We all want sex to last longer, I’m sure. I’m sure most of you reading this right now have asked yourselves at some point how to last longer in bed. The thing is, though, we can’t always last for ages. Besides, it’s actually perfectly normal that we don’t.
Lasting in bed isn’t the only thing that counts as being a good lover, although it definitely helps. Other things matter too like technique, flirting, foreplay, focusing on other activities besides penetration, etc.
But you came here to learn about how to last longer in bed, right? So I am going to tell you all the basic stuff you need to know about this and get rid of performance anxiety.
There are a couple of things you have to get done before you nail the dilemma of how to last longer in bed and how not to cum fast.
Basically, it gets down to three things:
- Reducing your anxiety levels regarding your sexual performance;
- Setting time apart for doing physical exercises that strengthen the muscles responsible for ejaculation;
- And finally, some tips and tricks you can do in bed with your partner that’ll help you last longer and delay ejaculation.
So, let’s get started!
Reducing Sexual Performance Anxiety
Sexual performance anxiety (or SPA, an abbreviation used in the medical world) is a very common occurrence among sexually active people worldwide.
M.D. Ph.D. Robert E. Pyke, Chief Medical Officer at S1 BioPharma Inc. and Member of the International Society For Sexual Medicine, is among the people doing research about this. According to one of his studies, in the course of ten years, from 2010 to 2018, he showed that SPA affects 9% to 25% of men.
This includes premature ejaculation and psychogenic erectile dysfunction (aka the persistent inability to achieve or maintain an erection). In contrast, it seems to affect a lesser percentage of women, spanning from 6% to 16%, termed as inhibited sexual desire.
But, SPA, or sexual performance anxiety, is likely to affect almost everyone at some point in their lives, at least once.
And, so, what am I trying to say here? That it’s not that big of a deal! And, it’s totally manageable! With the right exercises as well as mental effort, it’s very likely that you’ll get back on the sex track in a relatively short amount of time.
Anxiety and the Body
The mind is a tricky one. Once you experience an episode where you have trouble performing, whether it’s premature ejaculation or troubles with erection, that’s it. It can get inside your head like a stray seed of doubt and start growing and growing till it becomes big as a tree and you get caught up in all the branches.
And each time you get into the sack and you’re trying to have fun with your lady, you’ll keep entwining in these branches. Each time you think you won’t last long(er) in bed, just like last time it happened – well, chances are, you won’t. Anxiety will make the most of it and you’ll end up coming faster than you wanted to.
This is because our mind and our body are not separate entities – they influence and affect each other all the time. Insecurity breeds anxiety and when your mind is anxious, your body is as well.
And then it turns into a loop – once you jump into bed you start reacting even before fully accessing the situation, before being fully conscious. The circumstances might now be different from what they were the first time (or last time) you felt you underperformed. But the tree has already grown, the seed is sown, and you react, involuntarily. Your body reacts, and your mind follows – your mind reacts and your body follows, it seems like it’s a never-ending circle.
But it’s not. It’s all mendable and manageable. There are ways to control and diffuse sexual anxiety in bed and I’ll tell you all about how to do that next.
Reducing Sexual Anxiety
Sexual anxiety can be caused by a lot of things, such as:
- Being under too much stress – whether it’s work, family, or marriage issues, stress is among the most common factors for sexual dysfunction in men;
- Self-consciousness and a negative image of oneself, especially when it comes to physical appearance – you may be encountering issues regarding your penis size, your overall body image, as well as your perceptions of manliness.
When it comes specifically to erectile dysfunction, it might be caused by factors such as:
- Depression and stress;
- Smoking;
- Excess use of alcohol and drugs;
- Certain illnesses and medical conditions (like having a stroke, for example, or a physical injury);
- A recent surgery, etc.
You have to have in mind all of these things when you’re experiencing sexual dysfunction and work on them separately if necessary.
Communicate It to Your Partner
If you’ve read most of my articles, by now, you’ve probably noticed how I almost always mention the importance of communication for whatever topic I cover on marriage and relationships.
