Men of all ages can experience to get an erection, a significant sexual dysfunction with many possible causes, including physical health issues, mental health problems, medication side effects and smoking or alcohol use.
The good news is most cases of ED can be treated and greatly improved through either non-surgical or surgical options, and you can also begin to treat your ED at home by making healthy lifestyle changes!
Eat Fresh and Colourful
People with ED often experience depression or anxiety, and their self-esteem can also suffer.
Suppose they don’t eat a particularly healthy diet, and their energy levels decrease. They also risk other health concerns like the onset of diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure, even cardiovascular disease—and this can all worsen ED.
Eating healthier can improve blood flow throughout your body, and that’s essential to the health of your penis. So you can help to fight ED just by choosing a healthier diet!
Fresh and colourful fruits and vegetables taste great, and they’re heart-healthy. So include fresh, colourful foods in your diet. It’s a delicious and easy change to make.
Reduce Fat Intake
A high-fat diet can cause inflammation in the blood vessels. It also decreases the amount of healthy nitric oxide in the bloodstream, and nitric oxide is necessary for healthy circulation in your body—but that’s not the only downside to fatty foods.
A fatty diet can affect insulin levels in the body, and fat raises cholesterol, clogging tiny arteries in your penis. But, mostly, eating fat just makes the body fatter, and for men suffering from ED, a high-fat meal may make drugs like Viagra totally useless.
So next time you’re craving that extra-large helping of french fries… take a second and think about how it will negatively affect your next erection!
Cut Back on Sugar Intake
When you overeat sugars, it can affect your insulin levels and even worsen your insulin resistance. Like fat, too much sugar can also break down nitric oxide in the bloodstream.
Yes… that candy bar looks delicious, but hear us out because it can also ruin your next erection!
Taking simple steps to eat healthier will often benefit weight loss, and extensive research has proven a link between a healthier weight and a decrease in erectile dysfunction.
Start Exercising
A recent study published in an international journal on impotence research (another word for ED) revealed how vital exercise is in the successful treatment of ED—and don’t worry, we’re not talking about heavy-duty exercise.
You can significantly improve your physical health—and treat your ED—with just 30 minutes of moderate exercise five times a week.
Take a walk around the neighbourhood a few nights and on the weekends. You can reduce your stress, increase your energy, improve your body’s circulation, and make your heart and arteries work better. Better yet, you can also fight ED.
Worldwide studies by medical schools confirm that exercise treats ED by strengthening and elasticizing your blood vessels, which can significantly increase blood flow to your genital area.
If You Smoke, Please Quit
Cigarettes contain incredibly unhealthy chemicals for your arteries, including those around your penis. When your blood vessels get affected by smoking, your penis may not respond to sexual arousal signals from your brain, and you won’t get an erection.
Medical research shows that men who smoke upwards of 20 cigarettes per day have a 60% greater risk of getting ED. Among nonsmoking men, the risk is only 12%.
Stress Is Harmful Too
The impacts of stress on the body have received more attention from medical researchers, and the evidence is now clear: stress hurts mental, physical, and emotional health, and it can also worsen your ED.
When you’re experiencing higher stress, your body can go into “flight or fight” mode, and it can alter your brain chemistry.
Some hormones in your body can decrease while other (harmful) hormones, like cortisol, increase. This fluctuation can seriously impact your ability to get and maintain erections. So, what can you do?
As we’ve already mentioned, moderate exercise can do wonders in helping you to de-stress. If the news is getting you down, turn off the TV and read a book or enjoy a hobby. You can also learn relaxation techniques like deep breathing that can really help to reduce stress.
There is also something enjoyable you can do to de-stress!
Sex Can Be a Fun Activity
You may not think it makes any sense to consider having sex when you’re suffering from the frustration of ED, but we’ll tell you why sexual activity is essential:
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By staying sexually active, you can prevent ED from getting worse—this includes maintaining intimacy with your partner or enjoying self-pleasure to achieve sexual arousal.
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By attempting to get an erection, even if you don’t last too long or get firm, you’re working to increase blood flow to your penis, and that’s a good thing.
The easiest way to explain it is that your penis is a muscle. Any doctor can tell you this, and urologists and doctors in sexual health say that the penis, like any muscle, needs exercise to stay in shape. For your penis, that means trying to get an erection.
Don’t be concerned about ejaculating. The activity is all about getting an erection, and you may not be aware that your body can experience between 3 to 6 erections at night. However, men with ED may not get spontaneous erections as often at night.
It’s Important to Talk About It
For many men, it’s a lifestyle change to consider talking to a therapist about stress, relationship issues, or depression—but all of these concerns can be linked to ED.
People might not realize how insensitive it is to joke about erectile dysfunction and how it can make you uncomfortable talking about it openly. But, the fact is, you can, and you should!
If you’re with a partner who cares about you, trust in them to talk about your situation, and please consider a professional therapist because taking care of your mental health can help reduce your symptoms of ED.
