Psychosexual: Tips for Managing Erection Difficulties

Here you can find some specific tips that might help difficulties getting or maintaining an erection. To read more about erectile difficulties, click here.

For general tips to manage anxiety and increase arousal, click here.

Avoid Morning Erections

Some people with erectile difficulties still get erections in the mornings. If so, it can be tempting to try and use them for sex. However, morning erections are usually a sign of a full bladder rather than being genuinely turned on! So using a morning erection for sex can put more pressure on you, and mean the erection might not last as you aren’t as turned on as you could be.

Gaining and Losing Erections

Losing an erection can make us feel embarrassed. This can make us feel worried about the next time we have sex, which is normal but unhelpful. If our brain learns that losing an erection causes embarrassment or distress, then it will react as if losing an erection is a dangerous event. Once this happens, it becomes physically difficult to get an erection at all (read more about why here).

So, if your reaction to losing an erection during sex is to get anxious or worries, it will make regaining your erection much harder. Instead, we need to teach our brains that losing an erection isn’t threatening – in fact, we can regain it again without having to worry.

1. Touch or stroke your penis and focus on what feels good.
2. Once you get an erection, try to keep your penis hard for a few seconds, and then stop all touch.
3. Let your erection go down. This may take several minutes.
4. When it is soft again, go back to touching your penis and focusing on what feels good.

Try this exercise twice in a row, once a day (touch – erection – stop – touch – erection – stop).

You might find it hard to regain your erection at first. If this happens, take time to relax and connect to things that turn you on (touch, memories, porn). If you still don’t get an erection, this is OK – just stop, and try again another time. It is normal not to be able to get an erection all of the time and sometimes the conditions are not right – just come back to it another time.

Masturbating with Focus

The aim of this exercise is to learn what sensations work for you during masturbation (wanking). You do not need to get an erection, but it’s OK if you do get one.

1. Spend some time getting relaxed, e.g. listen to music or have a bath.
2. Think about sexual experiences, fantasies or watch porn to help you get in the mood.
3. When you’re ready, start to touch your penis and focus on which sensations feel good. Experiment with different strokes, types of touch, and speeds, and applying more or less pressure. Touch your penis from the base to the head, and touch other parts of your body too.
4. Try to spend 15 minutes on this exercise, learning about your body and the sensations that work for you. If you feel close to coming before this, stop masturbation and wait until the urge subsides, then continue again. You do not need to ejaculate during this exercise.