And SPA is no exception to this. I strongly suggest you talk it out with them first and tell them all about your anxieties concerning it. If your partner/wife is a decent human being, she won’t think bad of you or consider you any less of a man. On the contrary, it might even contribute to making you closer, because talking about such a delicate subject shows vulnerability and readiness to open up.
Tell your partner that you’re concerned about your ability to perform during sex and that you’re also concerned about how that reflects on the quality of your sex life. Working together on this issue is crucial.
By approaching your SPA confidently and without fear, you’ll make more progress in a shorter amount of time, trust me.
Practice Mindfulness (and Meditation)
Sex is about being in the moment, being both bodily and mentally present, and in our present-day hustle and bustle that’s a really hard thing to achieve. We’ve all been through it, no doubt.
When you hit the sack and attempt to have a relaxing sexy time with your wife or partner, it’s really hard to fight away the worrisome thoughts that have been haunting you throughout the day. What should be the most enjoyable and relaxing part of your day turns out to be fraught with divided attention, anxiety, and stress.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can work on chasing away the negative, worrisome thoughts and train yourself to be aware of what’s going on right now. I present to you the term mindfulness.
Most of you have probably heard about it before – it describes an awareness of your whole body and mind of the present moment. Everything that contains you – feelings, sensations of the body as well as sensations coming from the outside, the thoughts that circle your mind, it’s all a part of mindfulness. And being mindful means to be in tune with all of that – the thoughts are synchronized to what the body is experiencing, feeling, and sensing at the current moment, and vice versa. You set aside the past or the future or any kind of thing that might upset the present moment – the only thing that is important is now.
Mindfulness during sex
Mindful sex entails focusing your attention on the sensations of pleasure you’re feeling in the moment. This means sensations of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound, but it also means focusing on the positive emotions you’re experiencing, like joy, pleasure, excitement, extreme affection, etc. It also means synching the rhythm of your own breathing to that of your partner’s.
Here you also shouldn’t forget the part where you distance yourself or try to defuse any worrying or so-called “evaluative” thoughts. Try seeing them as background noise that doesn’t have anything to do with you.
Try exercising mindfulness before having sex so you don’t have to do it right in the middle of the deed. When you manage to take control of your mind and body this way, you’ll notice how being mindful during sex imposes itself without any notice.
How can you practice mindfulness?
There are a number of ways you can practice being mindful.
Observe your breathing patterns
Breathing is the first step into the world of meditation. When you notice how you breathe, you start to take hold of the rhythms of your body as well, since it’s an activity that happens constantly and rhythmically, and it’s always happening NOW. When you notice yourself breathing, you’re focusing on a repeating pattern that’s happening always in the present. This helps you chase away any unwanted thoughts that may cause you anxiety and restlessness.
Connect with your senses
Our five senses are the gateway to the outside world. This is primarily how we experience the present moments in our life. When you’re burdened with overthinking, you forget to actually feel stuff, you forget the wonderful sensations that might abound you. And so, next time you notice you’re becoming overburdened with thought, try defocusing yourself with your senses. Try to unravel the smells that surround you; take another sip of your coffee or tea and savor its aroma. Go outside on the balcony or in your yard and smell the fresh air, touch a plant, or go hug your kid, your wife, stroke them by the hair… Make yourself a nice meal and enjoy it, fully.
Take a break
Learn to take pauses in your daily life. Pause before doing any activity, even something as trivial as answering your phone. Listen to the sound of it ringing. Pause before opening your laptop, feel your body in your chair. Notice how you’re holding that cup of coffee. Gaze a little bit longer in your wife’s eyes during foreplay… Pausing between activities again helps you focus on the present moment and helps you feel yourself, with all the might and materiality of your body in it. It also gives you more energy for the next activity or task that you’re about to do.
If you want to read more about male sexual performance anxiety and mindful practices, make sure to check out this article from the National Social Anxiety Center. It offers concise and informative insights for men who want to focus on the psychological (mental) side of SPA.
Doing Physical Exercises
In principle, there are two basic types of exercises you can do to control premature ejaculation and that’ll help you last longer in bed.
Masturbation and Kegel exercises for men.
Sounds fun, right?
