What is Performance Anxiety?

Have you ever felt anxious right before intercourse? It’s far from uncommon for men to feel anxious, nervous or uncomfortable before and during intercourse. It is a common problem that is known as sexual performance anxiety.

Performance anxiety affects men of almost all ages, which results in everything from premature ejaculation to erectile dysfunction. It is a common issue with a variety of solutions, from guided imagery and other anxiety reduction techniques to medication for Erectile dysfunction or Premature ejaculation.

In this article, we will go into more detail about what performance anxiety is, what are its and what you can do if you don’t get an erection because of it.

Sometimes people worry about having intercourse, but these worries might occur in many different forms. Sometimes they think about whether or not your partner will enjoy it or a lack of body confidence. These concerns are commonly known as performance anxiety and they can have a severe impact on how much you enjoy intercourse. For men, these worries and tension can sometimes make it difficult to get and maintain an erection.

Causes of Sexual Performance Anxiety

You might wonder what might cause the performance anxiety, well we have mentioned a few reasons.

• Concern about intercourse performance (for instance, worrying that you might not fully satisfy your partner or that you may have trouble ejaculating)
• Self-esteem or body image concerns, such as issues over your weight, height or size of your penis.
• Stress about sexual problems such as erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, delayed ejaculation, failure to reach orgasm and other medical conditions that can affect the sexual satisfaction
• Relationship issues, like a lack of emotional connection or dissatisfaction with your relationship
• Other mental health problems or sources of stress, like difficulties regarding work, relationships, family or other non-sexual aspects of someone’s life
• Usual nervousness about sexual activity

When you experience these feelings or go through these situations, your body may release increased amounts of powerful stress hormones such as adrenaline, which makes it more difficult for you to relax and enjoy sexual activity.

For many men, sexual performance anxiety can also lead to erectile dysfunction, which makes intercourse more difficult and less satisfying. Sometimes, sexual performance anxiety worsens, as one bad experience might create more anxiety and stress about sexual activity.

Why does performance anxiety make it difficult to get an erection?

When we get to experience stress or anxiety, our bodies start to react by releasing hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. The generation of the hormones cortisol and adrenaline is designed to help us in times of danger, but it is not very helpful on other occasions, like worrying about having intercourse.

These hormones constrict your body’s blood vessels. You get an erection from the flowing of blood to the penis, so if this blood flow is restricted it can make it difficult to get and keep an erection.

What can you do if you find it difficult to get an Erection?

You can take via-agra (sild) that are tablets which relax the muscles that are found in the walls of your blood vessels and it increases the flow of blood to particular areas of your body.

Via-agra tablets are used for treating erectile dysfunction or impotence in males. Another brand of sild citrate is Revatio, which is used to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and improve exercise capacity in both men and women. 

You should not take Via-agra while also taking Revatio unless your doctor recommends you to.

How does Via-agra work?

The active ingredient involved in Via-agra and sild belongs to a group of medicines known as phosphodiesterase-type-5 (PDE5) inhibitors. Via-agra works by blocking the phosphodiesterase enzyme, which is responsible for breaking down a substance known as cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP). 

During usual sexual stimulation, cGMP is produced in your penis, where it causes the muscle in the spongy tissue of the penis known as corpora cavernosa to relax. This allows the blood to flow into the corpora, which produces the erection. Via-agra restores erectile function by blocking the breakdown of cGMP. Although sexual stimulation is still required to produce an erection.

Performance Anxiety and Erectile Dysfunction

If you are stressed and tense about having intercourse, the hormones that are released can mean not enough blood flows to the penis and it can be more difficult to get an erection. This generates a ‘negative feedback loop’, which means that your worries and concerns may cause physical problems such as erectile dysfunction.

Erectile dysfunction treatment and medications can help you to get an erection but it’s also important to think about why you get stressed or anxious about intercourse and try to reduce this so you can break the loop.

Treatment Options for Sexual Performance Anxiety

Since performance anxiety can occur due to numerous reasons, treatment usually is focused on identifying and solving the factor or factors that caused the anxiety in the first place.

Sometimes, performance anxiety might be solved by itself as you become more familiar and comfortable with your sexual partner. In other cases, performance anxiety might disappear as you identify and manage sources of stress in your life.

However, if it doesn’t, there are various treatments that one can try!

• Therapy

One of the common treatments for performance anxiety is counselling, like cognitive-behavioural therapy or sex therapy, which works on intimacy and sexual performance. With the help of therapy, you can learn how to implement lifestyle changes like mindfulness, which is aimed at reducing your total level of stress and negative thinking.

Several types of research have also shown that guided imagery, a therapeutic technique for dealing with anxiety issues, can be effective in helping treat sexual performance anxiety problems.

• ED Medications

You can also use ED drugs like sild, tadalafil and avanafil for sexual performance anxiety treatment. 

• Natural products to cure erectile dysfunction

Let us now talk about some natural products that have been used to cure Erectile Dysfunction.

1) Panax Ginseng

Panax Ginseng is a natural herb used by Chinese and Korean for centuries to cure Erectile Dysfunction, this works as an antioxidant to the body and helps in releasing all harmful toxins that may be the cause of ED. Panax Ginseng has worked for many people and has given them proven results in improving performance and stamina.

2) Yohimbine 

Yohimbine comes from the bark of evergreen trees from west Africa and people have been using this natural ingredient to cure Erectile Dysfunction for many years and have seen significant results of it.

Yohimbine helps in improving performance and is safe to use, it comes with a few side effects like nausea, diarrhoea, and stomach cramps.

3) Natural Ashwagandha tablets

Ashwagandha is also known as the king of ayurvedic herbs and is known to improve strength, performance and boosts testosterone in men. Ashwagandha deals with all parts of a person as performance issues can be both physical and mental.

Benefits of Ashwagandha Tablets

• Lowers stress levels
• Improves performance as it is a natural aphrodisiac
• Improves the level of Testosterone in the body
• Increases the sperm count
• Improves endurance

To see a visible difference in ashwagandha it would take 5-6 months. You can take Ashwagandha tablets twice a day one in the morning and once at night.