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Are
you Mental? Anxiety in moderation
can actually be a good thing. It helps you focus your mind and body
on what you’re doing. The extra adrenaline keeps you alert
and provides more energy. But too much anxiety can lend itself to
more than just a headache.
What you have to understand is how the mind and body are very much
interlinked. Think of your brain, the nerves, and the parts of your
body as a huge electrical circuit. Sex usually starts with your
brain (fantasy or sexual thoughts) or some physical sensory perception:
whether from sight – “Woohoo! Who is that hot babe?”;
smell – “That’s some nice perfume you’re
wearing”; sound – “I like the way you moan”;
taste – “Mmm . . .” (I’m not going write
that one); or especially touch – “A little more to the
right. That’s the spot!”
Your brain takes in these senses and will either tell your body
to switch on or off. If all the lights are green, your body again
will take in senses and send it back to the brain. This biofeedback
from your body lets the brain know to either keep thinking about
sex or to stop. The brain also releases chemicals and effects involuntary
changes throughout your body, such as erection and ejaculation control.
There is constant play between mind and body. Because this is an
ongoing process, anything along the way can disrupt the cycle. If
your mind no longer has the desire or is thinking about something
else (such as worrying about coming too early), it’ll tell
your body to start shutting everything down. Or, if your body isn’t
reacting properly, it’ll signal the brain to not think about
sex anymore.
What you are thinking and feeling during sex have a huge impact
on your performance. Negative emotions like anger, guilt, resentment
towards the partner, and especially negative emotional experiences
from the past can interfere with your excitement level.
So what may start off as a little bit of nerves can lead into a
more serious problem if you’re not able to deal with it at
the start. A single experience of impotence or premature ejaculation
may make you hesitant to have it happen again. So it builds in your
mind and worries you the next time you have sex, which only makes
it happen again. This is the “vicious cycle”
you keep hearing about.
Don’t Mess with Stress
Along with anxiety, stress usually comes hand in hand; you worry
during sex and you stress in between. Or perhaps, it’s just
the stress of your daily life that’s getting you down. Either
way, stress has similar traits to the way anxiety affects your body.
Studies have shown that there is a link between stress and the level
of your testosterone. The more psychological stress you perceive
and endure results in a lesser amount of testosterone flowing through
your body.
Testosterone is needed during sex to power your erection. Insufficient
amounts will not only deteriorate your sex drive, but will lead
to premature ejaculation and eventually impotence. Usually, this
is a common problem with middle-aged men, known as Male
Menopause. But anxiety can bring about these same changes and
characteristics even for young males and teens.
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