Figure 1 Eat lots of different colors, shapes, and sizes of food.
Are you ready to take a stand? Are you ready to get pumped up? Are you ready to work hard and play even harder? Then you are ready for maximum penis health!
I have devoted my entire professional life (and a good part of my private life) to promoting penis health, culminating in this five-step plan to provide you with the essential tools you need for your tool.
Step 1 is all about the four-letter word that’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue. That’s right: F-O-R-K. What you eat affects the health of your heart and the blood vessels that pump blood to the penis. The key to a man’s heart truly is his stomach, and the key to a man’s penis is his heart. Step 1 will teach you the proper diet for your dick.
Step 2 steps it up with sexercise. When you exercise, your blood vessels release chemicals that strengthen the health of your penis. Although it’s not a muscle, your penis is surrounded by muscles. Step 2 gives your willy a workout that keeps you going strong and coming even stronger.
Step 3 is going offline. Your big head is connected to your little head, and the sensations and images that enter your brain from streaming pornography actually can make Mr. Happy not so happy and even confused after a while. Step 3 will help you keep both of your heads on straight.
Step 4 is detox. Drugs, alcohol, and certain medications, including steroids, can leave you hanging. Get the hard facts on how what you put into your body affects your hardness.
Step 5 is all about how you snooze or loose. Mr. Happy needs sleep, or he becomes Mr. Grumpy. Uninterrupted sleep is important for the health of your nerves, blood vessels, and testosterone production—all of which are critical for maximum penis health. Get some shut-eye if you want your thing to go bump in the night.
Maximum penis health begins with maximum nutrition, and that begins and ends with what you choose to stick your fork into. You are what you eat, and so is your penis. (I eat a lot of big cucumbers.)
Although no food will instantly give you a boner (aside from chocolate-covered Viagra), there are foods that will either keep your cucumber fresh or pickle it. The key to eating for your penis is eating for your circulation. The penis is all about bloodflow, and what science has taught us is that the key to bloodflow is an amazing molecule called nitric oxide. The chemical formula is NO (nitrogen and oxygen), which is easy to remember. This amazing molecule not only makes your penis arteries open like garden hoses, it actually nourishes and strengthens them. NO is made by healthy foods, and it’s actually destroyed by unhealthy foods. Every time you choose to eat something, just say NO! Ask yourself—is this food boosting my NO or is it blocking my NO?
So how do you know what to eat? There are so many diets and so many experts to take advice from (including me, but I really am an expert!).
Fortunately, eating well is not complicated. All the good NO-boosting food has been grouped together in one special place in the grocery store where it’s easy to find. It’s called the produce section. Vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and whole grains are all NO boosters. Some boost NO more than others. Some are better raw, others better cooked.
Now, I could tell you, eat such-and-such vegetable and such-and-such fruit prepared in such-and-such a way, like so many cookbooks and blogs circulating around out there, but that’s not really necessary. You can keep it simple. Eat a lot of different kinds of produce. Eat green—especially leafy greens—eat red, eat orange, eat purple. Mix it up and make a meal of it.
Each unique vegetable, fruit, bean, nut, or grain has its own special blend of molecules or phytonutrients that do good things to your body. They go by the names of polyphenols and flavonoids, and there are literally thousands of them. They usually work best when they are kept in their natural state, as they occur in a whole fruit, vegetable, nut, or grain.
When you go to the grocery store, just head for the produce section. Avoid the boxes and cans and wrappers. And when you are in the produce section, imagine you are standing in front of a big medicine cabinet—only this medicine doesn’t have side effects, and you can’t overdose.
