Overcoming Performance Anxiety: Strategies and Treatments

In this episode, I'm going to talk about performance anxiety solutions for a better sex life. So stay tuned.

This podcast is for you. The Modern Man I'm Dr. Anne Truong, your host. I'm an intimate health medical doctor and best selling author of the book Erectile Dysfunction Fix. I'll do a deep dive into sexual health and performance and how it affects men of all ages and backgrounds. So let's get started and be sure to visit my website@sexualhealthformenpodcast.com for more information and resources from the show. See you on the inside.

Hello there modern man and today we're going to talk about performance anxiety and the impact it can have on your sex life. So let's kind of dive in a.

Common issue that affects the various aspects.

Of your life, from your work to sports, performance, even your sex life. Performance anxiety is also known as stage fright or performance nerves. It's a type of anxiety that occurs when a person feels intense fear or worry about performance while performing that are in front of others or they tell themselves to try to meet high expectations. While some level of anxiety can be helpful in keeping you alert and focused, however, excessive performance anxiety can have a debilitating effect on your ability to perform your best, particularly during sexual encounter. Because the brain is a larger sexual organ, the brain and the penis has to be relaxed in order for you to get an erection. So if the brain is not relaxed, the you're not going to have the sexual response. Performance anxiety can manifest in various ways including physical symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, sweaty shaky nausea, and sometimes even difficulty breathing, as well as mental and emotional symptoms such as negative self talk, feelings of inadequacy, and intense fear of failure. Now let's discuss some strategies and treatment that can help you manage and overcome this. Now I'm also going to leave a link down in the show Notes for the American association of sexual therapists aasect.org as a reference as well. Now one strategy is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT. CBT is a type of therapy that focuses on identifying and changing negative thought pattern and and it can be particularly helpful in addressing the root cause of your performance anxiety such as sometimes unrealistic expectation, professionalism and negative self talk. So in order for you to do cbt, you should work with your therapist. Another strategy is mindfulness and meditation. Practicing Mindfulness Mindfulness involves realization of okay, I'm having performance anxiety, I need to stop that and you need to start incorporating strategies like deep breathing and self awareness of the moment that you are having this negative self talk and you're having performance anxiety and you stop those feelings right away. You stop it and then you start incorporating meditation techniques such as deep breathing or imagery. So that takes me to the next strategy, which is deep breathing. I'm a big proponent of box breathing, which is four seconds of holding your breath, then inhaling through your nose for four seconds. And when you're inhaling through your nose for four seconds, make sure that you bring out your stomach. Your belly button goes out instead of going in. You don't want to do this, you want to breathe out. So that's called diaphragmatic breathing. You breathe in for four seconds and then you hold for four seconds and you breathe out to your nose for four seconds. And when you breathe out, your belly button should be coming in your body like it towards your spine. And nasal breathing or nose breathing is a lot better because you get more nitrous oxide production, you get more inflation of your lungs when you do nose breathing. And so deep breathing, it's also distracting you from that negative thought in your mind and it's focusing on, if you just focus on the counting, you're focusing on the breathing, then what do you do? Once you start focusing on the breathing, you get yourself out of negative self talk anxiety and you're calming yourself and you are reaching towards a state called parasympathetic state. Parasympathetic state is where you want to be to get an erection. Parasympathetic state is a relaxation state. The more you are in that state, the better you calmer you will be. You have more blood flow and you definitely kind of be able to get an easier erection. So don't underestimate the power of deep breathing exercises, particularly box breathing. And mindfulness just means, hey, you're just recognizing these symptoms, okay, I'm having performance anxiety, I'm going to stop it and I'm going to use these strategies like imagery, like imagining yourself. Be able to excel at what you're doing. So that brings me to the next strategy called visualization and mental rehearsal. And what that means is visualizing yourself successfully performing the task. Like often athlete, before they compete, they will imagine in their mind what they're going to do, how they're going to perform, how they're going to hit that, how they're going to do their dres and imagining themselves following through and doing everything they need to do and playing the whole performance in their mind. So when you do this, you're more prepared, you build more confidence and you reduce anxiety and you want to be focusing on how you want to feel, how you want to think, and how do you want to behave. It's like if you're like a tennis player and you go out and play the match, you want to be able to think about your strokes, how you're going to be running, how you're going to prepare to meet that ball, and how you're going to prepare to change strategies. Now you can only control what your thoughts are and what your feelings are. You can't control another person. By controlling what your thoughts are and what your actions are, you are indirectly affecting the other person behavior as well too. Now, I'm a big proponent of Brooke Costello coaching model of an acronym called cfar. CFAR mean for circumstance. Circumstance is the event that happened and then F mean the feeling that you feel, and then T mean your thoughts that you think, and then the action and the result. So what I'm trying