9. Stress An erection starts in your brain. It sends a signal down, the muscles in your penis relax, blood rushes in, and the veins close to keep it there. Stress and anxiety jam that signal. Your body releases cortisol, the stress hormone, and switches to fight-or-flight mode, where an erection is the last thing it cares about.

8. Smoking Tobacco cuts blood flow to almost every organ, your heart included. Your penis is no exception. Mixing cigarettes with alcohol makes the damage even worse. Quit smoking for a stronger erection.

7. Low vitamin D Vitamin D plays a big role in making testosterone. Too little, from lack of sun or poor diet, and your testosterone drops along with your drive. Get outside, let the sun hit your skin with sunscreen on, and eat vitamin D foods.

6. Junk on your plate A diet full of saturated fat, salt and sugar damages the blood vessels your erection depends on. Build your meals around: • Protein • Vegetables • Fibre • A small amount of starch It's never too late to change how you eat.

5. Sitting still all day Exercise isn't just for muscle. It boosts blood flow, protects your heart and keeps your weight in check, and all three matter for a strong erection. Get at least 30 minutes of moderate activity a day, 5 days a week.

4. Alcohol Beer, gin, wine, bitters, all of it. Alcohol lowers testosterone, the hormone behind your sex drive. More than two drinks a day puts you in the danger zone, because heavy drinking damages the function your body needs to get an erection at all.

3. Certain medications and recreational drugs Some medicines carry sexual side effects: • Some blood pressure pills • Some antidepressants Recreational drugs work against you too. If your erections weakened after starting a prescription, talk to your doctor. Never just stop the medication on your own.

2. Short sleep While you sleep, your tissues repair and rebuild. Your nervous system resets and your heart keeps its rhythm. Men with sleep problems have higher rates of erection problems. Get 7 to 9 hours every night.

A slice of cake here, a can of soda there. Every sugar hit spikes your blood glucose, which pushes your insulin up. High insulin wrecks your body's testosterone production, and with less testosterone, getting hard gets harder. Cut the sweets and sugary drinks.

9 HABITS QUIETLY WEAKENING YOUR ERECTIONS Your erection is only as strong as the habits behind it. 1. Too much sugar

6. Burning when you pee Hot pepper didn't cause that sting. A burning feeling when you urinate is a classic sign of gonorrhoea or chlamydia, two of the most common STIs. Left untreated, they narrow your urine pipe and cause infertility later in life. When a symptom fades, the infection often hasn't. It has moved deeper and turned into something worse. Use protection, ask your partner about their status, and get a general STI screening whether you have signs or not.

5. Strange discharge Any discharge from the penis that wasn't there before is a warning. For women, some discharge is normal. Milky white, green or yellow discharge, or discharge with a bad smell, is not. A high vaginal swab shows exactly what's going on. Go to a doctor, not to your partner for advice.

4. Fever or tiredness with no clear cause Headaches, aching joints, fever and fatigue that show up one or two weeks after unprotected sex are not always malaria. That's your immune system fighting something. It can be HIV settling in, or another STI. Test before you treat, even if the fever eased with drugs.

3. No symptoms at all Some STIs show nothing. You feel completely fine while carrying something you can pass on. If you're sexually active, test regularly whether you have symptoms or not. Treat it like servicing your car: at least once a year. With multiple partners, test more often and ask your partners for their results too.

2. Pain during sex Sex should feel good. If it hurts every time, to the point you can't enjoy it, something is wrong. In women, this often points to pelvic inflammatory disease. The infection has climbed from below into the womb and tubes, and it's a major cause of infertility later on. Painful sex means a doctor's visit, not silence.

Small wounds, bumps, rashes or constant itching around your private area are a major red flag. Condoms don't fully protect you here. They cover the shaft, not the skin around it, and many of these infections spread through skin-to-skin contact: • Herpes • HPV • Syphilis HPV has around 100 types. Types 16 and 18 cause cervical cancer in women, so this one matters for your partner too.

6 WARNING SIGNS OF AN STI YOU SHOULD NEVER IGNORE Infections down there rarely announce themselves, so you have to know what to look for. 1. Bumps, sores, rashes or itching

5. Pain that comes in waves A normal stomach ache isn't the concern. These two patterns are: • Your belly swells, gurgles like air forcing through, and hurts for 2 to 3 days, then you pass a lot of gas, feel relief, and it all comes back later. A growing tumour narrows the bowel and causes a partial blockage. • A constant urge to empty your bowels, even with nothing there, plus pressure and a need to rush. The rectum keeps trying to push out the tumour, so going to the toilet never brings relief. Book a doctor quickly. Sometimes it turns out to be irritable bowel or something else, but let the doctor decide.

4. Low blood with no explanation A routine blood test shows anaemia, maybe with some tiredness, and nothing explains it. No visible bleeding, no diet problem. Tumours grow in a chaotic way. Their blood vessels are fragile, they burst, and they leak a little at a time. The blood leaves quietly in your stool, and anaemia is the only clue. When nothing else explains it, the go-to check is a colonoscopy, a camera test of the bowel.

3. Your bowel habits suddenly change, and stay changed Being constipated all your life isn't the warning. A new pattern is. You've never had trouble, then around 45 or 50 you're blocked up all the time. Or diarrhoea becomes regular when it never used to be. Watch the texture too. Stool that turns slimy or sticky is a worrying sign. These changes often come from a tumour on the left side of the colon, but they show up with cancer anywhere in the bowel.