Have you ever wondered why you wake up with morning erection or why your partner does. Well, that's the essence of this post so make sure you read till the end so that you will thoroughly grab every of my explanation. This is also known as "Nocturnal Penile Tumescence"
During the night all humans have about 45 period of what is called "Rem Sleep" and during this special period of Rem sleep people usually have dreams as well as penis and even clitoris erection. Interestingly, the evidence of night time erections goes all the way back to the time of Plato around 327 BC, He says and i quote "In males the nature of the genital organs is disobedient and self-willed, like a creature that is deaf to reason, and it attempts to dominate all because of it's frenzied lusts".
Later on in history in about the 17th century erections at night became part of law and this is because infertility or the inability to have a child became a sin and a ground for divorce and so erectile dysfunction became a cause of infertility and in order to access the presence of erectile dysfunction truly men had to prove that they didn't have erectile dysfunction. They were subjected to external genital exams by theologians, doctors and judges, and if necessary members of the leaders have to sit by the bedside while the person slept to access if they had erections. Absolutely crazy, but they even went as far as the judges demanding elasticity and natural movement of the penis to demonstrate proper use of the penis. They also went to the extra mile of watching couples have intercourse, and this went on until about 1677 when they finally stop doing it.
So from the 17th to 19th century they now believed that masturbation will lead to all sorts of ailments and diseases such as penis rings and all sorts. Then in the 1920's when Wilhelm Stekel declared that sleep related erections were normal and occurred in people from all ages of infancy to old age and the presence of morning erection which is the last sleep related erection is completely normal and in fact is a sign of health, they then became aware and then started to study how sleep related to erection. They used devices that are similar to modern day devices that measure deformness and rigidity of the penis at night with devices that went around the penis. In fact they even studied this for women, they use devices to test the temperature of the clitoris as well as a gummy balloon connected to a pressure chamber that accessed the engulfment of the clitoris, they also used different devices to measure the vagina blood flow as they would expect during erection but the different in their past compared to the men is that they more often had them during non Rem sleep compared to Rem sleep and all these studies essentially led to one conclusion that this night time erection actually are a sign of good erectile health, in fact this sleep related erections might be protective of erectile function so it means they are really good for you and the reason is that in the erect state you increase oxygenation to those tissues and so having sleeping related erection is actually good to increase blood flow to the areas and to make sure that you have normal erectile function when you will need it.
But why exactly do these erections happen?
There are four different reasons:
1. The Nervous System: At night your nervous system that is at work is called the "Parasympathetic nervous system" and this is the nervous system that rest and digest, during that Rem sleep it causes the muscle to relax allowing the blood to flow in causing erections, it also causes your heart rate to slow down.
2. During Hormonal Changes: During night time as you get close to the morning your testosterone goes up and this makes changes to your body which makes it more likely for you to get erections.
3. Friction against your penis: This can happen if you are lying on your tommy or sheets the sheets can even rub against your penis causing erections.
4. Your bladder is very full in the morning: This may compress certain nerves called the sacral nerves and this compressed nerves can cause a reflex erection which also explain why you often wake up with an erection, and most often this erection goes away after yawning, though it's not necessarily completely related to the emptying of the bladder. After a study on men to found out how regularly they have erections at night, they have at least 3-6 episodes with at least one having erection greater than 60% rigidity lasting up to 10 mins again, this is completely normal and healthy.
Some people do ask questions like; How can i stop getting morning hard-on? The answer is that you can prevent it but i will advice you shouldn't do that because they are a sign of normal and healthy individual with a normal erectile function. Some people may notice they have less sleep related erection specifically because we see that men have less frequent or less rigid erections as they age, also people with sleep disturbances do have more difficulty in getting these sleep related erections, so the amount of sleep you get also determines if you will wake up with hard-on or not, so try and sort your sleepness nights out.
Lastly, it's obvious night time erection can help maintain the length of your penis, so if you stop having erections at night your penis muscles may start contrasting and you may have shortened penis length. If you are getting sleep related erections that's great, but if you don't like a few times it isn't a big deal, it's normal but if a few month goes by and you aren't getting it you should go for medical check up because this could simply mean a problem in your health, meet a doctor to make sure you don't have a heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes that might be contributing to decrease in blood flow to the penis which eventually can cause bigger problems along the line.
0 Comments