How to have stronger, harder, longer lasting erections.

The benefits of exercise are wide-ranging and well known, but here’s a quick recap:

• it’s good for the heart and vascular system;
• it helps maintain a healthy weight range;
• it reduces the risk of several serious illnesses including type 2 diabetes, stroke and cancer;
• it boosts mental health and mood;
• and it improves energy levels.

So you might think of exercise as a bit like a wonder vitamin. Exercising moderately for 150 minutes a week, or rigorously for 75 minutes a week, is enough to lower serious risk and keep you fit.

And do you know what else exercise is great for? Erections. That’s because ED is often caused by vascular problems, which interferes with your ability to get or maintain an erection. And exercise is good for your vascular health.

Cardio and erections

Cardio, otherwise known as aerobic exercise, is a physical activity that raises the heart and breathing rate. In the gym, you might have heard of ‘cardio’ machines. Examples include the treadmill, elliptical and cycling machines.

But you don’t need to go to the gym for a good cardio workout. Other examples include brisk walking, jogging and running, and erectile dysfunction symptoms can benefit over time from these simple cardio exercises (as well as from many others).

Regular cardio over time helps your overall cardiovascular function and health improve, and it also helps to increase blood flow to the penile tissue and muscles; namely the corpus cavernosum.

This is because erections depend on good vascular health and blood flow. Research shows that men with higher levels of physical activity report less symptoms of impotence.

It’s also well known that regular aerobic exercise improves mental health and overall mood. This is because the body produces endorphins when you exercise. This too can benefit erectile dysfunction: particularly when it’s caused by psychological factors like anxiety or depression.

Strength training and erections

So we’ve covered cardio, but what about strength exercises?

You can think of exercise as two sides of one coin. It’s important that we strike a good balance between aerobic exercise and strength exercise, or resistance training.

Strength exercises are those which target the muscles and build strength and endurance. It’s often associated with weights, but can be defined in three ways:

We get told from an early age how important food is (‘eat your greens’, ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’, ‘carrots help you see in the dark’ and so on).

While some of these phrases are exaggerated, they all have roots in truth. Fruit and vegetables are one of the most important food groups, and as part of a balanced diet, they can have a number of far-ranging benefits.

The reason for this is because different food groups, and the varying foods within those groups, contain different vitamins and minerals which all have varied jobs in the body. For example, milk contains calcium, which benefits the teeth and bones.

Eating a healthy diet reduces the risk of developing many chronic diseases, such as heart disease, stroke and cancer. And some medical conditions which poor diet is a factor in can damage the blood vessels, and have a knock on effect for your erections.

But are there any foods that are actually good for ED?

You may have seen articles from herbalists and holistic practitioners claiming that you can take garlic and honey for erectile dysfunction, or spices like paprika and cumin. Spinach, cayenne bell peppers, coffee and oats are also sometimes on these lists. But evidence of a correlation between any of these foods and improved sexual function is anecdotal at best.

While there aren’t any foods that are specifically known to treat ED, eating a balanced diet will help you to stay generally healthy; and being generally healthy reduces your risk of getting ED.

Yes, is the short answer. Recreational drugs, smoking and alcohol consumption all have the ability to cause serious, long-term damage to the body and impact the ability to get or maintain an erection.

Recreational drugs can include illegal drugs, but also prescription medication if misused and taken for pleasure. Drug misuse can impact the blood vessels and vascular function, and also impact sexual desire and libido.

Nicotine, also a drug, has a similar effect. Smoking can decrease libido, but also cause many health conditions which impact cardiovascular health. This, in turn, can cause problems with erections.

Drinking alcohol also carries risks, especially if you drink too much over time. Alcohol interferes with the ability to get an erection for a number of reasons in the long and short term.

Erections and recreational drugs

Drug use can be dangerous in many ways, particularly when someone is addicted to them. But taking drugs recreationally can also impact erections and cause impotence.

Drugs are bad for erections for a number of reasons.

For example, drugs like cocaine and speed which induce a stimulating effect in the brain can also cause the blood vessels to narrow and become too constricted. Erectile dysfunction can also become more severe if these types of drugs are misused over long periods of time.

Other drugs like barbiturates, and prescription antidepressants which are sometimes misused or taken recreationally, may also reduce libido and sexual desire.

Erections and smoking

It’s well known that smoking is incredibly dangerous and addictive. Nicotine use increases the risk of several cancers, heart disease, heart attack, stroke, damaged blood vessels, pneumonia, COPD and many other conditions.

But if that wasn’t enough to make you think twice about smoking, it also increases the chances of developing erectile dysfunction. Why?

Because cigarettes contain a lot of chemicals which have no business being inside the human body. Examples include carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and arsenic. A lot of these harmful chemicals can damage the blood vessels which pump blood around the body, and to the penis, sometimes permanently. Nicotine also has an instant effect in reducing blood flow and constricting the blood vessels.

But that isn't all. If you developed a serious, chronic health condition from smoking – like cardiovascular disease or heart disease – this can also have a knock on effect for your erections.

So it’s better to avoid smoking altogether.

Erections and alcohol

Alcohol misuse can carry a lot of risks – including for your erections. In fact, the popular consensus among experts is that no single level of alcohol consumption can be classified as without risk.

This has led medical professionals to create ‘low-risk’ drinking guidelines to help keep the risks of alcohol consumption to a minimum. In the UK, this is 14 units of alcohol a week, spread across the days of the week, with ‘sober’ days in between. To give an idea of how this looks in practice:

According to the NHS, 1 in 3 people suffer with sleep problems and sleep deprivation.

A lack of sleep can be dangerous for a number of reasons. In the short term, it can cause you to feel tired, groggy, grumpy and stressed. In the long term, it can increase the risk of several health conditions including obesity, coronary heart disease and diabetes, and even lower life expectancy.

The short term effects of sleep deprivation that affect your mood may also interfere with your ability to get an erection, just because you won’t feel like it. You may feel tired, stressed or without energy.

The long term effects of sleep deprivation can also damage, sometimes permanently, the vascular system and blood vessels. This can make getting or keeping an erection much more difficult.