12 Ways Women Can Increase Libido Naturally: Supplements, Gummies & More

If you're reading this, you're likely wondering how to reignite your libido—or perhaps you’re simply curious about what might be getting in the way. Maybe you can remember a time when you craved intimacy, when the desire to connect physically felt natural and effortless. But now, rekindling that spark seems elusive, or frankly unappealing if you have symptoms that make it hard to get in the mood (ugh, vaginal dryness). Well, you’ve come to the right place for answers.

If low libido has become part of your reality, you’re not alone. A staggering 38% of women in the U.S. report struggling with low sexual desire, according to a comprehensive study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. What's more, as you age, so does the likelihood of diminished libido—by the time women reach 65, three out of four report little to no desire. But here’s some good news: You can turn things around.  

Many things can make sex less exciting for women throughout life, and especially during menopause, including problems in the areas of desire, arousal, orgasm, and pleasure, says Midi’s chief clinical officer Mindy Goldman, M.D. 

Unfortunately there are still many societal taboos around discussing sex, says Goldman, making women less likely to bring it up with their doctor. “Women should know that sexual concerns are normal and can be addressed,” says Dr. Goldman. “That’s why it’s especially important to find a provider who is knowledgeable and comfortable and open in discussing these concerns.”

So, how can you get your libido back? We’ll break down everything you need to know about low libido, natural ways to increase it, plus medical treatments, relationship fixes, and more. At Midi, our clinicians have heard—and treated it all—so they can help you regain your spark and interest in sex.

Understanding Low Libido in Women

Libido is simply a word to describe sexual desire, or how much you want to engage in sexual activity. You can have a high libido, meaning you have a high sex drive. You can also have a low libido, which means a low sex drive. During perimenopause and menopause, declining levels of estrogen can take your typical level of desire and tank it. Not to mention that a decrease in estrogen can also cause vaginal dryness and thinning that make sex uncomfortable and painful.

Of course, it’s important to remember that levels of desire are so individual, varies from person-to-person, and can shift throughout life. And then there’s how your low libido can affect your relationship—especially if there’s a mismatch in sex drive with your partner that's putting a real dent in both of your lives. 

If low libido lingers for a long time, you may be diagnosed with hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD. HSDD is defined as “a persistent or recurrent absence of sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity, causing personal distress or interpersonal difficulties.” That last part—personal distress/interpersonal difficulties—is really important. When your low libido is making you feel unhappy or causing issues in your relationship, then it’s something to take steps to treat. (You’re in the right place, keep reading!)

Symptoms of Low Libido

The symptoms of low libido can include:

• Lack of motivation for sexual activity
• Reduced or lack of desire for fantasies and sexual stimulation
• Inability to maintain desire during sexual activity
• Loss of desire to initiate or participate in sexual activity
• Avoidance of situations that can lead to sexual activity

Making things more complex are all of the factors that influence your sexual desire, including:

• Physical causes: Hormonal changes like menopause, which can affect vaginal tissues in particular, leading to discomfort; stage of life, such as postpartum; medications; and underlying medical conditions like thyroid disease.
• Psychological causes: Stress, anxiety, depression, past trauma, and more.
• Lifestyle factors: Poor diet, lack of exercise, sleep problems, and more.

Understanding how you're faring in all these categories will help you identify the root cause(s) of your low sex drive—and what you can do to start to bring the heat back up.

Natural Ways to Increase Libido

When you’re ready to make a changes to restore your sex drive, you can start with some of these natural solutions for a higher libido:

Make Dietary Changes

Everyone “knows” that oysters are known to be an aphrodisiac, but you definitely don’t have to eat them to get in the mood. Eating in a healthy, balanced way—shout out to the Mediterranean Diet—reduces inflammation, decreases the risk of metabolic syndrome, and helps maintain a healthy weight, all of which keep blood vessels healthy—which impacts genital arousal. (Blood flow to vaginal tissues is key for vaginal lubrication.) Limiting your sodium intake, in particular, enhances the ability of vessels to dilate.

And a special shout-out to tofu and edamame: Soy intake has been also shown to help boost vaginal blood flow and lubrication, which is especially helpful if you’re experiencing vaginal dryness and irritation. Other foods that have been shown to help with sexual health thanks to their effects on the vascular system or vaginal lubrications: watermelon, apples, and cacao.