Masturbating and Edging
Yep, masturbating can help big time with lasting longer in bed and preventing premature ejaculation. Lots of guys out there are actually doing themselves a disfavor by jerking off only for a couple of minutes before they cum. This is making your dick lazy and, of course, you’re not gonna have much stamina if all you do is keep it entertained for 2-3, max 5 minutes.
But the key is to masturbate differently from before. So nothing under 10 minutes is allowed. Whatever you do, start off by trying not to come for at least 10 minutes straight. Once you manage to master this, continue over to 15, and then to 20, going up to even 30 minutes.
And all of this is done with the help of edging. Some of you may have heard of it before – it’s a technique/practice where you’re deliberately stopping yourself from having an orgasm just at the very edge of having one, or when you feel you’re really close to having one.
To practice how to last longer in bed, you’ll have to do edging both during actual sex and your masturbating sessions.
How to practice edging during masturbation?
Step #1: Start masturbating.
Step #2: Come up with a subjective scale of arousal and try to reach level 7 (as you practice more and more you’ll get a better sense of when you reach this level).
Step #3: This is where edging comes into the picture. Stop yourself from getting to the level where you’ll orgasm pretty quickly. Cool off till about level 5.
Step #4: Work yourself up again, this time reaching level 8.
Step #5: Stop again and get down about level 6.
Step #6: Go to level 9 and then slide down to 7.
Step #7: Go to level 9.5, slide down to 7 again. 9.5 is that level where you almost come but you can still cool it down before you do (just before that infamous point of no return level)
Repeat this cycle from 7-9.5 (and then down to 6-7) all over again in the course of 10 minutes, and try to make it even more than 10 minutes; gradually increase till about 30 minutes (and more, if you can!).
When you actually do orgasm, you’ll notice how much stronger your orgasms are, and you’ll notice that with time, you’ll have more stamina to last longer in bed.
How to make the edging easier to handle
As you get more and more aroused, it’ll naturally be harder to slow yourself down, but it’s absolutely doable.
In order to make it easier for you, try doing the following:
- Squeeze your pelvic floor muscles pretty hard, just like you’re trying to do an intense Kegel exercise. Hold those muscles for about 10 seconds – for the record, the longer you hold them, the more you’ll be able to cool down. Alternatively, if it’s easier for you, you can try doing several shorter 1-second or 5-second rounds of intense Kegel exercises.
- Temporarily distract yourself from the activity – try thinking about something else for just a moment to get to the desired level 6 or 7.
- Change the way you jerk off mid way – you don’t always have to stop all the way, you just need to change your stroke, and also try avoiding the head while you’re at it.
- Take deep breaths reaching to your diaphragm. You can do this by breathing with your stomach (aka using your stomach muscles more when you take breaths)
Combining all of these things together will help you with your premature ejaculation; if it’s too confusing at the beginning, no fuss. Just start with one first and then gradually add the others in the mix until it all becomes a piece of cake after a short while.
Don’t forget to set time every day for this, about 20 minutes every night (or whatever time of day you can do it). And, of course, the more frequently you do it, the better.
You can also do this with your partner
Some of you may want to do this with their partners, which is also a great idea. You can tell your partner that you want to work on SPA issues and that you have a set of particular exercises you want to practice. Ask her if she can help you out somehow, whether it’s through oral stimulation or maybe also a hand job. You can also practice slower sex, introducing lots of mini-pauses in between (edging), where you get to stop and start intermittently.
I know this might seem like a lot of work, and most of the time you’ll be veeeery tempted to just cum and get it over with, but trust me, it definitely pays off. If you approach it in a confident and positive manner, it can be a lot of fun too (especially if you do it with your partner).
Kegel Exercises for Men
Arguably the best way to gain control of your ejaculation is to work on the muscles responsible for it.
You can achieve this by strengthening your pelvic floor muscles. Doing Kegel exercises and reverse Kegels is the way to go when it comes to this.
If you want to find more about Kegel exercises for men – what they are good for and how to do them in more detail, visit my special article on the topic. Here I’m just going to briefly go over how to find your pelvic floor muscles for those of you who’re new to it.
