In the absence of sexual-specific concerns, high levels of anxiety may be associated with distractions that can interfere with sexual response (Bradford & Meston, 2006). This is the idea that, outside of anxieties associated with sexual performance and others, anxiety can still have an effect on the sexual desire of people. Bradford and Meston (2006) say that “high-normal levels of anxiety in normal populations may also be a risk factor for sexual problems.” In particular, their study focused on women and anxiety. It was reported that women with anxiety disorders also had a high prevalence of sexual dysfunction (Bradford & Meston, 2006). There is evidence to suggest that there is a physiological connection to sexual dysfunction and anxiety, as both are mediated by changes in autonomic arousal (Bradford & Meston, 2006). Anxiety can have impacts on the body, the same as desire helps to facilitate sexual action, should the person wish to act upon their need. With that in mind,  it would stand to reason that people with high anxiety sensitivity would react anxiously to even the physical experience of arousal (Bradford & Meston, 2006).
	These ideas led researchers Andrea Bradford and Cindy Meston to study the effects of state and trait anxiety on both the physiological and subjective sexual desire in women. It was expected that state anxiety would be associated with greater physiological sexual arousal, based on previous research, while subjective sexual arousal was expected to decrease as a function of state anxiety (Bradford & Meston, 2006). Thirty-eight women with no medical conditions known to affect sexual response, sexual dysfunctions, or history of sexual abuse participated in the study (Bradford & Meston, 2006). Physiological sexual arousal was measured with an infrared vaginal photoplethysmograph to record vasocongestion, or the swelling of tissue from blood flow, during the presentation of the film stimulus (1-min display of the word “relax”, 3-min clip of a travel documentary, and 10-min clip of an erotic film). Participants then took questionnaires and surveys to rate themselves on subjective sexual desire, sexual function, and their level of anxiety. What was found in this study both led to consistent predictions and also did not adhere to what the researchers expected. Those with moderate state anxiety scores had a greater physiological response to the erotic stimuli, but there was an unexpected result with both low and high state anxiety scores being associated with lower physiological responses than the moderate (Bradford & Meston, 2006). Bradford and Meston (2006) believe that it's possible to attribute the different results to previous manipulations on anxiety in previous studies, but it's speculative at best because no other prior study had any laboratory research using comprehensive measures of state anxiety.