Dealing with impotence naturally Part 2 - Natural treatments for depression

As mentioned earlier, there are many physical or psychogenic problems that can cause impotence as a side effect in any individual sufferer. However, depending on the severity of that condition, there are many conditions like depression, anxiety or stress where there are many natural alternative treatments available.

A great deal of the information that you need about such treatments is readily and freely available online. For instance, as this Google search would indicate, there is no great shortage of natural antidepressant treatments:

As a good example, there is evidence from controlled clinical trials that St John’s wort is a very effective (and completely natural) treatment that will relieve depression, one that is even claimed to be as effective as Prozac (which in itself is believed to cause impotence). In Germany (as an example), St John’s wort is available as a prescription drug and is actually prescribed 10 times more often than Prozac, because it is believed to work in almost exactly the same way as the drug without the side-effects. There can therefore be very little doubt that it is a supremely effective alternative to Prozac. As there are plenty of places where you can buy St John’s wort-based treatments online, it is certainly something that you could try if your impotency is a side effect of depression and you do not want to take any more pharmaceutical drugs.
In terms of antidepressant drugs, Prozac is undoubtedly the best known and most widely taken drug of a type known as SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors), and a quick look at what it does will help to highlight other entirely natural things that you can do to help lift your depression.
Get rid of your depression and there is a high likelihood that your impotence problem will go away, so examine every available avenue or angle on the problem.
Serotonin is one of the most important chemicals in the human brain for controlling moods, so if levels of serotonin fall too low, depression can result. What a drug like Prozac does is prevent the available serotonin in the brain from being reabsorbed by nerve endings, so that it keeps the levels of the chemical that are circulating in the brain at a higher level as a result. Consequently, the likelihood of depression setting in or continuing is significantly reduced.
From this, it follows that if a similar result could be achieved entirely naturally, the likelihood of suffering depression and the accompanying impotence would be reduced by a noticeable margin.

As suggested, it is generally believed that St John’s wort does almost exactly the same as Prozac by preventing the re-absorption of serotonin.
Another way of ensuring that your brain has sufficient amounts of serotonin to avoid the worst effects of depression is to make sure that there is more of the chemical in your body. There are several things that you can do in order to achieve this, the first of which is simple. After all, what could be easier than eating to lift your depression and get rid of the associated impotence problem? Serotonin is sometimes termed the ‘satisfaction chemical’, because when we have sufficient amounts of it in our brain, we no longer feel dissatisfied or upset with life. That means it is far less likely that you will indulge in practices like binge eating, which almost invariably deepen your depression because of the amount of sugar you have ingested and the weight you put on.
Serotonin is manufactured in the human body from an amino acid known as tryptophan, and although this particular amino acid is not as common as many others, it can be found in foods like chicken, turkey, bananas, cottage cheese, nuts, milk, avocados and legumes (peas, beans, pulses etc). There is a table listing many of the most tryptophan rich foods on this Wikipedia page.
One thing to note about tryptophan is that it is a large molecule, and that amino acids compete with one another to be absorbed by your body. In order to ‘help’ tryptophan to win this competition, it is also helpful to raise the amount of starchy foods such as wholemeal bread, jacket potatoes or brown rice that you eat, but only by a small amount. Alternatively, tryptophan supplements are widely available in health food stores and online sources, so taking supplementary tryptophan is another way of ensuring that serotonin levels are kept up to ensure that depression does not set in.
Another ‘shortcut’ is to consider taking supplements that contain 5HTP, which is what tryptophan is converted into by your body in order to raise serotonin levels. Again, such supplements are readily available online, and the best known natural source of 5HTP is an African herb, Griffonia simplicifolia.
Also, look out for food supplements that contain Rhodiola rosea. This is a plant the extract of which is once again known to help boost serotonin levels. In fact, Rhodiola was actually used by the Russians as a natural food supplement to help keep Cosmonauts calm, happy and stress free while spending several days weightless, cooped up in a tiny space ship thousands of miles above the Earth!

