‘Libid-no’

When the body enters a state of starvation, it prioritises survival over reproduction, which makes total sense, your body realises it doesn’t have enough energy to sustain itself, let alone a little one, so it shuts down the ‘none-essential’ systems in order to survive. This shut down can cause knock on effects such as, loss of libido…

Why? Let me tell you.

The main reason many women experience lack of sexual desire is down to hormones. The hypothalamus, a part of the brain, stops sending signals to the pituitary gland to produce the hormones it needs for reproduction, and naturally the desire fades.

Estrogen levels drop due to low body fat and chronic under eating, and estrogen is essential to help keep things juicy and desires alive. This hormonal drop is why many women go through amenorrhea (the loss of their period). When the cycle stops, so does the desire. While testosterone is typically thought of as a male hormone, women produce it, and it is a key driver of libido… yet anorexia causes these levels to drastically drop.

Your body also starts to conserve energy, the brain allocates the limited energy to the critical organs like your heart, lungs and brain. Sex expends energy, so your noggin suppresses the ‘arousal’ part of the nervous system in a fight to cling onto energy. When you think about it, libido also requires energy, and when you are under nourished, energy levels can be low, so the psychological desire for intimacy is replaced with desire for heat, rest and sleep.

With many eating disorders, body image anxiety is rather common, it can be super challenging to feel sexual or simply just present, because the mind can be totally preoccupied with how the body looks, how it will be perceived and seen, this can really kill the spontaneity and joy related to sexual desire. 

Starvation also alters the chemistry of your brain, specifically affecting serotonin and dopamine levels. Dopamine is the chemical in charge of desire and motivated. In a restricted state, the dopamine system becomes dysregulated and things that were pleasurable like sex and food, no longer are.

It is crazy when you think about what your body can do in order to protect you, and how it literally flicks switch in the brain to ensure your body keeps fighting. The good news is that you can get out of ‘libid-no’ zone. As your body starts to feel safe, nourished and with sustainable weight restoration, switches begin to flick again, hormone levels rebalance, the brain reward system, aka dopamine awakens, survival mode is no more and desires are reignited. 

Biggest hug,

Lottie x