to get at is that if an event or circumstance happened, the first thing is your thought. You can control your thought. You can control the way that thought will be negative or that thought will be positive, or that thought will be neutral. And from that thought you, it creates a feeling how you feel. So you can control the thought. And if the thought is positive and the feeling will be positive, and then when the feeling will be positive and encouragement, then the action will be positive and encouraging, and then the result will be positive and encouraging. But if the thought is negative, then the feeling will be negative, the action will be negative, and the result will be negative. Does that make sense? So it all thought, it all comes from the thought that you have and then acknowledging it and then the feeling that you sense as well. One of my mentors said to me that, you know, you can't control other people, but you can control your thoughts, your feeling and your action. Another strategy is called progressive muscle relaxation. Pmr. PMR is technique that involves tensing and relaxing different muscle groups to reduce physical tension and anxiety. And that's almost like Kegel exercises. I'm a big proponent of men doing Kegel exercises. Kegel exercises are the exercises that you contract and what it is, those are the muscles that are located between your scrotum and your rectum. And they're just small little muscle, but they're powerful muscle. But they're the muscles that are responsible for contributing to part of your erection and also responsible for orgasm and ejaculation because of their location. Now, when you have an orgasm, believe it or not, it's not. It's the muscle that come from the base of the penis, but mainly also really from the muscles that are between the scrotum and the rectum. And that's where you feel the spasm and the contraction. So having said that, if you do Kegel exercises, you can contract and relax. And you know, how do you know you contracting relaxing those muscles? Those are the muscles that are responsible when you urinate. So when you urinate you are relaxing those muscles. And then during urination if you stop the stream, then you are contracting those muscles and stopping the stream of your urine. So practice Kegel exercises. And for a man and a woman, you can when you urinate, start and stop your urine stream a couple of times. That's how you have a sense of what it's like. And when you're driving, you know you can start and contract those muscles a few times as well too. So and then during sexual activity, you can actually practice starting and stopping that muscle. That will help you really relax the penis muscle and really help even direction and eventually the orgasm and ejaculation. And the last therapy is called exposure therapy, meaning the more you expose yourself to the anxiety provoking situation, the more resilient you're going to be and the confidence over time. So the bottom line, what this means is have more sex. The more sex you have, the more confidence you're going to feel and your body will be more adaptive towards what it needs to do. It's almost like use it or lose it. The more you do it, your body will adapt to it. You don't do it as much, your body will not be used to it. Just know that men, if you don't get an erection often your penis muscle will actually atrophy and it may even become fibrosis which is developing guard tissue which then can result in ed. But it also result in a smaller penis as well too. And a couple other strategies I want to add is medication. Sometimes taking an anti anxiety medicine may help. I don't advocate that too much because those medications can actually exacerbate your ED as well. But if you need to, there are some anxiety medication that will help as well. And then last but not least, but the most important part is support network is connecting with others who understand your experience from the performance anxiety and provide you with support, encouragement and advice. That's why I created the Modern Man Club. The Modern Man Club is a safe and space of men with ED that are coached by me. The whole goal is support each other and to restore your sex life and to know that you can have sexual vitality of her life. And I know that I have seen great result with these men that had ED for over 10 years and even men that have prostate cancer to be able to restore their erection again without medication and without surgery. So encouragement, accountability and coaching goes a long way in the support network that you need. So check out my Modern man club. In fact, when you have 30 day free trial and you get actually the most incredible gift when you join, so check the link down below in the show notes and I'll leave that as well too. So so in summary, overcoming performance anxiety is a journey again require patience, persistence and self compassion. So explore various strategies and treatment that I talk about today and find the approach that works best for you and learn to manage your performance anxiety more effectively. I can assure you you can get out of performance anxiety and and that you're not alone in your struggles and seeking help from support group and professionals and friends and family can make a significant difference in your journey for your mental and physical health. And as always, I am your biggest fan. I am encouraging you every step of the way and thank you for listening and I will see you in the next episode. Hello there.

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Thanks for listening to the Sexual Health for Men podcast. If you love this episode then please please take a screenshot on your phone and post it on Facebook, Instagram or wherever you post. And be sure to tag me and let me know why you like this episode and what you'd like to hear in the future that will help me know what's great for you. And I would love to give you the most incredible free gift design to help you improve performance quickly go to my website@sexualhealthformenpodcast.com to get the book the Five Common Costly Mistake Men Make When Facing Ed. I would appreciate if you subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and just know that you can have sexual vitality for life. I appreciate you. Until next time.