After around an hour and a half, men go into REM sleep which leads into an erection that lasts about 20 to 25 minutes. Normally, men will have around 5 erections within an eight-hour sleep cycle. But the last erection during a sleep cycle is what we often call “morning wood.”
As we will find out over the course of this discussion, the term “morning wood” is actually misleading. What actually happens is that the penis can become erect and then return to being flaccid several times throughout the night.
This is largely due to the parasympathetic nervous system remaining active even during periods of sleep. It just so happens that men notice such erections during their waking hours, hence the term being dubbed as such.
Before we go any deeper into this discussion, we’d like to get something straight: if you have any kind of medical concerns or questions, please discuss it with your healthcare provider.
The articles posted here are reviewed by peer-research as well as information gathered from governmental agencies and medical societies. But they are not a substitute for professional medical advice, treatment, or diagnosis.
That said, let’s take a look at the reasons why men experience erections particularly during the waking hours.
Do men get erections while sleeping?
Yes. Men do get erections while they are asleep. Males get 5 erections every night. Men that are healthy, will automatically wire them to have morning wood because males are supposed to and or made to wake up with an erection.
Morning wood is known as either nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) or sleep-related erections (SREs). Erections in the mornings are normal and their absence or presence can be used as an indicator for a man’s overall health.
It is possible, that your blood flow, testosterone levels, or even something else, could be off if you don’t usually wake up with the regular morning erection.
Morning erections in history
Sleep-related erections are normal occurrences and its part of being a man. Medical providers have stated that erections in young men and boys or fetuses during ultrasounds have experienced erections throughout their childhood, even before puberty started.
Researches who have reviewed old scientific, medical, and theological records have publicly published their research on the findings they have about erections in history.
The researchers noted that the capacity to be able to have an erection during sleep was a dependable indicator of virility. This was used as an indicator for the basis of divorces categorized for erectile dysfunction (ED).
In the ecclesiastical records, a jury would remain by the bedside of a suspected man with ED and wait for him to get an erection while he slept.
In 1920, Wilhelm Stekel who is a contemporary of Freud and in some ways his equal, noted that a morning erection is a perfectly natural phenomenon in healthy men, regardless of their age. It’s a perfectly normal occurrence from infancy to the twilight years.
Why do men get sleep-related erections?
Men usually will have 5 sleep-related erections within an 8-hour sleep cycle. And every erection will last about 25 minutes. That is roughly around 1 erection every 90 minutes.
Researchers noticed that this pattern was very similar to another 90-minute sleep cycle that happens during a REM phase sleep.
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and its relation to erections
Researchers in 1965 was able to confirm the connection between REM sleep and nightly erections. The dreaming phase of sleep also known as REM sleep fueled decades of speculation about what happens during the REM sleep phase that would lead to an erection.
Men normally enter in a REM sleep approximated an hour and a half after falling asleep. Each instance of REM sleep corroborates with an erection that lasts from 20 to 25 minutes where men usually have 5 erections during one sleep cycle.
What’s fascinating is that every nocturnal erection will last longer as the night progresses. This happens at the same time the REM phases also get longer.
The connection between the nocturnal erection and REM is that tightly connected. However, this strong link and the fact that men spend almost 25% of their sleeping cycle with an erection does not explain why it happens.
Theories about morning wood
One of the leading theories for this is that norepinephrine production decreases when a man is in their REM phase. This chemical is mostly responsible for keeping the penis soft and relaxed.
Meaning, the part of a man’s brains that maintains norepinephrine gets turned down when a man enters their REM phase sleep. This then leads the testosterone-related mechanisms to take over which would then lead to an erection.
One other theory, for the reason for nocturnal erections, is that your body creates more nitric oxide during the REM phase cycle. It is responsible for making a man’s blood vessel relax, which would cause all the extra blood of a man to rush to get inside the penis which causes the erection.
However, these are still just theories. No one knows that role REM takes in sleep-related penile tumescence. Why do men get nightly erections? Is there a link between a morning wood and the REM phase or was it all just a coincidence.
Importance of morning wood
There are many factors that you should consider for you to achieve a strong erection.
Hormones on demand have to be released and the arteries have to dilate to be able to carry blood into your penis. The nervous system has to be able to transmit signals perfectly and you have to be in harmony with your body.
Many things could go wrong and if you are experiencing having a hard time getting an erection, it could be because of numerous health risks.
Blood vessels found in the penis are small in comparison to the other parts of a male body. That means that other health issues could surface first before anything else.
High levels of cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, stress, hypertension, sleep disorder, depression, hormone issues, heart disease, and medical side effects as well as the consequences of your lifestyle choices or emotional status could be the underlying issue.
Health issues and Erectile Dysfunction
A study was conducted in 2005 called “Erectile Dysfunction and Subsequent Cardiovascular Disease.” The researchers or authors of that study followed men between the ages of 40 up to70 for about seven years.
They did this for them to see if men with erectile dysfunction were interconnected with a cardiac illness compared to those with no ED. The results of this study state that older men have twice the risk of cardiovascular illness compared to men without erectile dysfunction.
It further states that the analysis has suggested that the first presentation of a man with ED should indicate to the attending physician to screen for possible standard cardiovascular risk indicators.
Erectile dysfunction and its effects on men
There was an Italian study in 2013 that reported a dramatic increase in new cases for erectile dysfunction in younger men. The study stated that in 439 men with ED 26% of the respondents were under the age of 40. What made it worst was that almost half of them had severe ED.
A Swiss study also found that 30% of men would experience erectile dysfunction.
The researchers stated that “Multiple compromising health factors are connected with ED. And that ED should act as a red flag for medical providers to encourage them to take any possible opportunity to talk with their young male patients about sexuality.”
Morning wood and your health
In the end, what morning wood can tell us is if a person’s erectile dysfunction problems are physical, or due to psychological issues.
It’s easy for men to think they have developed a case of erectile dysfunction due to the inability to obtain and maintain frequent erections.
But if you, for instance, notice that you get morning wood even if you struggle to get erections when awake, then it simply means that nothing’s wrong with your plumbing and pipes, so to speak. The issue is more likely something related to your mental makeup.
That’s exactly the reason why you should pay attention and be alert when it comes to your morning wood. The loss of that feeling, of morning wood that your familiar with could be the first indicator of a health problem.
If you are not experiencing erections when you wake up at all, or if you suspect that something is amiss with the frequency of your erections, do yourself a favor and consult your healthcare provider before going on any sort of treatment.
