Let's be honest - sexual performance isn’t just about what happens in the bedroom. It's also influenced by physical health, confidence, connection and even your stress levels. Whether you’re looking to increase stamina, enhance intimacy or feel more in control of your sexual performance - you're in the right place. 

Here are five of our favourite lifestyle changes that help to improve sexual performance.

Get active 

An easy way to increase sexual performance is to become more active. In the era of working-from-home and sitting down at desks with computers we sometimes forget to ‘move’ and often end up being stationary for most of the day. Adding in a 20 minute walk around lunchtime is a good way of not only breaking the day up, but also providing you with fresh air and exercise.  

Exercise is not only a good way of increasing feel-good hormones, like endorphins that can help reduce stress, anxiety or depression, it also can help to increase testosterone, tone the pubococcygeus muscles (these muscles help you stop the flow of urine), as well as reducing the risk of erectile dysfunction. Harvard researched 31,000 men over the age of 50 and found aerobic exercise resulted in a 30-percent lower risk of erectile dysfunction. 

Reduce stress

Stress is a natural part of life and most of us will experience stressful situations from time-to-time, however, for some people, they experience chronic stress that can lead to a whole host of physical and mental health problems, including a reduction in sexual performance. 

During stressful moments, your adrenal glands produce and release high levels of cortisol into your bloodstream - your body's natural fight or flight response. However, higher levels of cortisol can also mean a reduction in testosterone, which may mean a loss of libido or changes to blood flow to the penis, causing difficulty with getting or maintaining an erection. Not only this, but stress can also impact your self-esteem and make you feel less sexual arousal, which will also impact on your sexual performance. 

One way of increasing sexual performance is to find ways to reduce and manage any stress you may be feeling. This could be in the form of relaxation techniques, such as breathing exercises, meditation to quiet the mind or yoga. 

If you are having relationship difficulties and that is impacting on your stress levels, it would be good to work through any relationship problems with your partner. If you are doing this on your own, it would be good to use communication techniques that are supportive of your relationship. If this is something that may be difficult, it might be worth speaking to a couples or relationship therapist who can help. 

Masturbate 

You might find this one a bit counterproductive - surely if you masturbate more, then sexual desire would reduce? But no, on the contrary - having more regular masturbation sessions may actually help increase sexual performance. If you struggle with longevity and find yourself orgasming quicker than you would like - teaching yourself to last longer through masturbation is a good way of doing this.

When you feel yourself about to orgasm, you can slow down or stop and gradually build this up over time - after a while, you can train yourself to last for longer - resulting in a more satisfying sex-life. 

Fruit and vegetables

Energy levels, good health, blood flow and hormones are all key players in maintaining a healthy sex-life. Therefore it’s vital to ensure you are providing your body with all the nutrients it needs for good sexual performance.

Cardiovascular health has been shown to be closely linked to sexual performance whilst high cholesterol is one of the main risk factors for heart disease. If your heart is not healthy, it’ll be harder to maintain stamina and endurance in the bedroom. If your heart is clogged, blood flow can be restricted to the penis, causing erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems. 

One of the easiest ways to improve men’s health and keep your heart and body healthy is to maintain a diet full of nutrient-rich foods, which includes plenty of fruit and vegetables. So if you’re not eating enough fruit and vegetables - try starting now.

Have a sexual health screen

Data from the World Health Organisation has shown that 1 million sexually transmitted infections (STI’s) are acquired every single day - with STIs having a direct impact on sexual and reproductive health which can affect sexual performance. If you’ve never had a sexual health screen, it would be a good idea to get yourself tested - many STIs, like Chlamydia may not present with any symptoms at all. 

To protect yourself from catching a sexually transmitted infection, always wear a condom every time you have sex.