If you have an impotence problem that is a direct result of depression or stress, you have now seen that there are several entirely natural ways of dealing with this problem. Get rid of your depression or reduce your stress levels by a significant margin, and you will also reduce the chances of suffering impotence by a significant margin.

Stress and anxiety…

There is little doubt that, while stress and anxiety are not generally considered to be as serious as depression (which is a clinical condition), a man who is suffering from stress or anxiety is far less likely to achieve or maintain an erection.
Consequently, reducing stress or anxiety levels is likely to help to banish erectile dysfunction.
The first step towards reducing stress or anxiety is to identify what it is that is actually causing the problem. It may be that it is a particularly hectic work schedule combined with a lack of sleep that is causing a stress problem, which in turn is leading to temporary impotence. The key word here is ‘temporary’, because the natural solution is to work less and sleep more. As soon as it is possible to do both of these, the chances are that the stress problem that is causing temporary impotence will go away and so will your inability to ‘perform’. However, perhaps the most common form of anxiety that results in erectile dysfunction is ‘performance anxiety’, an anxiety that is a direct result of demands upon an individual to participate in sexual intercourse.
This problem is generally most keenly felt by those who have had some problems in the past that are now making them lose their confidence in their ability to successfully engage in intercourse when called upon to do so. Hence, they become tense and anxious at the moment when they most need to be relaxed and confident, and their performance is adversely affected in exactly the way that they feared it would be. While there are many herbs that are known to have stress relieving qualities such as passion flower (a somewhat ironic name under these circumstances!), lavender, lemon balm and valerian, it is unlikely that any of them are going to be effective in this particular situation. Finding a suitable answer to a performance anxiety problem is first and foremost is going to be dependent upon your circumstances and situation.
For example, if you have a regular sexual partner with whom you have a great deal of understanding, then it is likely that you will be able to sort out the problem between you. If you have no regular partner like this, then it may be necessary to seek external counseling for this specific cause of impotence.
Before doing so however, it would certainly be worth trying supplements that are rich in adaptogens such as ginseng, maca and schizandra berries.
While all of these individual adaptogens will be described in greater detail later in this report, the common characteristic is that they relax the body while energizing it, and being relaxed while also being energized could help anyone suffering from a performance anxiety problem.

Natural treatment for physical conditions that cause impotence…

There are a great many physical conditions that can cause impotence as a side effect.
While I do not intend to cover every possible physical condition that could result in impotence, I will deal with the most common causes in this section briefly, and suggest natural or herbal answers where appropriate.
Firstly, I have already stressed the importance of improving your lifestyle if the life that you currently lead is unhealthy. You know the drill by now - if you are overweight, you need to take up exercise, or if the reason for your impotence is the fact that you are always tired and stressed, you need to learn to relax and get more sleep.

Diabetes: There are quite a few herbs that are believed to help control blood sugar levels, including commercially produced herbal compounds based on the Peruvian Yacon plant.
Furthermore, it is believed that the bitter gourd or karela is also extremely effective for reducing sugar levels in your blood and urine, so you should eat it as often as possible and take a least one tablespoon of karela juice every day.
Try mixing two teaspoons of fenugreek powder with milk or water before drinking the mixture, because it is once again a natural solution for reducing blood sugar levels.

High blood pressure: There are quite a number of herbs that can help to reduce high blood pressure that range from something as simple as garlic to more exotic herbal remedies such as arjuna bark, Indian snakeroot and Yarrow.
You can find complete details about all of these herbal remedies and more on the Medicweb Hypertension page.

Kidney disease: There are several herbs that when combined together can help to alleviate the worst effects of kidney disease, while helping to cleanse and heal your kidneys at the same time. These herbs are couch grass (diuretic), uva ursi (antiseptic and astringent), horsetail (astringent that is high in silica), parsley (an excellent diuretic), nettle (increases the elimination of waste products and high in nutrients) and maize silk (high in vitamin K. and potassium, reduces chronic inflammation).