It’s also important to chew your food. In this fast-paced world, smoothies and juices get you out the door, but you actually need to slow down and chew, just like your mom told you to. It turns out there are bacteria hiding out in the crevices on the back of your tongue that must react with your saliva in order for you to absorb the NO you need. And chewing makes you salivate.1 Blending also breaks down the fibers in fruits making it easier for you to absorb more sugar than you would if you just ate them.2
There is mounting evidence that populations that eat a lot of animal products have higher rates of blood vessel disease. It’s not just the fat, and it’s not just red meat. Any animal protein, including eggs and milk, can have this effect.3 Other diseases and cancers seem to crop up with high animal product consumption, including prostate cancer.4
Cutting out the prostate often hurts Mr. Happy, so block that surgeon’s knife with your fork.
There are some great resources out there on the reasoning behind moving to a plant-based diet, including The China Study5 and In Defense of Food.6 And cutting out the meat doesn’t have to mean cutting out the taste: There are plenty of tasty ways to incorporate more natural foods into your diet.7
And keep in mind, if going vegan or vegetarian isn’t your thing, you can still reap the benefits of a mostly plant-based diet by significantly cutting down on your meat intake and focusing on those friends we found earlier in the produce aisle.
What about the Mediterranean diet? The secret is not the olive oil. That’s because no oils have really been proven to be healthy. Whether you consume olive oil or soybean oil or palm oil, within a few minutes your NO production plummets and your bloodflow slows down. This effect lasts up to a few hours, just in time for your next meal…and then your next meal…and so on.8
The key to the Mediterranean diet is really all the fresh produce that goes along with it. In fact, it turns out that vegetables have a protective effect against the harmful effects of fats or excess animal proteins when you eat them together. They act like a shield, blocking the harmful effects and keeping the NO levels up and the circulation humming along. If you don’t want to be a vegan, at least eat as many vegetables as a vegan.9
Sugar and spice and everything nice is not what little boys are made of, and that’s because sugar is the enemy of the penis. I’m not talking about a little whipped cream on top or edible underwear; I’m talking about all the sugars and simple starches hidden and not so hidden in most of our foods. They cause a surge of toxins in your bloodstream that suppress your NO and injure your blood vessels. They also jack up your insulin, which then stores the sugar away as fat. The fat then releases toxins into the blood that also knock out NO and damage and narrow the blood vessels. Eventually, you may run out of insulin and become diabetic, making your blood vessels even worse and making your lollipop flop.10
Fruits and vegetables do have sugar and starch in them as well. But the fiber keeps these naturally occurring sugars and starches bound up and harder to absorb when you eat them. And that’s not even counting all the good, healthy effects the other phytonutrients in the fruits and vegetables are giving you at the same time.
There’s no end to the list of additives food scientists have concocted to flavor, color, texturize, and preserve the food we eat. One in particular deserves special mention: phosphates. Phosphates are found in dark colas and throughout a wide variety of packaged and processed foods. Elevated levels of phosphates cause the smooth muscles in your arteries to change into bone cells, becoming calcified and hardening, leading to erectile dysfunction and eventually cardiovascular disease.11
Phosphates are everywhere, and they don’t always get listed on the label. They are in popular breakfast cereals, and they are in processed meats. They are in coffee creamers, and they are in flavored waters. They go by many names, such as phosphoric acid, disodium phosphate, and tricalcium phosphate. But usually, hidden somewhere in there is the root word phosphate.12
Phosphates occur naturally in plants but at much lower levels and packaged in a complex way so that they do not affect your circulation in the same devastating manner. Rule of thumb: If it’s in a wrapper, box, or can, think twice about putting it in your mouth.13
Don’t despair! It’s not all kale and Brussels sprouts. You can do well with some guilty pleasures that aren’t so guilty after all. Chocolate and wine, for example, are actually chock-full of good flavonoids. They boost NO and a whole lot more that we are still discovering: A recent study revealed that chocoholics reduced their risk of heart disease by a whopping one-third, as compared to those who only ate chocolate now and then.14 The cocoa is the key, not the sugar or the milk. In fact, a study found that milk chocolate or milk drunk with dark chocolate decreases the levels of flavenoids and antioxidants that the dark chocolate alone can boost.15
Red wine appears to promote the health of the blood vessels as well.16, 17 This is likely another key to the benefits of the Mediterranean diet. The fermentation of the grapes brings out lots of great flavonoids that boost NO. The alcohol is not really the secret sauce.
