Before moving on, give this one small task a try.
Take note of your shoulders. Not how you wish they were positioned, but how they are currently. Your jaw too. And finally, your breathing.
Then, think about the last work message you received today.
Anything changed? For many guys, something did. Shoulders went up a little bit. Breathing got a little bit shorter. Some part of the mind started preparing the reply even though nobody asked the body for this. It just does. It does because it's done it a thousand times.
Remember this small thing. This post will tell you what happens to it when the workday ends.
The man who is good at almost everything
Imagine a man who is excellent at just about anything. He runs an organization. He replies to emails faster than anyone in the office. He has a workout routine, a sleep schedule, a financial plan. All things considered, he seems to be successful.
And he carries with him a question that he almost never asks aloud: why is the place where he most needs to slow down also the one place where he cannot?
When I was writing Tactical Intimacy, I gave a name to this question. I call it the Apex Predator Paradox. The things that make him great at everything he does by day, the intensity, the drive, the focus on getting it done, do not leave him as he goes to bed.
Let me be upfront about what this phrase means and what it doesn't mean. It is a perspective, not a scientific finding. I cannot present you with studies which prove that successful men have problems of their own, greater than those of anyone else. As far as I am aware, there have been no measurements made of that kind. Instead, what I can do is explain why a body may take the day into night and what the studies say about its visible aspects.
You are far from the only one
Begin with a number.
A large survey led by Hartmut Porst asked 12,133 men aged 18 to 70, in the United States, Germany and Italy, about their control over ejaculation. These men had trouble controlling their ejaculations. They experienced distress due to this problem themselves or in relation to their partners or both.
The answer is 22.7 percent.
This number may sit with you for some time. One in five men across three different countries. And even among men older than 24, the percentage remained fairly constant throughout their lives. It is not a phase for young men to get over. Nor is it an extremely rare and personal failing. It is one of the most common experiences of men and one of the least mentioned.
There was another observation made in the same survey. The men, who have experienced this problem, had higher chances to experience anxiety and excessive stress as well. It is impossible to determine the cause and effect in such a case. However, we can understand that both usually go together.
Two systems, one body
There exists an automatic physiological system within you that you don't ever operate consciously. It controls your heartbeat, your breaths, and your digestion. There are two main branches of this system and they work just like two moods of the same body.
One of those makes you ready to act by increasing concentration, accelerating heartbeat, tightening the muscles. This one works during a stressful situation like negotiation or a deadline.
And the other makes your body relaxed and helps with digestion and rest. Slowing things down, basically.
This is the section that comes as a shock to most men. Arousal depends greatly on the resting component, and it is one of the things that allow the flow of blood and the sustenance of the erection. In the meantime, the first stage of ejaculation occurs under influence of the action branch. This was described in detail by urologists from the University of California, San Francisco.
Now think about the man at the start of this post. He spent 12 hours of his life under the influence of the action branch. All of his body has been preparing to be ready all day. Now he lies down and asks it to perform an activity that requires the other branch, when the one pushing towards the end result is still warm and near.
Isn't it natural that things get done quicker than he expected?
What one study saw
The scientists in China were interested in studying this action pathway directly. To do so, they tested an electric impulse within the skin of the penis, which was an indicator of how active that particular branch was. They compared 52 men who suffered from premature ejaculation since their first sexual encounters with 46 men who did not have this problem.
In the first group, the signal appeared earlier and was stronger. The researchers' reading was careful: men in this group showed "hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system," which may be one factor among several.
This is a very small study; a study done in one single clinic on men who have had this issue all their life. This study does not say that a stress-related occupation causes any of these issues. What it does suggest is that the system we have been talking about is not imaginary. It can be measured, and in some men it seems to run hot.
What Aristotle knew about practice
Aristotle made an observation more than two thousand years ago, which is even true today. We do not become good at something by just knowing about it, but rather by practicing it, he said. In W. D. Ross's translation: "men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre."
