From pills to surgery, there is an array of options to give your sex drive a little boost. Sexual problems such as a low libido, the inability to keep an erection, or the inability to orgasm, may be lessened through medications, but healthy lifestyle choices like a good diet, exercise, and reduced stress can improve sexual functioning in both men and women. Urologist Des Moines Dr. Fawad Zafar advises his patients to avoid these six bad habits that can silently be killing your sex drive.
1. Binge Drinking: While alcohol may make some people more social, and lowering inhibitions, it can ironically, impair your performance in the bedroom. Although a little alcohol can ignite desire, too much will take away your ability to perform. Alcohol inhibits erections making them slower to rise, while vaginas are slower to lubricate.
2. Bad Posture: In this digital age, it comes as no surprise that society has assumed sedentary behaviors that have led to the development of bad habits. Spending an average of nine hours staring at screens from computers to smartphones can jeopardize not only your spine, but also your sex drive. According to your urologist Des Moines, bad posture can lead to shallow breathing, which exacerbates feelings of stress, and depletes energy levels, affecting your libido.
3. Being Overweight: This condition has been linked to cardiovascular complications, low self-esteem, and poor body image, and it can negatively impact your sex drive from a psychological standpoint. Excess weight also drags down a man’s sex life by affecting the health of his blood vessels.
4. Poor Teeth: A good reason to brush and floss your teeth daily is your sex life. Patients – especially men with gum disease – are more likely to have erectile dysfunction, according to your urologist Des Moines. Prolonged chronic inflammation, as observed in men with gum disease, has the ability to damage blood vessels, leading to impotence.
5. Smoking: Lighting up a cigarette a day can impact not only on your lungs, but also your sex life. It can cause the arteries to narrow, resulting in and obstruction of the blood flow to the penis. The damage that smoking has on the blood vessels, and its effect on sexual performance can be permanent.
6. Stress: When people are stressed, their body produces more cortisol, which can negatively affect weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and sleep patterns. Stress can also be a psychological cause for low sex drive, especially in women.
Urologist Des Moines Dr. Fawad Zafar suggests avoiding these bad habits to effectively boost your performance in the bedroom.