Breathe Life into your Erections

Did you know you can breathe more life into your erections?

If you are like most people, you don’t think about how you breathe.

Most of us go about our days, going to work, doing our chores, and  hanging out without breathing properly. Breathing doesn’t get a lot of attention because, for the most part, it happens on it’s own.

As a primarily autonomic response, we do it without thinking and a lot of people believe that as long as they’re still alive, they must be doing right!?

The truth is, there is more to breathing than just getting air inside your lungs. Breathing correctly can calm your nervous system, build core muscle strength, help you sleep better, increase your energy levels and most importantly, improve your erections.

Let me explain why. On the most basic level an erection is a penis full of blood. So it’s important that as much blood as possible is getting to your penis.

And where is that blood coming from? It’s pumped from your heart.  On its journey from your heart to your penis the blood must pass through your respiratory diaphragm.

Now your diaphragm is a large, dome-shaped sheath of muscle hugging just underneath your rib cage.  It separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity below it.

Your heart, your lungs, and the upper part of your esophagus are above the diaphragm. 

And below it are the stomach, liver, intestines, and, your cock.

The diaphragm is anchored between the  breastbone, the ribs, and spine, and it spans from the front to the back of your body. 

When you inhale the diaphragm moves down and flattens out, creating abdominal pressure that causes the belly to expand. 

When you exhale, it moves up into a dome-shape and your belly drops back towards the spine because there is no more pressure pushing your organs down and out, essentially. 

This up and down movement provides waves of mechanical forces, which massage the inner organs and promotes healthy function. When the diaphragm moves less, the organs don’t get massaged; this lack of movement can leave you with a feeling of tightness, tension or pain in your solar plexus and chest and is not conducive to strong erections.

There are 3 large openings that pierce through this sheath of muscles.

Through one opening you have the esophagus which carries food to your stomach. You also have the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in the body, passing through here. 

Through another opening you have your aorta which is the main artery that transports freshly oxygenated blood, from your heart, to the rest of your body, including your penis. And through the third  opening you have the vena cava, the large vein that carries deoxygenated blood back to the heart.

Like any other muscle in the body, the diaphragm can get tense and tight and shorten.  When this happens it begins to constrict these openings and the “tubes” that are passing through them. 

When the diaphragm is tight you can experience heartburn and digestive disorders.  It can also impact the vagus nerve which plays an important role in helping you maintain and sustain an erection.

Which is why we are here, right?

Now when the aorta and vena cava are compressed by a tight diaphragm, you have less fresh blood flowing down to the pelvis and into your erections. And, the blood flowing back to your heart, to be reoxygenated, is restricted. This creates stagnation in your abdomen and pelvis.

So what causes the diaphragm to be tight and tense? In short: it’s shallow breathing or a lack of deep breathing. 

Why are so many people shallow breathers?

Well, there are 2 main reasons, stress and biomechanics. Let’s start with stress. 

Stress can have a big impact on how you breathe. That’s because when you're stressed, you unconsciously tighten up the muscles in your body.

One of the first signs that you are stressed is a change in your breathing. You’ve probably noticed that when you are experiencing stress, your breathing becomes shallow and irregular.  We call this chest breathing.

When stressed, you only use a portion of your lung capacity. You tend to breathe with just the top third of your lungs. The rest of your lungs get squeezed out of the process, robbing you of vital oxygen and energy.

People who are stressed a lot tend to breathe quickly and shallowly, sometimes even hold their breath unconsciously. This creates constant high tension in the diaphragm muscle, meaning it’s not getting stretched properly, with long deep inhales and exhales. 

Over time this shallow breathing becomes a habit and our default way of breathing, even when not experiencing anything stressful. 

That is why it's really important to consciously remind yourself to breathe deeply, especially during stressful situations; and relax the muscles in your chest, allowing the lungs to fully expand. 

The other main factor impacting your diaphragm muscles are bio-mechanical imbalances, meaning the way you move, or don’t move your body and your overall body posture.

Our modern lifestyles of sitting at computers typing or playing video games, driving cars and looking down at our phones all day causes our shoulders and upper back to become increasingly hunched over. In addition, when you habitually hold stress in your diaphragm, the result is rounded shoulders and a collapse chest, almost as if you were subconsciously trying to duck from the factors causing you stress.

Try this: hunch over for a moment, and now, try to take a deep breath. It’s difficult, because there is no room for your diaphragm to move when you are in that position. If you are continually hunched over, you are not taking deep breaths, your brain is receiving less oxygen, and you are compressing the aorta and restricting optimal blood flow to your penis.  

Now, sit or stand up straight, draw your shoulder slightly back and broaden your chest.  Place one hand on the belly and one above it on the solar plexus. And now take in a long slow deep breath. Inhale into the belly, then up to the ribs and chest. Exhale, chest, ribs, belly. And again…

Not only can you inhale more oxygen, you are also activating the parasympathetic nervous system by stimulating nerves that are connected to the lower lobes of the lungs, helping to relieve stress. Erections do not function well in the presence of stress hormones. 

You are also lengthening and stretching the muscles of the diaphragm creating more space for good blood flow between the heart and your penis.