Our body also learns the same way, in that our body becomes what we practice.
This is the question that deserves pondering. What did your body practice today?
If the honest answer is speed, urgency, reacting the moment something arrives, then your body is not malfunctioning at night. It is doing exactly what it has been trained to do. It has simply become very good at one thing, and it does not know the evening asks for another.
This is why I refer to this as a paradox and not a flaw because your practice during the day is what your body works against at night.
Why "just relax" so often backfires
Secondly, another experiment. Ask your shoulders to relax. Now, right away.
Did they do so?
Perhaps just a bit. Now, try it again, but this time, count backwards from 1,000 in increments of seven.
The second attempt proves more difficult for most individuals. The instruction to relax is still present but there is no space left for its execution.
Daniel Wegner, a psychologist, examined the phenomenon in question in the laboratory. Wegner conducted two experiments, in which he asked participants to rest when their mind was engaged, such as memorizing a string of numbers or answering questions that were supposed to be an IQ test. They measured the level of arousal through skin conductance levels. Their finding was that "intentional relaxation under conditions of mental load or stress produces ironic increases" in arousal.
This means that one's efforts to relax while the mind is still full may only cause the body to become more wound up than relaxed.
If you have ever been told to "just relax" in bed but only ended up more wound up, this is part of the reason why. I wrote about the advice itself in Why "Just Relax" Is the Worst Advice. The point is a simple one. The body does not change its state based on instructions but rather based on conditions for change.
The missing doorway
What did you do last night?
How many minutes elapsed from the last time you saw the screen to when you finally went to bed?
For many men, the truth of the matter is somewhere near zero. From the last email, the last text, the last scroll until the lights were out. There was no doorway between the day and the night. The man just took the whole day with him into his bedroom.
The mind can shift from one topic to another in an instant. The body takes its time. It requires time for the action pathway to calm down and the restful pathway to take control. Without the doorway, the night starts even as the day is going on in the background. I described these two settings as two operating systems in Hunter OS vs. Lover OS, and the image still fits: the switch between them is real, and it is not instant.
However, there is also a name given to the act of switching in the book, namely the Synchronization Engine. I shall not go through the process involved. The important thing for now is the concept behind it. Control is not something that happens by working against the body. Control happens by giving the body the conditions to change state and time to do it.
What this cannot tell you
Honesty requires that there be limits.
Survey results were obtained through male self-reports and depending on what question was asked and what kind of survey was conducted, results differed. The skin response test involved a small sample size and applied only to men with an established lifetime condition. In addition, Wegner's research took place in a lab environment with tasks that only caused stress in a minor way and not men who were returning home after twelve hours of work. None of these studies examined men who were having success. The Apex Predator Paradox is a perspective to examine your evening, not a diagnosis.
But it is not a cure-all. Men might recognize the opening and be patient enough, but realize that not much has really changed for them. But that does not mean there is something wrong with you personally. That means there is something to talk to a professional about.
If early ejaculation is persistent and causes you or your partner distress, if it began suddenly after years without it, or if it comes with erection problems, pain, or other changes in your body, please talk to a doctor or a urologist. There can be medical causes worth ruling out, and effective help exists.
Tomorrow, once
So here is one thing to try, just once, tomorrow evening.
At the door to your bedroom, pause just for a second. Do not attempt to relax or solve any problems here. Instead, ask yourself one simple question: how fast am I going right now?
Pay attention to the shoulders. Pay attention to the jaw. Pay attention to the breath. And then enter the room, knowing where you really are instead of where you think you ought to be.
That is it. No method. Just a doorway.
A phrase was inscribed on the temple of Apollo in Delphi by the ancient Greeks: nothing in excess. It often implies that one should do less. Possibly it was a reminder that we are in a certain space and need to recognize what it demands of us.
Your day has kept you going flat out for twelve hours. How would your night be different if it got a different you?