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Your lifestyle may be ruining your sexual health. 9 preventive steps you need to take now!

1. Win the Battle of the Bulge…Again
What’s wrong with belly fat? It’s your own worst enemy because it’s robbing you of your own testosterone. Abdominal fat actually breaks down testosterone. The solution? Lose the fat, and more testosterone can circulate in your system.

2. One Smoking Gun is Enough
That cigarette you’re smoking after sex is ruining those titanium erections. A major cause of erectile dysfunction is atherosclerosis.₁ The fastest way to get this plaque build-up in your arteries is by smoking. Plaque makes it hard for blood to flow through vessels everywhere in your body, including your penis.

3. Body Builder’s Secret
Try beefing up your testosterone levels by doing exercises that train several large muscle groups and not just one or two smaller muscles. For example, do squats instead of bicep curls. Not only do squats increase blood flow in your pelvic region, they raise your testosterone levels.₂ More free-flowing testosterone can add up to 15-20% to your UPPER body mass. Don’t over train though, your body and your T-levels need time to recover.

4. Nuts for Your Nuts.
Bad fats, the trans and saturated ones, increase your risk of disease. Good fats, the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats do the opposite, they’re heart healthy and studies have shown can raise testosterone levels. Nuts, olive oil, canola oil and peanut butter are good sources of monounsaturated fat.₃ Nuts also contain arginine. This amino acid, also found in beans, cold-water fish (tuna, salmon), soy products, and oats, promotes “nitric-oxide release” which increases blood flow, yes even in your penis, by relaxing blood vessels.

5. Take The Bull By The Horns
….and feel around for hardness or discomfort. If you find something that feels like a knuckle, pay attention. Let your doc have a look. If detected early testicular cancer is treatable and curable.

6. Roasting Your Chestnuts
Sunbathing not only increases your vitamin D levels it also lifts the libido. A 2010 Austrian study, involving 2,289 men, found their testosterone levels were boosted by vitamin D.₄ Jessica Harris of Cancer Research UK recommends using a sunscreen so you don’t burn and then you can strike a balance between making enough vitamin D and avoiding a bad sunburn or worse yet skin cancer. To make sure you’re getting enough Vitamin D you can eat foods like oily fish such as salmon, trout or mackerel.

“Men who ensure that their body is at least sufficiently supplied with vitamin D
are doing good for their testosterone levels and their libido among other things.” ₅
(Ad Brand, Sunlight Research Forum, Netherlands)

7. Celery: Not just for dips anymore.
Forget the aftershave because you can turn your lover on by eating a couple of sticks of celery. It contains androsterone, an odorless hormone released through male perspiration that can sexually arouse women. King Tut had some definite plans for his afterlife; his tomb contained garlands of olive leaves, flowers and bunches of wild celery.₆

8. Latest Research on Tears: No Crying Allowed In The Bedroom!
Men who sniffed the “emotional” tears of women experienced reduced self-rated sexual arousal, reduced physiological measures of arousal, and reduced levels of testosterone.₇ Researchers also think that men’s tears may also reduce aggression in other men.₈

9. No More All-Nighters
Alarming new research from the University of Chicago suggests that sleep loss lowers testosterone. Skipping sleep reduced a young man’s testosterone levels by the same amount as aging 10 to 15 years. “Low testosterone levels are associated with reduced well being and vigour, which may also occur as a consequence of sleep loss”, said Eve Van Cauter, Ph.D, who led the study.₉ And if that’s not bad enough, 15 percent of the adult working population in the US gets less than five hours of sleep a night.

1 Harte, C. B. and Meston, C. M. (2011), Association between smoking cessation and sexual health in men. BJU International. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-410X.2011.10503.x http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1464-410X.2011.10503.x/abstract

2 Schwab, R., Johnson, G. O., Housh, T. J., Kinder, J. E., and Weir, J. P. (1993). Acute effects of different intensities of weight lifting on serum testosterone. Medicine and Science in Sports d Exercise 25: 1381-1385.

3 Volek JS, Kraemer WJ, Bush JA , et al. Testosterone and cortisol in relationship to dietary nutrients and resistance exercise. Journal of Applied Physiology. 82(1): 49-54, 1997 Jan.

4 E. Wehr, S. Pilz, B. O. Boehm, W. März and B. Obermayer-Pietsch. Association of vitamin D status with serum androgen levels in men CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY Volume 73, Issue 2, August 2010, Pages: 243–248, Article first published online : 29 DEC 2009, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2265.2009.03777.x

5 BBC News. Sunbathing ups men’s testosterone. 2Feb2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8493042.stm

6 HealthDiaries. 25 Facts About Celery. 12 Dec 2007 http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/25-facts-about-celery.html

7 Gelstein S, et al. Human Tears Contain a Chemosignal Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1198331. Published Online Jan 6 2011

8 Belluck P. In Women’s Tears, a Chemical That Says, ‘Not Tonight, Dear’. 6Jan2011. NYTimes. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/science/07tears.html?pagewanted=1&ref=testosterone

9 Nauert, R. Sleep loss lowers testosterone. 1June2011. http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/06/01/sleep-loss-lowers-testosterone/26603.html

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