The symptoms of impotence are painfully obvious. You’re primed for some romantic action, only to discover that your equipment isn’t responding as it should. You find yourself unable to get an erection or you get but can’t keep one long enough for intercourse.
To head off the frustration and embarrassment of erection problems, it’s a good idea to stay alert for indications that you are at a higher risk of developing impotence. Recognizing such signs and taking steps to quickly reduce your risk level could help prevent or at least postpone erection difficulties.
Bad Lifestyle Choices
Certain unfortunate lifestyle choices can sharply increase your risk of ED, but because these are indeed choices, you can opt to change your behavior and thus lower your odds of developing impotence.
A key to recognizing trouble signs is an understanding of how the erectile process works. Strong blood flow to your pelvic region — and specifically your penis — is essential for you to get and keep an erection strong and long-lasting enough for intercourse. Thus, any behavior or health problem that compromises blood flow can be interpreted as a sign of trouble ahead.
High Blood Pressure
Chronic high blood pressure puts an undue strain on your heart and other organs and can cause damage to the lining of your blood vessels in the form of atherosclerosis, also known as hardening of the arteries. Over time blockages can develop, further limiting blood flow to the penis and making it difficult or even impossible to get an erection.
While high blood pressure can be controlled with a variety of different medications, sadly several of those anti-hypertensive drugs can compromise erectile function.
If your doctor diagnoses you with high blood pressure, you may temporarily need to take medications that make it difficult to get an erection, but over time if you make certain changes in your lifestyle, you may be able to bring your blood pressure under control naturally without medicine. Regular exercise, a healthier diet, losing weight, and stress avoidance are all ways in which you may be able to reduce your blood pressure and remove its threat to erectile function.
Overindulgence in Alcohol
While a drink or perhaps two can help to set the mood for romance, drinking too much can make it difficult for you to get and keep an erection long lasting enough for intercourse. Chronic overindulgence can also be a signal that you’re an alcoholic, a condition that by its very definition makes it difficult for men to function at their best sexually.
You can avoid the erection problems that alcohol causes by limiting your consumption to a drink or two, depending on your sensitivity to alcohol’s effects. If you fear that you may be alcoholic, you can seek professional help to stop drinking. Your sex life is only one of the many aspects of your life that will improve if you no longer consume dangerously high levels of booze on a regular basis.
Stop Smoking
While the overall health effects of smoking are pretty well known, the effects of this habit on erectile function are not as widely understood. Presented at a 2003 American Heart Association conference on cardiovascular disease epidemiology and prevention, a Chinese study on the link between smoking and impotence offered some eye-opening findings.
According to WebMD, the study examined health data from 4,764 Chinese men with an average age of 47. It found that men who smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day had a 60 percent higher risk of erection problems than those who had never smoked at all. Of the past and present smokers covered in the survey, 15 percent acknowledged that they had experienced erection difficulties.
Shed Some Weight
Whether you’re carrying around a few too many pounds for your body type or have crossed the line into morbid obesity, being overweight can take a toll on your love life as well as your grocery bill.
In an article posted at Health.com, writer Ann Harding reports on the findings of an Australian study that indicates that shedding some of those extra pounds can pay extra dividends in the bedroom. The study, relatively small in scale, found that men who lost 5 to 10 percent of their total body weight over a two-month span showed improved erectile function and revved-up sex drives.
The study’s subjects were 31 men who were both obese and diabetic. Extra weight, particularly excess belly fat, can negatively affect sexual function in at least two significant ways. The excess weight makes it difficult for your body to supply the blood needed for normal erectile function and testosterone levels tend to drop sharply in men who are seriously overweight or obese.
Avoid Stress, Anxiety
If your life is filled with stress, the effects of all that anxiety and angst could soon begin to put a crimp in your love life, according to Nelson E. Bennett, MD, a urologist and erectile dysfunction expert at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts. In an article posted at EverydayHealth.com, Dr. Bennett estimates that stress and anxiety may account for up to 20 percent of all erection problems.
“Stress, fear, anxiety, worry, and frustration cause your body to release adrenaline which constricts your blood vessels, and that is bad for getting a good erection,” Dr. Bennett says. If your mind is occupied with worries about problems at work or financial matters at home, it’s hard to focus on romance and sex.
Focus on Healthy Foods
Whether you’re a fast-food junkie or just can’t seem to pass up fatty foods or those loaded with refined sugar, changing your eating habits may be a daunting challenge, but it could help you to avoid erection problems down the road.
High-fat foods, particularly those that contain high levels of low-density lipoprotein, can lead to atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. This in turn limits blood flow to the penis — not to mention the heart — and can lead to erection difficulties.
Focus on fresh fruits and vegetables as well as grains, and try to cut back on the amount of red meat you’re eating. Adding fish to your diet can also help you to avoid erection problems.
Exercise Regularly
If your favorite exercise is a trip from the couch to the kitchen to grab a cold beer and a bowl of chips, it may be time for you to change your ways. A sedentary routine, coupled with bad eating and drinking habits, isn’t conducive to good overall health, and in time it could make it more difficult for you to get and keep an erection.
Signing up for the upcoming marathon in your city is way too extreme, particularly if you haven’t been exercising on a regular basis for some time. However, making it a habit to visit your local health club three or four times a week can go a long way toward preserving your erectile function and overall health.
Don Amerman is a freelance author who writes extensively about a wide array of nutrition and health-related topics.
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