It is unlikely that even a combination of such effective herbs is going to cure any kidney disease that you have got and equally obviously, you must consult your medical attendant before taking them, but if you are able to do so, this combination can go a considerable way to alleviating the worst of your kidney problems.
The three physical complaints that are highlighted in this section of the report are those that are generally believed to be the complaints with the highest incidence of impotence appearing as a direct result of the malady.
Hence, assuming that there is no medical reason why you cannot ‘self dose’ with the herbal remedies shown, this could reduce the severity of the physical condition that is the root cause of your impotence problem in a completely natural and organic way.

Direct natural solutions for impotence…

Over the course of the last couple of pages, we considered different ways of indirectly treating your impotency by using herbal or natural remedies to relieve various physical or mental conditions that are commonly the root cause of impotence.
Now, it is time to start looking at natural and herbal remedies that compete on a head-to-head basis with pharmaceutical drugs like Viagra and Cialis, by attacking your impotence as if it were the root cause of the problem itself.
As highlighted in the previous pages, there is often an underlying root cause for impotence, and sometimes, something can be done about attacking that root cause. However, it is not always going to be possible to do so (if, for example, the physical condition is too serious), and there will also be circumstances where there is no curable or treatable reason for impotence.
The most obvious example of this would be when impotence is a direct result of waning physical powers because of the advancing years. There is no cure for getting old, and there isn’t any affordable way of reversing the inevitable physical deterioration that is part and parcel of growing old.
Many men whose physical powers are waning swear by the ‘little blue pill’ (Viagra), but as we have already seen, there are significant side-effects and levels of risk involved in taking drugs such as these to deal with impotence.
Consequently, it would make a great deal of sense to consider the natural alternatives that are available which might be more attractive to people who are considering using Viagra or Cialis.

Natural substances and herbs to combat impotence

Ginseng
The idea that ginseng is good for you is not a new one as it has been used in Chinese medicine for many thousands of years. It was originally viewed as a substance that would improve the mind and the ability to think, something that served as a whole body tonic for anyone who took ginseng.
In modern scientific parlance, ginseng is an adaptogen, meaning that it is a substance that helps the human body to restore and repair itself without any unpleasant side-effects even if the recommended dosage is exceeded.
In terms of helping to prevent impotence, the most important characteristics of ginseng are that it helps to reduce bodily stress and fatigue, and most importantly, it is one of the most effective substances known for slowing down the ageing process. As we have already seen on several occasions, the incidence of impotence is likely to increase as men grow older, and therefore anything that can slow down the ageing process is likely to reduce the severity of impotence or to delay its initial onset. This, combined with providing greater stamina, is the primary benefit of taking ginseng for an impotence sufferer (although because there are many other beneficial effects, ginseng really does act as a whole body tonic).

Horny Goat Weed
Horny goat weed is undoubtedly one of the best known herbal remedies for impotence as reported by Wikipedia: ‘horny goat weed, which has shown promising signs of becoming a genuine alternative to Viagra for impotent men’.
While this herb has been used to treat a variety of ailments including liver, kidney and back disorders, it is best known as an aphrodisiac and more recent research has also indicated that it has a genuine ability to improve both sexual desire and performance. This research demonstrated that this happens because horny goat weed (‘Yin Yang Huo’ in Chinese roughly translates to ‘licentious goat plant’ -hence its Western name) inhibits the growth of a natural enzyme called acetylcholinesterase  (AChE).
Without getting too complex or scientific, one of the main purposes of AChE is to degrade the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, the primary purpose of which is to pass instructions and other information around the body as quickly as possible.
Because AChE destroys the neurotransmitter, it makes it difficult for information to move around the body quickly enough so in the situation where message of sexual arousal should be speeding around the body, AChE is slowing down and blocking these messages, hence, there is an impotence problem.
Horny goat weed inhibits the growth of AChE and thus, the appropriate arousal (and erectile) messages are conveyed to the appropriate parts of the body far more effectively. Consequently, horny goat weed enables the ‘messages to get through’ - hence the comparison to Viagra.
There are plenty of places where you can buy horny goat weed online, with a couple of examples being Worldwide-Supplements (St John’s wort is also available from the same site) or GlobalSupplements.com.