Of course, everything in moderation, because if you imbibe too much alcohol you will end up with “whiskey dick,” and the only hard thing you will be holding is your liquor.
There is no substitute for fresh, whole, plant-based foods to boost your NO for maximum penis health. Nonetheless, we are a pill-popping culture, and there’s no shortage of supplements that claim to jump-start your johnson.
There is very little science behind the vast majority of these products, but a few have been studied. As with food, go for the supplements that boost NO. (Chapter 5 breaks the more popular supplements down by possible, if not proven, effects.)
Figure 1 Eat lots of different colors, shapes, and sizes of food.
Maximum penis health means maximum penis fitness. Your heart pumps blood to your penis. They are in this game together, so train hard to play hard. A strong heart and clean blood vessels will keep you properly pumped for years to come.
Get off the couch if you want to have more fun in the bedroom. Inactivity actually increases your risk of becoming impotent by 10 times.18 Being sedentary also causes you to accumulate toxins in your blood that destroy NO.19 Furthermore, it leads to obesity, and the fat cells also create toxins that sap NO and cause your bloodflow to deteriorate.20, 21 Exercise and weight loss go hand in hand if you eat right (see Step 1). Exercise clears your blood of inflammation and toxins and it stimulates your tissues to release more NO, which increases bloodflow to the penis.22
Regular exercise has been proven to prevent and reverse erection problems. The more you put in, the more you get out (and then get to put in). Studies show that moonlit walks are nice, but actual vigorous exercise at least a few days a week are even better for erections.23 Is it possible to exercise too much? Maybe. Extreme endurance athletes may push their bodies so hard that they actually cause inflammation, and the extreme physical stress may lower their testosterone.24
Sometimes exercise actually hurts Mr. Happy. It’s uncommon, but for some men, bicycle riding can take them out of the saddle. A small percentage of guys just aren’t built right for standard bicycle seats, and when they sit on one, the nerves—and, in some cases, the blood vessels to the penis—get squished. You may have noticed after a long ride that your nub is getting a bit numb. Usually it’s a temporary annoyance, and a change in bicycle seats to a split saddle with extra padding does the trick. But for avid cyclers, it can be more than that. About 1 in 4 competitive cyclists actually develops a problem with erections.25 So if you experience repeated numbness or problems with your erection, don’t try to put a positive spin on it. Shift gears and switch to a recumbent bike or another workout that takes the pressure off.
And now: Sexercise for real. There is an actual exercise that can pump up your pumper. Although the penis is not a muscle, it is surrounded by muscles in your pelvis. They have awesome names like bulbospongiosus and ischiocavernosus (much cooler than abs or quads, don’t you think?). These muscles squeeze the base of the penis, which reinforces the erection by preventing venous leakage and increasing the pressure inside the pumped-up penis chanbers. It’s that squeeze that makes it throb. This boosts your pud to stud-level hardness. These muscles contract as a reflex during sex, but you can also work them out with specific squeeze maneuvers called Kegel exercises. The squeeze is simply the movement you make when you are trying to stop yourself from having a bowel movement or from peeing. It’s not squeezing your butt or crunching your stomach. If you stand in front of a mirror when you do it, you should see your penis pull in and lift slightly at the base. Or if you do it with an erection, it should rise up to salute you with each squeeze. Studies have shown that some men get the same benefit from 3 months of Kegel exercises that they do with Viagra.26
The great thing about Kegel exercises is you don’t need a gym. It’s true that you can see a pelvic physical therapist for some personal training to get even better results, but you can also do these exercises anytime, anyplace, and no one will know.
