Stress Management Society: Underlying causes of stress must be tackled
Wednesday, 25 Apr 2007 16:36
Men suffering from stress-related erectile dysfunction (ED) should take action against underlying causes of stress to help them relax, the Stress Management Society (SMS) claims.
Its comments come as a report from analysts Datamonitor found a 3.5 per cent growth in the market for drugs known as PDE5 which treat ED. Its study predicts that this market will continue to rise as a result of an ageing population and a growth in obesity.
Geoff Barlow, a sexual performance coach associated with SMS said that taking action is "very important".
"Fear, anxiety, worry, stress – these all produce adrenaline," he added.
"If you like it's a Catch-22: the man's worried about losing his erection, so he becomes anxious and produces adrenaline which relaxes the valves at the base of the penis and the blood drains out… That's why stress is such a problem for men getting an erection, it's the biochemical aspect of it."
Mr Barlow added that as well as targeting causes of stress, men with ED should always see their GP as in just under half of all cases are due to underlying health problems.
"If you can't get an erection under any circumstances, then definitely you should see a GP to find out what the cause is," he said. "If you can get an erection under other circumstances but it fails when you're with your girlfriend, then there's a chance that it is stress related."
