Making sure the body is in good shape does a lot of good to couples’ sex lives. Better sex does not just involve technique. Keeping a healthy mind and body can increase your enjoyment of the bedroom antics. Experts say couples that are mentally and physically healthy are more likely to have good sex lives.
After some time together, most couples actually discover that as time goes on, fire in the bedroom dwindles a bit and sometimes, it is not even due to a lack of desire for sex but their bodies physically limiting them from performing great. After all, do not forget that sex is a cardiovascular activity and maybe, what the couple need is a healthy body to help last longer.
It is a statement of fact that stress is a part of life; couples cannot avoid but to deal with it. When spouses are always stressed out, not only are their minds not in the pleasures of sex, they age faster as well! When you age faster, your body is no longer flexible and in turn, less sex occurs in the bedroom.
Therefore, couples must find a way out and try to establish a de-stressing habit that works for them. Find out what de-stressing habit you can come up with and apply it.
Studies continuously show a direct relationship between sleep deprivation and poor bedroom performance. Put simply, if you do not get enough sleep, you are not performing 100 per cent during the day. Moreover, this translates to a dull performance in bed. So, rest, relax and sleep well.
Couples should aim to eat and drink only natural food items. Today’s fast-paced lives are making us reach our graves quicker! Stop eating fast foods all the time and quit drinking sugar-loaded drinks. Start exercising, you will feel good, look good and have better sex life in no time.
For couples who find it very difficult practising and maintaining good exercise, the best exercise is this; for every one hour, take a brisk fast walk for ten minutes because a healthy lifestyle is associated with healthy sex life.
Eat right. There is a 100 per cent proven connection between a balanced diet and bedroom performance.
Recently, researchers have found that there is a correlation between waist size and a man’s odds of having erectile dysfunction (ED). The larger the man’s waist size, the greater his chances of having ED, premature ejaculation, low libido and weak erection (because of a higher risk of underlying cardiovascular disease).
As a matter of fact, men with smaller weight but rounded protruded tummy must go for a check-up fast because there is more danger of heart conditions than men who are bigger with bigger tummy. Most of our men do more of sedentary job where only their brain and not muscles are actively involved. But men that are more active have higher sex function scores.
Studies have further shown that regular, moderate exercise can have a positive benefit on major sexual problems, such as ED in men and low libido in both men and women.
Most married women are concerned about their increase in weight. Well, unless you are eating less or exercising more; the chances are you would notice that it is harder to keep the weight off. In fact, according to research, 40 per cent of women who are 30 and above, gain weight during this decade because their metabolism has started to slow down. Not only this, but they may also have noticed that their shape has changed and they have gained weight around their bottom, hips and thigh. This is because your body is trying to store more fat to fuel pregnancy and breastfeeding. In fact, from your 40s, 50s and 60s, your metabolism has slowed right down by about 100 calories a day. This is not just due to ageing, but because after 40, you start to lose about one to two per cent of calorie-burning muscle mass each year.
It is also when the pre- menopause – the run-up to the menopause – tends to strike, causing oestrogen and progesterone levels to fluctuate, which means fat deposits begin to increase. This may result in a thicker waist, an increase in breast size and bigger upper arms.
Changing hormone levels can also suppress your thyroid gland, causing weight gain and other symptoms, including tiredness, irritability and sleep problems, each of which, research shows, can increase your urge to snack on high-carbohydrate meals and sugary foods such as white bread, cakes and biscuits and of course, low desire for sex.
I have always encouraged married couples to watch their sexual performances in bed; it says a lot about their health. There is an increasing awareness that sex is not just about quality of life; sex can be a harbinger of underlying medical conditions. Your sex life could be trying to tell you something about your body.
Let us look into some areas couples would naturally take for granted:
One: When you are just not interested any more, it might be low testosterone. Many things can cause your sex drive to shift into neutral: work stress, falling out of love, lack of sleep. But what if those things don’t apply and you’d still rather sheep than make love? Or, if the sights and touches that once turned you on leave you literally unmoved? You might have a hormonal problem.
Two: More and more often, you cannot hold an erection; it might be a heart problem (the cardiovascular kind, not the romantic kind). Maybe you are a relatively healthy midlife man, a little overweight, and you start having erectile trouble. Count yourself lucky. It might be your tip-off that you are three to five years away from coronary artery disease. Men are increasingly being diagnosed with ED due to low blood flow, which increases their chance of heart disease.
Three: You suddenly cannot get it up but you were fine last month and you noticed you are not experiencing the usual morning erection. It might be a blocked artery, especially if your leg mysteriously hurts too. The occasional limp penis is a casualty of naturally decreasing hormone levels as men age and experience changes in relationships. When ED comes on suddenly, what happens is an unusual aortoiliac occlusive disease, or Leriche’s syndrome, a narrowing of a heart artery due to blockage. In Leriche’s syndrome, erectile problems come on suddenly (one week you are fine, and the next you have persistent issues) and is accompanied by pain in the leg (especially the calf) or the buttocks, especially when you walk or exercise. People with problems of the nervous system (Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes) are at higher risk, as are smokers and those with high blood pressure.
