The hard fact is, penises are awesome.
You spend a lot of time thinking about your penis: length, width, whether it's big enough, normal, how’s it hanging, what you’re going to do with him later today — the list goes on.
But, have you ever taken a moment to think about how your daily health choices are affecting your lil' buddy — ahem — big buddy?
Turns out, what you do on the daily not only affects the quality of your erections and semen taste today, but can also directly lead to erectile dysfunction in the long run.
Worse yet, these days, our population is so unhealthy that the length of time it takes to develop erectile dysfunction isn’t as long as you’d probably like to think. It’s never as long as you’d like to think.
Reposition yourself for a happy ending by hitting it from every angle. Every bro can make a handful of changes to keep his penis long, hard and happy.
Here's what you should stop doing to improve your penis' life:
1. Smoking.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know smoking is bad and totes uncool. Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, yellow teeth, wrinkles, awful breath and an empty wallet.
All of the above are known factors, but when was the last time you were taking a drag and thought to yourself, “I wonder how this is affecting my penis? I love him so much and would hate to think this is ruining his life.”
Short-term nicotine constricts blood vessels, meaning reduced blood flow to the penis. This decreases the overall quality of your erection in terms of intensity and duration.
A tasty tidbit to further encourage a tobacco-free life: Smoking (and chewing) also negatively affects the taste and texture of your semen.
No one digs acrid, thick semen. (Cue that awkward moment you know way too much about the guys returning to the office from their smoke break.)
In the long run, smoking causes both arteriosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries, and atherosclerosis, a type of arteriosclerosis that is the plaque buildup within those hardened arteries.
Focus on what is important here: clerosis is derived from the Greek skleros, meaning hard.
The hardening of your arteries will put a damper on the hardening of your penis. This means smoking doesn’t just kill people, it kills the mood. Not cool, Joe.
The good news is there is scientific evidence that quitting smoking can give you a wider, longer, harder and longer-lasting erection. It's a huge incentive to quit smoking that anyone can get behind, above or below.
2. Excessive Boozing.
There’s a reason why you’ll never find a hot nutritionist closing down the bar: nutritionists are smart. Whiskey dick is a thing. A real, true and disappointing thing.
Short-term, there’s a lot of anger and frustration that your time spent with Jim, Jack, Jose and Jameson kept you from having the best of times with your partner.
Furthermore, hitting the sauce on the regular gives your sauce an awful taste. These are things your exes talk about after it’s over. Long-term, excessive alcohol consumption is associated with impaired blood flow and decreased sex drive.
3. Eating Terribly.
You are what you eat; so don’t be fast, fake, cheap, gross-tasting or flaccid. Constantly downing junk food contributes to weight problems, blood-flow issues, depression and more, all of which harm your junk. What’s more, the food you consume affects the taste of your semen.
For the sake of what’s important and your overall health, avoid foods with monosodium glutamate (MSG), high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils (trans-fats) and artificial dyes.
Avoiding processed foods as much as possible and opting for fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes can improve the quality of your mood, erection and semen.
There is juicy motivation to fruit being first on that list. Plain and simple, the better you eat, the better your erections and taste.
4. Being Inactive.
For the sake of all things good and hard, get off the couch. Don’t live a limp life, sitting for all the waking hours you’re not in lying in bed.
A sedentary lifestyle is highly linked to erectile dysfunction, and increasing physical activity has been shown to reverse cases of full on erectile dysfunction. Sitting is the new smoking, but erections have never gone out of style.
If you want to knock one out with your lady that’ll have her running a victory lap up the stairs, you’ll have to tap into your inner Stallone at the gym. No two ways about it, every inch of your being is under a firm “use it or lose it” policy.
Being physically active will boost your blood flow and stamina in the bedroom. Grinding at the gym improves cardiovascular and pulmonary health, translating to awesome blood flow and oxygenation, head to head.
Additional benefits to friends of the gym: boosted self-esteem, improved mood and strength. Take it from lady aficionado, constantly sexed, Canadian rapper, Drake, “I’ve been in the gym doing two-a-days for ya, so I can lift you up when I do the thang to ya.”
5. Being Overweight.
There's only one good kind of chub. Excess fat tissue puts a lot of strain on the body. While everyone focuses on the aesthetics of weight issues, there are far bigger problems associated with obesity.
Fat tissue plays a role in hormone production, and having too much will cause having too little testosterone.
Excess fat eventually starts to deposit in veins and arteries, impeding blood flow to all organs in the body, including your heart and penis. The goal is to be able to clean all your pipes with a healthy lifestyle.
Being overweight or obese often goes hand-in-hand with high blood glucose levels. Diabetes is the first stop on the road to erectile dysfunction.
Diabetes hits penile function from both ends by causing destruction to both nerves and arteries. This can result in loss of sensation, or even full-blown numbing of the penis and poor blood flow.
Choke out your sugary addictions to get a firm grasp on your blood glucose levels now so you can find a better path to go down on.
From a logistics standpoint, excess fat tissue engulfs the penis, making it difficult to access and causing increased sweat accumulation, chaffing and displeasing odor. These are not things you want to put your face in.
6. Stress.
While a certain amount of stress is normal and good for you, too much can make you go limp in life.
Take a load off and find a way to get out from under a life of stress so you can get under something more fitting. Stress management is so sexy right now.
7. Sleep Deprivation.
If you love your peep, get some sleep. While you sleep, your penis is hard at work getting healthy and strong for all your endeavors.
When you’re sleeping, your penis has several erections that last 25 to 35 minutes, totally a good two to three hours, if you get your solid eight hours of sleep.
It’s akin to interval training at the gym. You go into beast mode at the gym to improve your health and build your muscles.
Your Johnson pumps it up while you sleep to maintain quality blood flow and oxygenate all the tissue in your penis, enabling you to go beast mode with your special friend, whomever she or he may be.
Erectile dysfunction studies show poor quality sleep and/or chronic lack of sleep is a top contributor to erectile dysfunction.
Not only does it diminish the health of your penis, it decreases a man’s sex drive, taking the excitement out of even the idea of an erection.
Moral of this sad scientific tale: If you want to hit it long and hard while you’re awake, hit the sack for a good night’s sleep on the regular.
8. Ignoring Your Mental Health.
When you’re down, it’s hard to get it up. If you think counseling is lame, you should know that anxiety and depression kill boners.
Counseling is simply an avenue that gives a person more tools in his or her toolbox to build a better life. Nothing could be more manly than putting your tool in a nice box.
So, build a solid, wooden bridge and get over the stigma associated with seeking help for your mental health. You and your Johnson deserve to have a happy life, full of deep relationships.
9. Not Giving Yourself The D.
Vitamin D is necessary for more than 200 functions in the human body, and has been proven to help prevent several types of cancer (including penile, testicular and prostate) and cardiovascular disease.
Additionally, Vitamin D is necessary for proper testosterone production. Low levels of Vitamin D have been associated with depression, low sex drive, low testosterone and erectile dysfunction.
Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. Five to 10 minutes a day of sunshine can get your D up. Daily supplementation can be helpful as well. The important thing is to get your D daily so you can give the D on the regular.
10. Seal The Deal.
The majority of men are only motivated to take care of their health once it affects their penises. Don’t be a dick. Take care of yourself on a regular basis.
You are the sum of all your choices. Tap into a healthy lifestyle.