L-Arginine
L-Arginine is another completely natural substance that its proponents claim is the new Viagra, and once again, it is a sufficiently powerful impotence treatment to merit the claim to a certain extent. L-Arginine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in the body, and while it serves various functions, the most important of these as far as an impotence sufferer is concerned is its ability to make nitric oxide. Consequently, while L-Arginine is often considered to be most important for heart disease treatment, it has also been used as an extremely effective and successful treatment for erectile dysfunction for some time.
Not only does L-Arginine make nitric oxide, it also enhances the actions of it. Hence, this particular amino acid has the ability to enhance blood flow to the penis by relaxing the muscles surrounding the appropriate blood vessels.
However, while Viagra works by blocking the PDE5 enzyme, L-Arginine works in almost the opposite way by making new nitric oxide. More than this, not only does L-Arginine help to make sure that enough blood get to the extremities of the body to ensure that a successful erection can take place, it also helps to lower blood pressure, control plaque and lower cholesterol levels as well.
Also, unlike Viagra (but in a similar way to most other natural impotence treatments), L-Arginine has to be taken every day, and the effects are cumulative rather than immediate. In other words, whereas

Viagra works within an hour or so, L-Arginine will take several days of regular dosage to start becoming effective. Under normal circumstances, your kidneys and liver produce enough L-Arginine entirely naturally to keep you fit and healthy. However, there can be situations where additional L-Arginine is required such as when the body has suffered severe injuries, burns or infections, and depending on the degree of impotence being suffered, it may even be that this condition falls into the same category. In this case, your focus should be on consuming foods that are rich in both animal and plant based proteins, such as meat, dairy produce, fish, poultry and nuts.
Perhaps surprisingly for an amino acid that is produced entirely naturally by the body, there can sometimes be side effects from L-Arginine, especially if the levels of the acid are higher than normal. For example, in excessively large doses, it can result in blood pressure that falls too low, as well as having the potential to cause nausea, headaches and indigestion.
Too much L-Arginine can increase stomach acid, and especially in people with liver disease, it can alter potassium levels as well.
Also, supplemental L-Arginine is definitely not something that you should be taking if you have serious heart problems, as made clear here.
Having said all of that, unless you fall into a high risk group (i.e. someone who has already suffered an MI) and choose to ignore sensible advice, L-Arginine is a natural and safe way of treating your impotence, one that can be bought online for very low prices, without prescription, from sites like TheCatalog.com.

Catuaba
According to Wikipedia, the name Catuaba refers to the infusion of the bark of several native Brazilian trees, amongst the most common of which are Trichilia catigua and Erythroxylum vacciniifolium, although other tree barks are also included under this generic name. More than the specifics of the name, however, the most important fact is that Catuaba is a traditional Brazilian medicine that has been used for many generations as a natural aphrodisiac and central nervous system stimulant.
Although there is some doubt whether these claims have ever been validated clinically, there are many men who have found that taking Catuaba extract has increased their natural libido and sex drive by a considerable margin. Thus, there does seem to be sufficient evidence in support of the claims made on behalf of Catuaba as an impotence treatment to merit further investigation.

Yohimbe (or Yohimbine)
From an evergreen tree that originally hails from West Africa, Yohimbe  bark contains alkaloids, the primary one is of which is yohimbine. It is this that is used to make the herbal treatment known as yohimbe. This is a prescription drug in the USA, one that used to be extremely popular as an impotence treatment. However, since the advent of Viagra, the popularity of yohimbe has waned somewhat. There is plenty of evidence that this particular treatment can be very effective for dealing with impotence, as the prescription version of yohimbe has been extensively tested and shown to have positive effects. However, the evidence that yohimbe as a dietary supplement can have such positive effects is less well documented. What is well known is that it is critically important that the dosage you take is absolutely right.
If you take too little, it will have very little effect, but if you take too much, it can become toxic. For example, in the USA, the FDA reports that some people have complained of kidney failure or seizures, and such side-effects as raised heart beat, nausea and increased blood pressure have been reported even from normal dosages of yohimbe. For this reason, although it is possible to buy yohimbe as a stand-alone supplement to treat impotence, it is generally better to buy compound supplements where yohimbe is only one ingredient of many. Because such compound formulas tend to keep the yohimbe content on the safer side of the line, you can ensure that your intake of yohimbe is never likely to reach toxic levels.
However, if you suffer from any kind of kidney or liver disease, stomach ulcers or irregular or unusual blood pressure (i.e. if your blood pressure is too high or low), you should avoid taking yohimbe.