How to find the pelvic floor muscles?
- Take off your clothes.
- Find this particular spot with your fingers: a spot between your legs that’s somewhere behind your testicles, but before the anus. Did you find it?
- Ok, now imagine you’re stopping yourself from peeing. Did you feel a muscle flexing in the area I just told you to find? If you feel movement where you’ve just put your fingers, then it should be right. You might also feel a slight movement in your penis and the testicles.
- Lots of men make the mistake of flexing their stomach muscles, their thigh muscles, and their glutes. Nope. Just remember to flex only that muscle. It’s enough.
- If you still have trouble locating it, then just try peeing for real. Drink half a liter of water and go to the bathroom. Once you start peeing, try to immediately stop yourself from doing so.
And there you go, you’ve managed to find your PC muscle (short for its quite weird name) Pubococcygeus muscle. This is the muscle responsible for both the flow of urine and the control of ejaculation.
Working on strengthening this muscle is crucial. It’ll help you last longer, and it’ll help you control your edging better, allowing you to cool off from the pre-orgasm level quicker and more efficiently.
Kegel exercises are the ones that’ll help you train your pelvic floor muscles. There are two types of them:
- Regular Kegel exercises that revolve around flexing your muscles;
- Reverse Kegel exercises that will help you push them out.
Muscles get stronger by gradually increasing the strength of the exercise. The pelvic floor muscles aren’t any different.
Use the App “Stamena”
If you need something to consistently remind you to do your Kegel exercises, then consider using an app. A very convenient app for this kind of thing is “Stamena” (find it here for iOS platforms, as of yet there isn’t an Android version, but if you do have an Android device, consider the “Kegel Trainer” that works on a similar principle.
Stamena is an app that gives you very particular directions regarding the Kegel exercises – it tells you how long you should hold your muscles tight when to release, when to clench, and when to push. It also tells you about the different speeds you can do this in.
The good thing about apps like these is that you get to see your progress in it as time goes by (you’ll also see it and feel it in real life, of course). So, in this app, when you reach level 8 or above, you’ll also be able to notice some pretty advanced improvements in your sexual stamina.
Generally, you can aim to about level 20, or more, after which you can cut back a little and do it just for the sake of keeping your muscles strong enough. Don’t get too relaxed though, since if you stop altogether, these muscles, much like any muscles in our bodies, will get less strong over time.
You can set reminders on this app to ping you a couple of times in the day so that you’re reminded to do your exercises. You can do them 1, 2, 3 times a day, but keep in mind that the more often you do them, the faster you’ll get to where you wanna be.
Other Techniques, Tips, and Tricks to Help You Last Longer in Bed
Now, doing your exercises regularly and masturbating while also including edging will make a huge difference in your sexual stamina already.
If you’ve been doing this for a little while now, chances are you’ve managed to last much more in bed than before. But why not last even more? Why not improve it with a couple of other techniques as well?
There are a couple of techniques, strategies, tips, and tricks, call them as you may, that will/can help you in this endeavor. Let’s take a look at them.
Approach Foreplay Differently
I know this doesn’t sound as sexy as you’d want to, but you will have to put in a bit of strategy when it comes to foreplay as well.
A lot of the time, foreplay occurs for a very short amount of time. It’s either boob play, oral sex, very rarely kissing (which is a problem on its own!), then crossing over to the penetration part, and then very quickly, to the orgasm part.
First of all, you need to make foreplay last longer. Make a mix out of it – kiss your wife more often and more passionately, play with her boobs more, massage her, talk dirty… Lots of ideas out there, you can check out my special article on the topic for more details on why foreplay is important and how to do it right.
But going straight for oral sex and then penetrative sex means you’re having intense stimulation one after the other. Which is not bad if you want to cum fast. But you don’t, right?
You can use foreplay for edging as well
So, the point of foreplay here is to bring you to a place where you’ll be hard enough and aroused enough without being horny as hell and able to cum in 2 minutes.
