Anne Truong MDMen's Sexual Health Doctor

Don't Let Anxiety Get in the Way of Intimacy

9 Jan 2023 · 1 min

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Short clinician-led YouTube segment by Anne Truong MD explaining how anxiety and stress interfere with sexual intimacy by activating the fight-or-flight response. The clip states that when fight-or-flight is triggered the brain treats anxiety in the bedroom like a real threat, switching neural state away from sexual arousal and directing blood away from the penis—presented as the core model for psychological erectile difficulties.

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When the fight or flight is triggered, you're not going to be able to get an erection. So, for instance, when you're stressed or when you're distracted, it's hard to be in the mood and to have an erection. And your brain don't know the difference between real threat and being anxious in the bedroom. So that's very important. The brain recognizes fear, and then the brain switches from fight or flight mode and, you know, from being a stimulated mode. And then the stress direct blood away from the penis. And this is really the model of every psychological erection issue.