Stress plays a major role in our everyday life and it comes in all forms and shapes, it can be a psychological stress when we’re having an emotional crisis such as a bad break-up, the death of a loved one, our jobs, exams, and even the stress that is associated with our everyday life. It can also manifest as a physical stress, examples include, severe illness, motor vehicle accidents, fractures…etc.
Regardless of the form of stress, it has a significant impact on our health. In this article we’re going to cover a particular angle of the many effects of stress on the body. Stress and the male reproductive system, and if you’re a female and this is not interesting to you, check out my other article Stress And The Female Reproductive System.
To begin with, similar to females, men who run on the average 70-80 km (45-50 miles) a week have a problem with a decreased sperm count and a decrease in the number of viable sperm. Also, testicular size might go down.
However, these changes happen through different mechanisms from the females.
Physiology review of the male reproductive system
In order to get a firm understanding of the effects of stress on the male reproductive system, we’ll start with some basic endocrine physiology.
There is a hormonal axis in the body called the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis that controls the production of testosterone (the hormone responsible for the male’s characters) and sperm.
So, let’s start by breaking up the name
Hypothalamic: which is a gland in the base of the brain; responsible for the regulation of the body’s temperature, hunger, autonomic functions such as bowel and bladder activities, and controlling the endocrine system. It secretes the hormone called GnRH (gonadotropin releasing hormone).
Pituitary: a second gland that responds to stimulation from the hypothalamus, and in response the secretion of GnRH, the pituitary gland secretes LH (luteinizing hormone) and FSH (follicular stimulating hormones).
Gonadal: the gonads in the male variety are simply the testicles. Two special cells in the testes are the Lydig cells which secrete testosterone as a response to stimulation by LH, and Sartoli cells which produce sperm.
The role of testosterone
For the most part, this relatively simple axis is even simpler when it comes to the rate of production as opposed to female cyclic production. In males, the production and secretion of testosterone is fairly constant. Yes, you get a surge here and there when you defeat your rival of the whole world where testosterone levels go up, but that’s about it.
This simplicity doesn’t make it any less susceptible to stress, as it will lead to a decrease of testosterone levels. This is a result of cortisol (the stress hormone) which will inhibit the production of GnRH and thus, interrupt the whole axis.
Some examples of stressors include: opening up a guy during abdominal surgery where testosterone levels go down, medical students during their first year waiting for their exam have low levels as well.
Another stressor is first year marine recruits, where they go through all different types of training and get pranked by their junior comrades.
A classic study done in the 1970s showed that 1st year marine soldiers have levels of testosterone of that of newborn babies. So, next time you’re in a bar hearing some marine bragging about his scores in training you might consider giving them some date of modern endocrinology and they might even buy you a drink, or not. Don’t mention my name.
What are the physiological consequences?
In physiology, you might be consumed by the minutia of hormone levels going up and down, and some careers spent following this pattern, but the most important question is, testosterone levels go down. So,what?
As it turns out there might be a decrease in levels of aggression, and stuff like that. But, there are no real consequences, the decrease in the levels of testosterone due to stress don’t come near causing serious problems such as infertility.
The real problem is not the hormone levels going down, but the penis going down. What this means is that during times of stress, you basically have a problem with erection.
The autonomic nervous system controls both erection and ejaculation, the erection is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest system), and the ejaculation is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight system). These systems inhibit each other whenever one is active.
So, when you’re stressed the sympathetic nervous system is activated leading to the inhibition of the parasympathetic system and there goes your erection, this is called a stress induced impotency. This is a demonstration of why you don’t put your feet on the gas paddle and the brakes at the same time.
Let’s say you somehow managed to get an erection, and then you start thinking about the economic crisis, or about whether you forgot to delete your browser’s history and left your computer unlocked. Any of this would lead to the transition from the parasympathetic system to the sympathetic system and you ejaculate, and there you have it, premature ejaculation.
As you can see, this system is full of vulnerabilities. It is incredibly easy for this to occur, statistics say that 60 percent of the doctor visits are not due to organic impotency, but to psychogenic stress related.
How to differentiate between an organic vs. a psychogenic problem?
A guy comes in and he’s complaining about how he’s not been able to get an erection in the last six months, and you think well, is this organic in basis? Maybe he has a pituitary tumor or something wrong with the spinal autonomic projections, or is it psychogenic? Here’s what you do:
You take advantage of a totally weird thing that male primates do including human males which is when they go to REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, they get erections, and we have no idea why. Not even the penis experts. Nonetheless, it happens.
So, what you’re going to do is give this guy a penile pressure cuff transducer thingy which he puts it on at night just before he goes to sleep, and the next day you have your answer, if this guy has an erection during his REM cycles while asleep, it’s not an organic problem. He has some psychogenic troubles rending him temporarily impotent.
The big picture:
As you probably have concluded by now, stress is bad for you and you might want to slow down for a minute and think about what’s really important in your life, look at the big pictures and let the minutia slide away.
And of course, you can always seek the help of a professional psychologist and do some lifestyles changes to help you keep it balanced, like working out, yoga, taking some time off, and of course educating yourself around the subject.