Natural Libido Enhancers

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Recipe: Maca Magic Smoothie 

A particular torment of being human is that we, among all Earth’s inhabitants, can imagine how much better things could be for us. This conundrum is especially apparent in the area of sex and intimacy. There may be a few individuals who say, “My body works like a charm and I have all the sex and/or intimacy I want or need.” The rest of us, however, experience times when the flow isn’t flowing, the glow isn’t glowing or the hydraulics just aren’t working the way they should.

But a slump does not equal a trend: Nature offers plenty of assistance to build and maintain our sexual health and to get things back on track when our erotic get-up-and-go takes a hike. However, loss of sexual desire, menopause-related physical changes and erectile dysfunction are all complex situations with a long list of possible causes. Diagnosis and treatment should be made under the supervision of a trained medical professional.

Overall Health Means Sexual Health

For starters, the greatest sexual enhancer is a healthy body. If you read that as thin, read again. Plump can be sexy, skinny can be sexy and so can any shape in between. What’s not sexy is exhaustion, emotional and mental turmoil, pain and a body so stressed it can’t maintain its own essential energy, much less share that essence with another.

Stress has almost become synonymous with American life, so it’s no small wonder many of us wish we could find some way to soothe the jagged edges and help ourselves to a bed-sized serving of sensual sustenance. The good news is, there are natural ways to accomplish this. The other news is, we can’t just keep galloping on, pop a couple of capsules and expect instant results.

“Sometimes people think using herbs for sexuality means, ‘Take these pills, drink this tea and go for it,”’ Diana De Luca, herbalist and author of Botanica Erotica: Arousing Body, Mind, and Spirit (Healing Arts, 1998), says. “We want to find one herb that’s going to fix everything, but it’s far more important to look at your whole lifestyle. I work with people who are simply depleted — and they wonder why their sexual drive is gone.

“You know all that stuff your mom told you? ‘Eat your greens, drink water, exercise outdoors, get plenty of sleep, keep a positive attitude’ — that stuff? Not only is it the way to be healthy, it’s the prescription for a great sex life, too. Celebrating our sexuality and sensuality is an important part of our total health care, not an isolated phenomenon.”

A case in point, says Steven Foster, Herbs for Health’s lead editorial adviser and author of numerous books on herbs, is that all the risk factors for erectile dysfunction are the same as those for cardiovascular disease. Several studies have shown that the higher a man’s cholesterol, the more likely he is to suffer erection impairment. Some of the herbs reputed to treat this problem, such as ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) and yohimbe (Pausinystalia yohimbe), work because they improve vascular dilation and increase microcirculation to the extremities. A better alternative, Foster says, is to control the lifestyle choices that lead to clogged arteries in the first place: Get adequate aerobic exercise, limit your intake of alcohol and drugs, eat a healthy diet and don’t smoke.

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