Dr. Laura Berman Shares Tips To Improve Your Sex Life

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Sex and relationship expert Dr. Berman addresses low sexual desire and the connection between a woman's brain, body, and sex.

Todd Hartley:
Hi, and thank you for joining us at EmpowHER where we improve health and change lives. To talk about the brain, the body and women’s sexual desire, I am joined right now by Dr. Laura Berman who has teamed up with the Society for Women’s Health Research to launch an initiative called ‘Sex, Brain, Body: Make the Connection’. Hi Dr. Berman!

Dr. Laura Berman:
Hi.

Todd Hartley:
Well thank you for joining us on EmpowHER. Desire is a huge thing. What’s the link that women have between the brain, the body, and of course women’s sexual desire? What’s that connection?

Dr. Laura Berman:
Well, first of all, low sexual desire is most common complaint that women struggle with and it’s on a continuum. You know, there’s some women who just go through periods of time; we all go through ebbs and flows where, based on weather we’re having babies at that moment or how stressed we are at work or family crises that may lose some of our desire, but it usually kind of rallies back.

But, you know, there is this growing body of research supporting the idea that there is a real disorder of sorts called Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, which is a real diagnosis. It’s been around for about 30 years but nobody has really talked about it and basically what it means is that the woman has persistent lack of thoughts, fantasies, motivation to be sexual and it’s causing her significant personal distress and then the question is so, is it the brain, is it the body, is it both?

For every woman there are always, you know, emotional relationship and medical factors all happening at the same time and all interacting with one another. So you have to kind of address them all at once, but the cool thing is that there is now some really interesting research coming out to really highlight, for women in particular, that there are some real physical medical brain elements, physiology of the brain not just psychology of the brain, that plays a role in a woman’s desire and that it’s not necessarily just because she can’t stand her partner or she doesn’t like her body or she needs to relax more although all those can be true, but there are often other medical causes as well.

Todd Hartley:
Can we talk for a moment about the sexual satisfaction check up available on the campaign’s website, sexbrainbody.com? Why is this a valuable tool for women?

Dr. Laura Berman:
Well the most important part of it is really for women to know that they are not alone, to see that there are many, many, many other, you know, more than 30 million women all under the age of 59, even more than that over it, that are struggling with low desire, but the idea of the checklist is to not only give you an opportunity to look at your sex life and to look at your relationship and ask the questions that are going to maybe highlight any problems you have, but also see if perhaps you might fit the diagnosis of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, HSDD, or whether, you know, you should talk to your doctor, conversation starters to bring up to your doctor how to talk to your partner about it.

So it’s really the checklist kind of helps you, a woman, kind of tune into what’s happening for her and around her sexual issues and then that kind of directs her to the other tools that she might need to take the next step.

Todd Hartley:
It seems like there’s a lot of women that are suffering in silence and this campaign that you guys have put together is giving women an opportunity to come out of that silent suffering and recognize the tools. So if a woman is struggling with let’s say low desire, can you give women some tips to starting a conversation with their partner about their sexual health issues?

Dr. Laura Berman:
Yeah, I mean obviously the nice thing about low desire in particular is that it’s not something that you necessarily hide, you know, you might hide it in the beginning, you know, when you can still rally up and get the energy up and go along when he initiates sex, but eventually, especially if it’s Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, you know, not only you are going to now be motivated to initiate it, but you are really not going to want to do it and so it’s not going to, it’s not a surprise to your partner, in most cases, what’s going on and it’s an issue that sort of is an 800-pound gorilla in the room with the two of you and most important thing is just to acknowledge its existence. To talk about the fact that there is a problem to try to kind of do some detective work, both looking at your general connection, your emotional intimacy, the amount of time you are spending together, are there conflicts your relationship, how is this issue affecting your relationship, giving your partner an opportunity to really have an honest dialogue with you about some of the fears they have; “Is it my fault? Am I not attractive? Are you cheating on me?” To really put all of the issues on the table so that both of you become allies in your desire if you indeed do desire to reclaim your sexual desire.

Todd Hartley:
Now that’s a good way to start dialogue with your partner, but what about at the doctor’s office? Often I find, even myself, when I go into the doctor’s office I am less than likely to be straightforward on things that I am experiencing. What can women do to bring up this subject to their doctor?

Dr. Laura Berman:
And the saddest part of that is that the doctors are really, more often than not, not even asking the question, “Has there been any changes in your sex life?” So they are not even giving you any real open doors and they are rushing you to the appointment, “You have 15 minutes…”

Todd Hartley:
I mean, is it that the doctors don’t have training in sexual health?

Dr. Laura Berman:
The majority of them don’t have training, haven’t been exposed to training around how to talk about these topics and also they are humans too that grew up with their own inhibitions and difficulty talking about it in their own families. So, it sort of perpetuates itself.

But the most important thing I tell women is with all areas of health, but especially with this one, you can’t expect your doctor to do it for you; you have to be your own best health advocate and bring out up, you know, write down, that’s why the tools on sexbrainbody.com are helpful because it helps you get very clear what questions you want to ask, what’s going to be important to talk about with your doctor.

You can go in with those questions prepared and even in your hand written down and don’t be shy about bringing up the issues to your doctor, and if your doctor sort of blows it off or tells you just to go home and have a glass of wine, or it’s just something to accept and it really is causing you real personal distress, affecting your quality of life and your relationship, then it’s time to find a new doctor and you will.

Sometimes you have to go through a couple of doctors before you will find one who will really work with you on that.

Todd Hartley:
Earlier we were talking about couples and how one can have a lack of sexual desire and because it takes two to tango it’s hard to tell who is throwing off the other person. Is there a way to determine who is creating the lack of sexual desire in the relationship?

Dr. Laura Berman:
It doesn’t matter honestly because every single time, I don’t care if every reason that she has low desire is started at a medical physiologic place, the bottom line is that it’s always a result of the dynamics between the two of you. So maybe she’s checked out more out of from sex because of some brain issue or medical issue or hormonal issue, but as she’s checked out and is less sexually available to him, he is that much less emotionally connected to her, and then if he is less emotionally connected to her, she’s got much less sexually inspired by him.

You know, so these things kind of take on a life of their own and ultimately when someone walks into my office I am not interested in deciding, you know, where it started and whose fault it is, I am just interested in looking at all the contributing factors, you know, all the pieces of the picture puzzle, whether they are medical, whether they are relationship, whether emotional – all the things that are contributing to the problem and address it all at once.

Todd Hartley:
That makes sense. Well she is Dr. Laura Berman and she has teamed up with the Society for Women’s Health Research and they are dedicated to improving women’s health through advocacy, education and of course, research. For more information please visit sexbrainbody.com.

Dr. Laura Berman, thank you so much for helping us improve sexual health and change women’s lives.

Dr. Laura Berman:
Thanks a lot.

Visit Dr. Berman at her website