Try Over-the-Counter Solutions for Vaginal Dryness

Vaginal dryness, irritation, and pain during intercourse affect 50% of women after menopause. If vaginal dryness and irritation is a big part of your libido nosedive, it’s time to buddy up with vaginal moisturizers and lubricants.

• Vaginal moisturizers, which you can apply a few times per week, work by improving moisture in vaginal cells so that you’re naturally more hydrated. Midi clinicians recommend the vaginal moisturizing products by the brands Good Clean Love and Revaree by Bonafide.
• Vaginal lubricants, on the other hand, are products that you use during sexual activity. These products make penetration more comfortable and a whole lot more enjoyable. If you’re using condoms, you’ll want to ensure that the lubricant you’re using is also condom compatible. (That includes silicone- and water-based lubes, but often not oil-based ones.)

No matter what OTC product you’re using, make sure that it’s fragrance-free (and, if a lubricant, also free of colors and flavorings) to protect the health of your vagina. 

Prioritize Physical Activity

Getting your body moving at the gym (or anywhere, frankly) can help amp up the energy elsewhere. One study found that women who engaged in frequent physical activity had an up to 80% reduction in the chances of having low libido. Exercise helps you in a variety of ways: It has a positive impact on hormones and your nervous system that promote mental and physiological arousal, plus it’s a bonafide mood and body image booster, notes research. (When you’re feeling yourself, you may also be more likely to say ‘yes’ to sex.) 

Reduce Stress

You know the feeling of having a high-stress day where you’re left frayed and frazzled? The last thing on your mind might be having sex with your partner. And that’s normal. Research shows that higher amounts of daily stress is linked to lower sexual activity—and lower relationship satisfaction, too. Improving stress management by lessening stressful situations, scheduling time for self-care (in whatever way that looks like for you), getting enough sleep, exercising, and eating well can all help improve your mental health and mood.

Improve Sleep Quality

Sleep affects your overall well being in so many ways, including your sexual desire. Think about it: If you’re conked at the end of the day, do you really want to expend the energy to have sex? That may be a hard pass. But here’s the kicker: Getting good sleep is related to higher libido the next day. In fact, getting just one extra hour of sleep was associated with a 14% increase in the odds of engaging in sexual activity with a partner, according to research in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Women who got more sleep also reported better genital arousal. Now that’s a win.

Libido Gummies and Supplements for Women

When searching for solutions for low libido, you may have come across libido gummies, which are supplements (in gummy form) that contain ingredients that, companies claim, improve sexual desire and function. Products differ across the board but they may include a combination of the following:

• Ashwagandha 
• Maca
• Cayenne
• L-theanine
• Damiana 
• Ginkgo biloba

These herbs are added to libido gummies for one of several reasons: They may help reduce stress and anxiety, are considered an aphrodisiac, improve blood flow, or are linked to enhanced sexual desire. There is, however, a lack of evidence showing that libido gummies will effectively improve your sex life (or desire for one), and individual data on many of these ingredients is also lacking, conflicting, or shows limited evidence. The choice is yours if you’d like to try them to see if they benefit you. These types of gummies aren’t considered harmful, so even if it’s just the placebo effect that has you feeling more perked up, take it. 

Still, before choosing any supplement, it’s important to purchase those that are third-party certified, which ensures that they are labeled correctly and do not contain contaminants. Doing so helps you stay safe when taking them—a must even when they’re available over-the-counter.

Supplements are unlikely to be the answer to your libido problems. Your health, life stage, lifestyle, and relationship are all pieces to figuring out exactly why your desire is down—and how to get it back up. Most women benefit from a treatment plan that's more holistic, including a combination of lifestyle changes, medications, and maybe even some supplements, to get your libido back on track.

Medical Treatments for Low Libido

There are many science-backed options available to you to get your sex life back on track. 

