What any man can do to ‘last longer’

It’s no secret that having a good sex life can make your whole life feel better, your relationships run more smoothly and boost your confidence.

However, keeping your sex life at its best isn’t always easy.

In fact, for many men sexual complaints can creep up, making their time in the bedroom more frustrating than enjoyable.

And while erectile dysfunction or ED might be one of the most common sexual problems men experience, premature ejaculation can present just as much difficulty. It’s a problem affecting up to 83 percent of men worldwide.

Even worse, while there are drugs geared specifically to ED that men can take to help mitigate their issues (like that little blue pill), men who suffer from premature ejaculation have fewer options.

Luckily, according to research from Anglia Ruskin University, in the case of premature ejaculation, there could be a better, safer and easier answer than taking a side-effect-laden drug.

And all that’s required is to get moving.

Latency time in premature ejaculation

When we talk about premature ejaculation, we’re really discussing something known as latency time, which is the time from penetration to ejaculation.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a man may be experiencing premature ejaculation if he always or nearly always ejaculates within one to three minutes of penetration (has a latency time of one to three minutes).

However, the timeframe defined as premature varies widely. The Cleveland Clinic says points out that “many doctors would define prematurity as ejaculation within a minute of beginning intercourse.”

But, what’s not up for debate is the fact that the condition has few pharmacological treatments…

While the drug dapoxetine is approved for use outside of the US, here in the States, the only drugs men can turn to are local anesthetics, clomipramine (an anti-depressant) and tramadol (an opioid pain medication) — all of which come with a serious risk of side effects.

These side effects can range from difficulty breathing, blurred vision and confusion for clomipramine — to lightheadedness, nausea and risk of addiction for tramadol.

None of those are likely to make time in the bedroom enjoyable.

A better way

That’s why the Anglia Ruskin University researchers decided to examine the effect of non-pharmacological interventions on latency time to determine whether men could reduce problems with premature ejaculation without the side effects.

The researchers reviewed 54 studies, involving 3,485 participants from across the world, published over the past 49 years.

The conclusion they came to?

That for premature ejaculation, exercise really is the best medicine.

The researchers found that physical activity not only showed promising results in many of the studies, it proved to be as effective as drugs, but without associated side effects.

One study the team reviewed showed that running for 30 minutes, five times a week had as much effect on latency time as taking dapoxetine.

And a second study concluded that men who performed pelvic floor exercises tripled their latency time from a median of one minute to three minutes.

When asked about the results, senior author Lee Smith, Professor of Public Health at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), had this to say: “Our paper is a comprehensive review of studies into non-pharmacological interventions for this common complaint, and there are clear indications that physical exercise, including running and engaging the pelvic floor muscles, show promise in several studies.

They don’t really explain why it improves the problem, but if I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with the fact that exercise stimulates nitric oxide release from endothelial cells. Read more on why that’s important here.

“Given that drugs often have side effects, it appears that after all, the best medicine for avoiding premature ejaculation may well lie in exercise…”

So if your time in the bedroom has become less enjoyable thanks to premature ejaculation, it may just be time to put that medicine to work for you and use exercise to boost your latency time.

Sources:

Exercise could help with common sexual complaint – EurekAlert!

Clomipramine – Drugs.com

Premature Ejaculation – Cleveland Clinic

Premature ejaculation – Mayo Clinic

Tramadol – Drugs.com