The basic workout is squeezing for 10 seconds, releasing for 5 to 10 seconds, and then repeating. Try for 5 to 10 reps, three to five times a day. You can do short bursts of squeezes and long, sustained holds. Perform these exercises first standing, then sitting, then lying on your back, then on all fours. Mix it up and have fun with it. Own your pelvis!
Besides developing a “boner of steel,” the other benefits of doing Kegel exercises can be having greater control during sex, lasting longer, and possibly experiencing a more intense orgasm or ejaculation. This may be a fix for premature ejaculation because, as you get more familiar with the sensations of those muscles squeezing when you are not ejaculating, you can deliberately relax them before you cross the point of no return or, alternatively, you can deliberately squeeze them hard before the reflex hits—sort of like distracting yourself from something that hurts one place by pinching yourself in another.27
Figure 2 Pelvic muscles
Smartphones and the streaming Internet put the world in the palm of your hand. And 1 in 4 online searches is for porn, which can lead to your dick in the palm of your other hand. There have been more than 150 billion downloads of pornography worldwide, with an average of more than 350 per smartphone.28 We are adrift in a digital sea of sex, but like the real ocean, it’s a case of water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Instead of turning you on, all this porn is slowly tuning you out. Your brain on porn is like your brain on drugs. Studies show that the prefrontal cortex, the same center of the brain that causes addicts to seek drugs, can cause you to seek porn.29 What’s the big deal? The problem is burnout. And I don’t mean carpet burns—I mean burnout of your sexual drive and, ultimately, your best buddy.
There is a brain center that drives the desire to see something new or different when watching porn. It’s called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. If you watch a lot of porn, this part of the brain pushes you to stream more—and different—stuff. All the while that brain center becomes less sensitive, and to satisfy it, you have to keep ratcheting up the hardness of the hard core.30 After a while, you can’t buy a thrill. Real partners don’t come close, and even hard core leaves you soft. In some cases, you’ll find yourself clicking on content that you actually find disgusting, but at least it’s something new. The part of your brain that is responsible for romantic love, known as the right caudate of the striatum, nestled underneath the thinking cerebral cortex, actually shrinks over time with high-volume porn exposure.31 And even if you aren’t a romantic, you still suffer. The putamen, another deeper brain structure that sends the signals to actually make you hard, powers down with more and more porn.32
Since the advent of Internet streaming “porn tube” sites, there has been an epidemic of impotence in young, healthy guys—even teenagers! Desire for sex has plummeted, and more and more guys are left high and dry—unable to reach a climax or ejaculate. As of 2014, over half of college-aged men reported being exposed to Internet porn prior to age 13, which was over triple the amount just 6 years earlier.33 By now, more than half of boys are exposed to porn by age 12.34 One-third of men under 40 now have ED and low sexual desire, compared to 2 percent prior to the streaming porn spike.35 Don’t it make your brown balls blue? In the age of streaming porn, 25 percent of young guys ages 16 to 21 have erectile dysfunction and low desire, and more than 10 percent have trouble ejaculating. These troubles are directly correlated with how much porn they are watching.36, 37 The younger a kid is when he sees porn, the greater the chance he won’t enjoy sex when he gets older.
The problem isn’t just with the young and the restless, though. Married guys looking to spice it up find that the more they log on, the less their log goes in. Surveys of married couples revealed a sharp drop in sexual satisfaction and marital bliss when husbands had a lot of lusty links on their Internet histories.38, 39
Another problem with porn is the unrealistic standards it sets for your own penis. The typical porn star is by no means typical. The average porn penis starts at a couple inches bigger than the average penis, which stands about 5½ inches tall. Also, the supersex scenes are about five times longer than the average 5 to 7 minutes in heaven most couples enjoy. (Not to mention they typically take about 4 hours to shoot!) About a third of regular porn watchers with normal penises believe theirs is too small and sell themselves short.40 Almost half of guys who want penis enlargement surgery do so because porn made them feel small.