Hormone Replacement Therapy

Midlife women in the menopausal transition often benefit from hormone replacement therapy (HRT), especially if you’re besieged with symptoms that may be interfering with intimacy. (Some experts now use the terms hormone therapy (HT) or menopausal hormone therapy, or MHT). The name is a tad misleading because you’re not replacing any hormones in your body so much as you’re giving them a little boost. “Adding back just a tiny percentage of the hormones your body made during your peak reproductive years “is all that is needed to gain so many benefits,” says Midi’s Chief Medical Officer Kathleen Jordan, MD. 

Available in a pill, patch, vaginal ring, topical cream or gel, the medication provides small doses of estrogen (plus progesterone if you have a uterus) to your body. Estrogen deficiency in menopause is linked to a low libido, as well as vaginal dryness and thinning that make sex uncomfortable and painful. 

Research suggests that HRT can improve sexual desire and symptoms like vaginal dryness. “We know that declining estrogen levels that occur with menopause can affect individual women differently,” says Dr. Goldman. “About 50% of menopausal women will get symptomatic Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause, or GSM. This collection of symptoms is due to declining estrogen and can include symptoms like vaginal/vulvar dryness, burning, pain, sexual dysfunction as well as urinary symptoms.” All things that can do a real number on your libido.

If you’ve also been experiencing menopausal symptoms like night sweats and hot flashes—which can wreak havoc on your overall wellbeing—HRT can be a huge help. HRT relieves hot flash symptoms by up to 90 percent.

Testosterone

To inject some life back in your libido, testosterone supplementation during perimenopause and menopause might just be your ticket to reviving your missing mojo. Testosterone is the spicy hormone behind your sex drive, and according to a major study on postmenopausal women, testosterone therapy can effectively reverse low desire.

The plot twist? Despite its stellar performance, there's currently no FDA-approved testosterone product for women in the U.S. However, it's still prescribed off-label for women whose testosterone levels have gone south, contributing to libido hibernation or other symptoms. Potential side effects like acne or hair growth can crash the party, but a simple dose adjustment usually addresses these issues.

This underscores why getting testosterone treatment from a trained professional (like the experts at Midi) is absolutely crucial. (Heads up: Testosterone treatments have different restrictions depending on where you live, so chat with a clinician about the options available in your state.) 

Rx Vaginal Creams

Other bedroom-boosting treatments might include vaginal DHEA/estradiol cream — which can improve moisture and elasticity of vaginal tissues, making sex more comfortable and potentially turning up the heat on your desire. Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands and it can be converted to estrogen and testosterone. When used as a topical cream, it has been shown to reduce symptoms of vaginal dryness and painful intercourse.

Medications for HSDD

If you are premenopausal, then you may benefit from one of the FDA-approved medications that treat HSDD. Options include the pink pill flibanserin (Addyi), which is a non-hormonal treatment that you take daily. Filbanserin works by targeting serotonin in the brain to promote sexual desire. (Addyi is currently only approved for premenopausal women, but it can be a viable option for women after menopause as well, off-label.) You can also use bremelanotide (Vyleesi), which you self-inject via a clicky pen at least 45 minutes before you might have sex. It works by mimicking neurotransmitters in the brain associated with sexual desire. 

Health Conditions That Affect Libido—and How to Treat Them

Sexual desire doesn’t just come out of nowhere. There are a lot of things that have to go right in your body to stoke that fire. Health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and thyroid disease can sometimes sneak in and steal your sex drive when you're not looking.

And those medicine cabinets? They might be harboring some libido-dampening culprits too, from cholesterol and blood pressure meds to birth control, antidepressants, and chemo drugs. Some meds can put your desire on pause without giving you a heads-up first so if you started a new medication around the same time you started having desire problems, it may be related. Talk to a healthcare professional to see if any untreated health issues or the medications you take could be to blame.

The Role of Emotional Health and Relationships

It’s no surprise that your mood and relationships affect if and when you want to have sex. For one, mood disorders like depression can decrease your interest in pleasurable activities (yes sex, but pleasure in general), decrease your self esteem, and lower your energy in ways that put sex and orgasm very low on your list of priorities. Then, in a rather cruel twist, many of the antidepressants prescribed to treat depression also decrease sexual desire. (Fun tip: Exercising right before having sex might boost your libido if you’re taking antidepressants, one study found.)