Four: Sometimes in my consulting office, some husbands come in and say, ‘My penis just aches when I have sex.’ When your penis aches while you are having intercourse it might be Peyronie’s disease. Peyronie’s disease, an uncommon condition that can develop at any age, is the formation of abnormal scar tissue under the penile skin, which can cause a hardened spot in the middle or make the penis bend slightly when erect. It is often noticed as a constant discomfort during intercourse.
Five: Painless bump or swelling on the testicle. This might be testicular cancer. Testicular cancer is asymptomatic; it does not hurt. However, it often presents itself as a painless bump or swelling on the testicle, which can be detected through self-examination or by a wife’s roaming hands during sex. Testicular cancer has a near-100 per cent cure rate in early stages, so do not ignore a lump; see a sex therapist or doctor. The best time for self-examination is done while standing up in a shower, when your muscles are relaxed.
Six: When you ejaculate too quickly, it might be Hyperthyroidism. Premature ejaculation (PE) – either climaxing before intercourse or very soon after it begins – is the headache of younger men but can strike at any age. How soon is too soon is a relative issue, but a general rule of thumb is that PE is a problem when it routinely strikes without any control within a couple of minutes of insertion and sooner than either spouse would like. As many as one in three men experience it at some point in their lives. Psychological issues (too excited, too immature, guilt) were once blamed for all cases, but doctors now know there can be physical causes, especially a malfunctioning thyroid (the gland responsible for making and storing key regulatory hormones).
For some men, the only symptom of hyperthyroidism is premature ejaculation. One 2005 study found that fully half of men with a malfunctioning thyroid complained of PE. Though premature ejaculation is hard for many men to talk about, it is highly treatable. The Vietnam herbs are still giving hope to a lot of men.
Seven: When you ejaculate and it hurts it might be a muscle spasm disorder or Prostatitis – an inflammation of the prostate which is a gland located up under the rectum.
Eight: When you ejaculate, nothing comes out! Retrograde ejaculation is a condition where you experience orgasm but little or no semen comes out (it exits through the bladder). Alpha-blocker used to improve urination in men with enlarged prostate is a common culprit. Sometimes, diabetics also experience this due to nerve damage.
Nine: It takes forever to ejaculate and that is if it ever happens at all. It might be diabetes, or pre-diabetes in the form of a weight problem. In nine out of 10 men with anorgasmia – the inability to reach orgasm – the root cause is psychological (anything from performance anxiety to work stress to a history of childhood sexual abuse). However, in the remaining 10 percent of cases, there is a penile sensory problem, most often caused by nerve damage due to diabetes. Diabetics typically have other clues to the disease, including numbness in the feet, thirst, itchy skin, excessive urination, and fatigue. But then, they do not always link the condition to sexual performance problems, which can include the inability to climax. There is also increasing evidence that obesity itself is a medical cause of erectile dysfunctions and loss of libido.
Ten: Be an addictive lover of natural remedies for live support even if you are not sick. For instance, if you have issue with ulcer of any kind, be it stomach, gastric duodenum ulcer, you may likely perform very badly in bed because of the medications used for these ulcer.
So instead of taking medication as a life support; alongside, you should take the gel of local raw aloe Vera. How? All you will do is scoop the gel off with a table spoon and drink morning and night. Aloe Vera is a deep wound healer; it will heal whatever may be the degree of the ulcer wound if you practise this for at least four months and coupled with taking a piece of cabin biscuit or wafer, crackers, or digestive biscuit in every ten minutes. While the Aloe Vera is providing the healing process, the flour of the biscuit is covering the wound and preventing further injuries from the hydrochloric acid produced in the stomach and some ingested bacteria.
Eleven: It is a medically confirmed fact that a diabetic man or woman, will not perform well on sex bed because the disease itself and the medications has a big depraved effect on the sufferer especially the men. They will not be able to have erection and after sometime, will become impotent. So if you as a man have been diagnosed to have diabetes and you are also on drugs to maintain your state, kindly cultivate the habit of drinking the juice of back of orange peels. All you need do is get some oranges, either ripe or unripe, lemon or lime; peel the back off neatly, rinse them nicely and put them in a pot. Boil them for ten minutes; drink half a cup morning and night for the next four months. You will discover that your fasting blood sugar and random blood sugar will go down in an amazing manner. The caution here is that this natural remedy is so effective that you have to be checking your blood sugar level regularly so as not go hypoglycaemia.
Twelve: For many husbands whose sexual challenge of erectile dysfunction is as a result of hypertension and high blood pressure; the very effective remedy that will amazingly help control the blood pressure and also help supply oxygenated blood with good nutrient to the arteries of the penis and invariably help you to enjoy sex without fear is by cultivating the habit of taking raw okra like a snack on a daily basis. Take two to three strand of okra every night and watch how your sex life will be transformed from I-can’t-have-good-erection to my-erection-is-supper.
Credits: Funmi Akingbade, The Punch