stay through the highs and the lows and love you as you are. On some days that's the best antidepressant a person can take, prescribed daily. - Erwin Bishop