Maca
Lepidium meyenii or maca (as it is more commonly known) is a plant from the high Andes of Bolivia and Peru, considered to be a superfood in South America - because when eaten cooked (as it most commonly is) or raw, it is claimed that maca imparts great strength, stamina and virility. Not only this, but the root of the plant (the part eaten or used in supplements) also contains a substance believed to exert many beneficial effects on the central nervous system.
Consequently, maca is generally believed to be an aphrodisiac, and an
effective treatment for impotence. It is also an adaptogen in the same way as ginseng is, so it is an excellent full body tonic. Moreover, given that the nutritional value of eating maca is also very high – similar to brown rice – eating maca should be your number one choice (as opposed to taking it in supplementary pill form).

Muira puama
Muira puama is another South American herb that is believed to be an aphrodisiac, one used to treat sexual problems and impotence for many hundreds of years. From the available evidence, it seems that muira puama does have strong stimulant qualities, and it is therefore often used in compound herbal impotence treatments.

Schizandra (or Schisandra) berry
The berries of the Schisandra shrub have long been used in traditional Chinese medicine as a sedative and tonic agent, something that can both relax and energise the body at the same time. In modern scientific parlance, schizandra would be known as an adaptogenic herb (an adaptogen) - that is one that can help to return the body to its normal balanced state irrespective of its previous condition. In the same way that ginseng was traditionally considered to be a full body tonic, schizandra serves exactly the same purpose. Hence, for an impotence sufferer, the attraction of taking schizandra berry is that it relieves stress, removes anxiety and increases stamina, all at the same time. For anyone suffering from psychologically induced impotence, adaptogens like these berries, maca and ginseng could all therefore provide a very significant boost.

Tribulus
Tribulus terrestris is another traditional medicine that has been used both in China and in India for many centuries. While in the mid-1990s, tribulus became well known in the West after East European Olympic athletes answered drug allegations by claiming that all they were taking was tribulus, it has traditionally been viewed as a herb that can help counter low libido, erectile dysfunction and infertility. It has been claimed that tribulus can help to increase the levels of sex related hormones in the body such as testosterone and oestrogen, and it is certainly true that preliminary studies on animals indicated that tribulus heightens sexual activity. This was believed to result from an increase in testosterone levels, but no large-scale human study has been carried out so far.
On the other hand, apart from people who suffer from hormone dependent medical problems such as breast or prostate cancer, it does not appear that there are any significant adverse side-effects associated with tribulus either. It is therefore a herbal remedy that anyone who does not have a medical condition but who does suffer impotence can try without being too concerned about side-effects.

Velvet beans
Velvet beans (Mucuna pruriens) is an annual climbing shrub found in the Caribbean, India and Africa.
Extracts from mucuna pruriens are rich in L-dopa, which is turned into dopamine in the human body. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical in the brain that is very influential as far as mood and sexuality are concerned. For this reason, mucuna pruriens has long been used by the people of the countries to which it is indigenous as an aphrodisiac.
From what is known about dopamine, there seems little doubt that increased levels will increase libido and sexual activity, which is why it is often recommended as a supplement for impotence sufferers.