Keeping that spark alive with your partner isn't just nice—it's often the secret sauce in relationships! Chatting openly with your partner (yes, actually talking about it!) can help you discover fun new ways to get cozy, both emotionally and in the bedroom. And hey, even couples who've been together forever can find this conversation a bit awkward—no shame in that game! If you're both tongue-tied, a relationship or sex therapist can be your personal conversation starter kit, helping knock down those walls so you two can build that connection bridge together. After all, sometimes the most romantic thing you can do is simply ask for directions!

When to Consider Professional Help for Low Libido

Your sex drive is a serious thing—many women consider their sexual health to be an important factor in their overall quality of life, research shows. If low libido is causing you distress or affecting your relationship, reach out for help. We realize that talking to your doctor can be a tough ask, especially if you two don’t have that type of communication. (You’ll talk to them about how your shoulder hurts or if your blood pressure is okay, but you draw the line at talking about how your husband doesn’t turn you on anymore. Understandable.) That’s why finding a clinician who is willing to have these conversations, who will ask you about these topics without judgment, and who will offer solutions is necessary. Case in point: At Midi, our clinicians specialize in sexual health for women in midlife.

Preventive Strategies for Maintaining a Healthy Libido

You can steps to protect your libido before things start to downshift. All the steps that bring your libido back online, can be done proactively to benefit your overall wellbeing and set you up with a strong foundation for a healthy libido.

• Eat a balanced diet
• Exercising regularly
• Finding—and implement—it-works-for-you stress management strategies
• Prioritize sleeping (aim for at least 7 hours per night)

And remember: You're not in this alone: Make an appointment with a clinician if you’re having unexplained symptoms alongside decreased libido. Depending on your symptoms, your doctor may recommend testing to rule out or identify underlying health conditions.

You may also be in perimenopause, and if that’s the case, there are many ways to support sexual wellbeing during these years. You might look for vaginal moisturizers or lubricants, start using a vibrator, consider HRT, implement all the healthy lifestyle strategies above, and work on connecting with your partner to strengthen your relationship.

The Takeaway

• Low libido is a common problem in women, especially as they age and go through the menopausal transition.
• Signs of low libido include a lack of motivation for sexual activity, inability to maintain desire during sexual activity, avoiding sex, or not initiating sex.
• Female sexual desire is complex, involving physical, psychological, and relationship factors. Treatment to improve libido requires a multi-pronged approach. 
• A healthy lifestyle, including a balanced diet and regular exercise, as well as working on your relationship, can set the stage for a good sex life. 
• Medical treatments for low libido include HRT and prescription medications that improve female sexual desire, depending on your age, life stage, and additional symptoms. Managing underlying health conditions like thyroid disease can also help bring back your libido.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why is my libido so low?

There are so many reasons why your libido may be low. Perimenopause and menopause come with major hormonal shifts that can leave your desire running on empty. Low libido can also be caused by many underlying health conditions, medications, relationship problems, and lifestyle factors like stress, lack of sleep, and an unhealthy diet.

What can quickly increase libido?

Ask your healthcare provider if you are a candidate for bremelanotide, an FDA-approved medication for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). The injection can be given 45 minutes before having sex in order to increase your sexual desire. Improving libido really is a long-game, though. Focusing on a healthy lifestyle, connecting with your partner, and addressing underlying health conditions or hormonal issues like lack of estrogen in menopause, will help stoke a strong sex drive.

What is the best natural libido booster?

Exercise may be one of the best natural libido boosters. It increases your mood, decreases stress, improves sleep, betters your body image and self-esteem, and promotes healthy blood flow. The result? Better sex drive—and better sex.

What creates high libido?

Rather than trying to get a high libido, focus on what you can do to promote a healthy-for-you libido. If vaginal dryness is bothering you in bed, address that asap. If hot flashes are keeping you up at night, consider if HRT may be right for you. Look at as many lifestyle changes, medications and other improvements you can make to help your libido make a comeback.  

How do I know if my libido is low?

Everyone has their own unique libido. As long as you’re satisfied with it and it works for you and your partner, you’re good to go. After all, low is relative. If you're attracted to your partner and having sex enough for you, then you're good. But if you've noticed a definite decline in your interest in intimacy, that may be a sign that your libido is low for you.