It’s quite simple actually – whatever it is that you like doing during foreplay, do it slower, and make it last longer. Kiss a lot, touch each other, stimulate her vulva with your hands, practice the art of cunnilingus without making her come, and vice versa. This way you’ll also be doing a type of edging, only without penetration.
Tip #1: Tell your wife to push against your PC muscle (the one with the weird name) when she sets out for fellatio. She can use 2-3 fingers or a whole fist if it’s easier. This is a good exercise to do during foreplay (that you can’t really do during vag-penis sex) because it’ll also help you last longer
Do this a couple of times in the course of foreplay before you set out to have sex.
Tip #2: Try to cool down in between going down on one another – when you’ve done the edging, try to go down on her, and when she’s doing it she can give you head.
Of course, in the end, all of this depends on you too, and how you want to structure it, how many times you want to do the edging. The more you do it the better in the long run is all I can say.
Try Different Sex Positions for More Efficient Edging
You probably already know that edging is easier during foreplay. When you get to the penetration part, it can be a bit tricky, since stopping and starting all the time might make your lady frustrated. Besides, it also might induce performance anxiety once again because you’ll be busy worrying not to come too early.
And that’s when switching up sex positions comes in very handy.
Now, some positions will bring you to higher arousal levels faster than others. It basically comes down to a combination of friction, direction, control of movement, the position you’re in, etc. For example, a missionary will get you off faster, whereas she being on top is probably gonna do it slower.
In any event, you will need to experiment with sexual poses to find out which ones exactly are causing you higher and lower levels of stimulation. So when you’re less stimulated or cooled down, you can try the ones that’ll stimulate you faster, and vice versa; when you’re really close to an orgasm, you can switch to the low stimulation poses, and then keep on doing this!
Tip #3: Try squeezing your PC muscles in between switching poses.
Do a PC Squeeze in the Last Second Before You Sense an Orgasm Coming
There’s one last thing you can do, once you’ve become a bit more versed in the other exercises and manage to do a bit of edging yourself. You can try and bring yourself to the point where you think there’s no return from having an orgasm. Yes, you read that right – you can stop yourself from coming at the very edge of an orgasm.
After all, you can thank all the PC training you’ve been doing!
So, once you find yourself at this point of no return stop doing all the thrusting and friction and try doing a long Kegel hold, or alternatively try to do a combination of short Kegel holds if it suits you better.
The longer the squeezing lasts, the more you’ll be able to cool down. With enough practice, you’ll be able to cool down in a few seconds and then continue having sex for another 5 minutes or so.
The thing about this special type of exercise is that it works better the closer you are to orgasm. So don’t worry if you just so happen to cum! It takes practice, like everything so far. The longer you try to do it, the more you’ll be able to notice when the right time for squeezing is, and you’ll be more versed at escaping that edgy point at the precipice of reaching an orgasm.
Another squeeze technique
There’s another technique with squeezing that you can do as a means of extreme edging but I’d recommend it less than the one mentioned earlier.
I’d recommend it less because it really interrupts the sex part. What you’ll need to do is to grasp tightly the base of your penis and then squeeze it so you can hinder blood flow and cool down.
Final Thoughts
Phew! Guess I’ve come to the end of this article and all I can say is – thank you! Thank you for reading, thank you for sticking to the end.
I really wanted to make it easier for you guys and wanted you to find this article helpful and informative. Hope I’ve succeeded.
Anyhow, I think you’ve already grasped that lasting longer in bed is not that hard and with the right exercises and mental effort, you can become a pro in lasting!
Basically, all you need to do is:
- Be honest with yourself and your partner. Approach the issue confidently and with a positive attitude, and have your partner be by your side all through the journey to better and longer sex.
- Practice mindfulness and be in touch with your body as it is in the present moment. Pay attention to your emotional states and how your body responds to them.
- Exercise – do the Kegel exercises and also masturbate more and better, and practice edging as well!
- Make foreplay last longer, try different sex positions for edging and try to do the ultimate point of no return-return at the precipice of having an orgasm.
And that’s it. Summarized like this, it doesn’t seem like much to do right? And yet, doing it regularly and diligently will help you prevent premature ejaculation and will lead you to a place with much better and more satisfactory sex for both of you!
