Overall health has become a hot topic these days. As obesity rates continue to climb a growing number of people are realizing how much is at stake and turning to healthier choices for their diets, increasing their physical activity and generally doing anything they can to improve their physical well-being. This new trend has helped many people break the cycle of unhealthy habits and has also given the population a better understanding of what healthy really looks like.

Being healthy is more than simply appearing to be in shape. While physical well-being obviously plays a large role in overall health, a person’s emotional and mental well-being are often just as important. This has been the key for many men who have cleaned up their diets, recommitted to regular physical activity and still find themselves struggling with sexual health issues such as delayed climax, erectile dysfunction and early ejaculation.

The Mind-Body Connection

For men who are otherwise fit and healthy, chronic problems with their sexual performance can be especially frustrating. While there are now a number of pharmaceutical options to treat these conditions, guys who have invested so much time and energy into improving their fitness levels are often reluctant to use potent chemicals as a viable treatment partly due to the disturbing side-effects that can come along with them.

For these men, it may be worthwhile to take a closer look at how they interact socially with people since anxiety disorders and panic attacks can have serious effects on the body on a physical level. These conditions are well-established with mainstream medicine but are still seen as being a bit “New Age” by many men who grew up with messages about “Real Men” not being affected by emotions.

The fact of the matter is that while some people may control their emotions more effectively than others, all humans are affected by their emotions. Sadness, happiness, anxiety and stress can all seriously impact a person’s physical health. Stress and anxiety, for example, are two leading causes of early ejaculation and can also play a part in more serious and life-threatening conditions including high blood pressure, heart disease and a number of gastrointestinal conditions.

Social Anxiety – It’s More Than Just Being Shy

For too long, people have dismissed social anxiety as little more than a case of extreme shyness but, in fact, people dealing with the condition often suffer full blown panic attacks when in social situations. Men who have early ejaculation often find that while they may have had some mild social anxiety before they developed the condition, worries and stress over not being able to perform makes the anxiety much worse, creating a vicious cycle that is difficult to break.

Dealing with social anxiety and the stress it creates can be tricky, especially for men who have dismissed the issue most of their lives. Experts suggest that men first try to reduce the amount of stress in their lives as a way to get back to a baseline for their anxiety. Stress busting techniques include vigorous physical activity such as boxing, running or contact sports coupled with mind and body calming techniques like meditation, yoga or even long walks in a natural setting and at a mild pace.

Once a man has reduced his stress as much as he is able, he can work with his doctor to assess his level of social anxiety to determine where it’s coming from and how best to treat it. There are both pharmaceutical and natural treatment options to deal with the condition and, in many cases, these treatments also help to alleviate early ejaculation.

Stress and anxiety are serious conditions which shouldn’t be dismissed as something for “weak” people. The understanding of social anxiety is constantly advancing as doctors gain better insight into how our mental and emotional responses affect our bodies and our behaviour. Improving your health to improve your sexual performance is about more than diet and exercise – it’s also about finding your own sense of peace so that what’s on your mind doesn’t affect what you do in bed.