have you ever wondered why you wake up with a morning erection or why your partner does well
i'm Dr. Rena Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and today we're going to talk
all about why you get nocturnal penile tumescence if you're new here i make
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morning wood or waking up with an erection is part of what we call nocturnal penile tumescence
during the night all humans have about four to five periods that we call rem sleep and during
this special period of rem sleep usually people will also have dreams as well as penile and even
clitoral erections interestingly the evidence of nighttime 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 its frenzied lusts wow later in history in about the 17th century erections at night or
nocturnal penile tumescence became part of law and this is because infertility or the inability to
have a child became a sin and a grounds for divorce and so erectile dysfunction became
a cause of infertility and in order to assess 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 jury actually sat
at the bedside while the person slept to assess if they had nocturnal erections that is just
crazy it even went as far as the jury demanding elasticity and natural movement of the penis
to demonstrate proper use of the penis and so they went as far as even watching couples have
intercourse it wasn't until about 1677 that they finally stopped doing these things that's crazy
then it became very muddled they started saying erections and nighttime emissions or wet dreams
were about the same thing so from the 17th to 19th century they started calling these things
pollutions and they believed that masturbation would lead to all sorts of ailments and diseases
such as penis rings but with sharp spikes i mean ouch that sounds horrible they also had a corset
for the penis that went from the shoulders all the way to the knees it wasn't until the
1920s when a follower of freud wilhelm steckel declared that sleep related erections were normal
and occurred in people from all ages of infancy to old age and the presence of morning erections
which is the last sleep-related erection is completely normal and in fact a sign of health
they then became the leaders in the field to study sleep related erections they used devices that are
similar to modern day devices that measured the firmness and rigidity of the penis at night with
devices that went around the penis in fact they even studied this for women they used devices to
test the temperature of the clitoris as well as a gummy balloon connected to a pressure chamber
that assessed the engorgement of the clitoris they also use different devices to measure the vaginal
blood flow and what they found was that women did have increases in vaginal blood flow as you would
expect during an erection but they differed in the pattern compared to men they more often had them
during non-rem sleep compared to rem sleep and all these studies essentially led to one conclusion
that these nighttime erections actually are a sign of good blood flow to the penis and a sign of good
erectile health in fact these sleep related erections might be protective of erectile
function so in fact they're really good for you the reason being is that in the erect state you
increase oxygenation to those tissues and so having sleep-related erections is actually good
to increase blood flow to the area and to make sure that you have normal erectile function when
you need it but why exactly do these erections happen well there's four different reasons one
is the nervous system at night your nervous system that's most active is called the parasympathetic
nervous system and this is the nervous system that rests and digests during that rem sleep it causes
the muscles to relax allowing the blood to flow in causing erections it also causes your heart
rate to slow down the second reason this happens is due to hormonal changes so during nighttime
norepinephrine which is usually revved up with your sympathetic nervous system during fight or
flight goes down as you get closer to the morning your testosterone goes up both of those things
together make changes in your body which make it more likely for you to get erections the third
reason is that you can have friction against your penis if you're lying on your stomach or sheets
can rub against your penis causing erections and lastly in the morning your bladder is very
full and it may compress certain nerves called the sacral nerves then these compressed nerves
can cause a reflex erection which also explains why you often wake up with an erection and most
often that erection goes away after you urinate but it's not necessarily completely related to
the emptying of the bladder when they've looked at men and studied them to find out exactly how many
times people are having erections at night they have about three to six episodes with at least
one having an erection of greater than 60 percent rigidity lasting up to 10 minutes and again this
is completely normal and in fact healthy i get a lot of questions about how can i stop getting
morning erections well you can't prevent them and you shouldn't because they're a sign of a normal
healthy individual with normal erectile function some people may notice that they less often have
nocturnal erections specifically because we see that men have less frequent or less
rigid erections as they age also people with sleep disturbances can also have more difficulty getting
these sleep-related erections so getting your sleep evaluated is closely tied with your erectile
function so if you're having trouble sleeping make sure you talk to your doctor about that as well
lastly all these nighttime erections can help maintain the length of your penis so if you
stop having erections at night in fact your penis muscles may start contracting and you
may have shortened penile length because most people wake up at the end of a rem sleep cycle
if you're getting them great don't worry about it just be careful when you go pee
in the morning not to hit yourself in the face if you are not getting morning erections a few times
is not a big deal but if a few months go by and you're not getting normal morning
erections make sure you go see your primary care doctor issues with erections can often
be the canary in the coal mine meaning it can be a sign that there might be some problem with
your heart and so it's important to get yourself checked out make sure you don't have any heart
disease high cholesterol high blood pressure or diabetes that might be contributing to decreasing
blood flow to the penis which eventually can cause bigger problems down the line i hope you
guys enjoyed this video as always remember to take care of yourself because you're worth it