Harmless Reasons For You Can’t Get An Erection

Getting the person of your dreams in your bed? Amazing. Failing to get an erection when you’re ready to go? There’s absolutely nothing worse.

But before you freak out, know that lots of guys can have trouble getting hard when they want to have sex, and it doesn’t necessarily signal that you have erectile dysfunction. While it’s common in older guys, lots of younger guys can have issues getting and maintaining their boner, too.

DRANK TOO MUCH ALCOHOL

You’ve probably been in this situation: You’ve had one too many drinks, you get to the moment, and realize you just can’t get hard. Thank whiskey dick, one of the most unfortunate curses to fall on mankind.

Alcohol is a depressant on your central nervous system, It decreases blood flow to your penis, which can prevent you from getting hard. So while that drink might relax you enough to get someone into bed—and it’s true, some guys might perform better with a tiny bit of booze in their system—it might prevent you from getting the job done if you go overboard, he says.

So be conscious of your limitations: Guys should stick to roughly two drinks per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—that’s solid advice for your health and your sex life.

STRESSED AND EXHAUSTED

Let’s just say “pandemic,” and “economic anxiety” for starters. Anxieties about anything can cause you to lose your focus And then, potentially, cause your arousal to decrease. When you’re stressed out, your body is trying to mobilize all of your energy to your main functional organs, so something like your penis is going to be the last thing on this list.

What’s more, feeling stressed can spike your cortisol levels. That can be a problem, since the stress-hormone can actually block the effects of testosterone, a study published in Hormones and Behavior found. That can kill your libido and cause problems with your erection.

TAKING CERTAIN MEDICATIONS

There’s a whole slew of medications that can interfere with your ability to get hard, That includes certain high blood pressure medications, like beta-blockers and diuretics While they’re great for your heart, their interference with your sympathetic nervous system and blood vessel walls can decrease the blood flow to your penis.

up to 75 percent of depressed patients see a dip in their libido. And taking certain antidepressants can keep you from an erection, too. Serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac and Lexapro can decrease your testosterone levels or even lead to delayed ejaculation.

RECENTLY MASTURBATED

If you just got off solo, you might have to wait before you can hop into bed with your partner. It might have something to do with a spike in the hormone protactinium after you orgasm, This hormone has been linked to difficulties maintaining an erection or even ejaculating.

It’s like running a marathon, your body will need to relax and rejuvenate before your run again. So just keep in mind that the average man has a 30-minute refractory period, he says, but some guys may need as little as 10 minutes or up to an hour or two to reload.

Smoking Problem

Smoking damages blood vessels, inhibiting blood flow throughout the body … and I mean throughout the body. a group of 65 smokers with erectile problems, the people in the study who quit “had wider, firmer erections and reached maximum sexual arousal (but, importantly, not climax!) much more quickly,” TIME reported. Quitting smoking has pretty consistent benefits to your health, and it stands to reason that better sex follows quitting smoking, too.

Performance Anxiety

Remember those cultural messages we discussed earlier, about how men are wild sex aliens? Well, people with penises are raised hearing those messages, too, and they can end up screwing with their sexual self-image — for instance, they can lead men to obsess over their own virility, and panic about impressing a new partner, until they’ve thought their boner into a corner and can’t get an erection. Performance anxiety is one of the most common culprits behind lost erections.