Tongkat Ali
Tongkat ali is a tree that is native to many countries in southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. It is generally the root of the tree that is used for medicinal purposes. Tongkat Ali has been used for many centuries in Southeast Asia as an aid to sexual performance, so much so that it has been dubbed the ‘Asian Viagra’. It is believed that the extract of the tree roots increases libido, sexual desire, sexual performance and also as a treatment for erectile dysfunction.
All of this is believed to derive from the fact that Tongkat Ali is another natural substance that is believed to increase or at least enhance testosterone, and as this is the main hormone behind the male sex drive, this makes perfect sense.
There are very few adverse side-effects associated with Tongkat Ali, although excessive ingestion could lead to insomnia or anxiety attacks. However, the fact that, throughout Southeast Asia, anyone can buy canned drinks containing Tongkat Ali across the counter of a normal convenience store, indicates that there are very few serious risks associated with this particular natural extract.

Commercially produced herbal compounds...

While all of the individual herbs and natural substances dealt with in the last section can help anyone who suffers from impotence to get over their problems, each of the individual substances has different qualities. For example, while some could help by being aphrodisiacs, others (the adaptogens) will provide assistance by helping the impotence sufferer to relax and re-energize their body.
Consequently, it is going to be extremely difficult for any individual to know exactly which of these herbal solutions is likely to be one which is most effective for them.
It is this reason that, rather than seeking out a supplement that contains one anti-impotence herb (which you can do by running a Google search on any of the individual herb names), it might make more sense to consider using a supplement that contains a compound mixture of many different herbal and natural impotence treatments. The other advantage of approaching the situation in this way is that by doing so, you ensure that you are taking the correct dosage of each individual herb for maximum effect. It also minimizes the risk of adverse side-effects, and, as we have seen, certain natural substances (L-Aginine and yohimbe as examples) do carry side effect risks. This is one of the reasons that a leading compound natural impotence treatment such as Passion RX offers two different herbal formulas, one with yohimbe and one without. This provides you with the opportunity of testing a proven, doctor prepared herbal compound formula of two different types so that you can ascertain which is the most effective in dealing with your impotence problem.
Another similar compound product that is worth taking a look at is Pro-EreX, and while there are of course many other similar products available, there is one thing to be careful about. Many of the products make fantastic claims about how successful they are in the fight against impotence, and no doubt, if you look around, you will find many sales pages that are littered with testimonials from satisfied customers. However, if the product does not list the ingredients that they are using, you should be very wary, because if you do not know what is in the product, how can you be sure that it is safe?
You will note that both of the compound sellers I am recommending in this chapter are both happy to list the ingredients of their products, which enables you to make a carefully considered choice of what you are willing to take, and what you are not.

Beware of hype-filled sales pages, and always scroll to the bottom of the index page to look for the ‘Ingredients’ link.

Conclusion

As you have read in this report, there are many natural remedies that you can try in an effort to overcome your impotence problems. Ranging from mechanical devices such as the impotence vacuum pump to a long list of natural substances and herbs, plus a few herbal compounds, there is no shortage of natural impotence treatments on the market.
Given the choice, the vast majority of people would rather choose something that is natural and known in preference to chemical-based solutions that may well have an adverse side-effect that is, as yet, completely unknown.
For this reason, if impotence is a problem that you suffer from, I would thoroughly recommend that you consider all of the natural impotence treatments listed in this book before committing yourself to commercially produced pharmaceutical chemicals. Although there is no doubt that these chemical-based drugs do work extremely well, there is also little doubt that many of the natural alternatives can be equally as effective, and they are considerably safer. Impotence may be a problem for you at the moment, but you do not want to compound the severity of your problems by taking drugs that could cause other problems of equal or even greater magnitude. Think about it this way. Most of the leading impotence drugs (for example, those mentioned in this report) have only been in use for a few years, and there are already reports of extremely serious side-effects, such as permanent blindness.
Can we say with absolute, 100% certainty that there are no other even worse side-effects that are not going to be discovered for another 10, 20 or even 50 years?
I would suggest that we cannot, whereas substances like ginseng and maca have been tested by millions of people for centuries. The bottom line is, treating your impotence using natural substances is likely to be safer, but it does not necessarily have to be any less effective than using drugs.

So, to my mind, the best choice is very clear…

Back to dealing with impotence naturally Part 1 - Back to Health and Fitness Domain

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