So guys, and you know who you are, give yourself some credit. You are perfectly normal; porn is not.41
If you want maximum penis health, you need to minimize the porn. Your biggest sex organ is your brain. And more than thoughts are bouncing around in there. Actual on/off signals to the penis start there, and they can be physically short-circuited.
The good news is, even if you have gone to the dark side and you are having trouble with your light saber, the Force can once again be with you. Your brain is amazingly resilient, and if you give it some time, it will bounce back. If you are suffering from the effects of porn, the best thing to do is quit cold turkey. The worst that will happen is you will just get bored, but then eventually you will get the thrill back. There is case after case of pornaholics whose relationships were in the toilet, along with a lot of tissues and hand lotion, who got that loving feeling back after a few weeks to months of keepin’ it real.42 Cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as couples therapy, has also been shown to be effective.
When you are young and seemingly indestructible, it feels like there’s nothing you can’t do, and your penis is there by your side—er, front—ready for anything. But that doesn’t last very long if you are like most mere mortals. Sooner rather than later, poor lifestyle choices or increasing illnesses and mounting prescriptions take their toll. I don’t have to tell you that your penis is like a dipstick, but it really is like a dipstick in that it can tell you when you are running clean or when you’re getting sludgy, and it’s time for a change.
One of the worst poisons for your penis is a cigarette. Long depicted as sexy, the cigarette has finally been revealed for the poison stick it truly is. The toxins in the smoke don’t just choke your lungs, they get into your bloodstream and damage your blood vessels. These free radicals not only directly attack the walls of the blood vessels, they shut down your precious NO. Cigarettes cause your arteries to harden and form plaques and even your blood to clot. The more you smoke, the less you will poke. Throw in some high blood pressure or some diabetes, and you might as well just cut it off now. Oh, and choose your friends wisely, because secondhand smoke chokes your chicken too.43, 44
The ravages of cigarette smoking can be reversed, but slowly and only to a degree. You can see improvement in as few as 8 weeks, but even if you quit your overall risk of having ED is higher, so it’s best to not even get started.45 The US Department of Health and Human Services46 and the National Cancer Institute47 have some great resources to get you started down the road to freeing your willy from that smoking addiction.
Excess alcohol is a downer, too. A glass of wine can relax you and get your juices flowing, but turn that bottle’s bottom up, and you may have to turn down another bottom later on. Alcohol is a depressant. As your blood alcohol levels rise, your sexual arousal actually drops, and you may even find it harder to climax. Too much, too often catches up with you. Aside from the morning-after regret of beer goggles or the heartbreak of whiskey dick, if you really overdo it you can damage your liver, which boosts your body’s estrogen levels. This shuts down your testosterone and kills all that courage you thought was in the bottle.
Alcohol is also a nerve toxin, and too much can destroy the nerves that stimulate your penis. As if that weren’t enough, excess alcohol also knocks out the NO in your blood vessels, directly hurting the blood-flow to your penis.48 Half of all alcoholics suffer from erectile dysfunction.49 It may sound like a cliché, but if you’re having trouble letting the bottle go, programs like Alcoholics Anonymous can get you back to sober and sexy.
Marijuana use is a tricky subject. The science is limited, and the studies aren’t nearly as clear-cut as with cigarettes and alcohol. Some studies conclude that chronic users get blunted by all that blunt,50 but others are not convincing. There are sex centers in the brain that may be switched on by marijuana, but others are switched off. Experiments indicate that marijuana slows the flow of blood to the penis. Some studies show stoners’ testosterone can get smoked, while other studies fail to find a smoking gun.51
For other drugs, though, the connection is a lot clearer. Opioid pain pill abuse is at epidemic proportions. So is heroin use. These are all narcotics, and if you are a junkie, your junk will suffer. All narcotics—pills, shots, patches—if taken long enough eventually shut down your testosterone, killing your desire, your erections, and your ability to reach that ultimate high—a climax.52 Cocaine, amphetamines, and ecstasy, often used to enhance sex, eventually result in higher rates of erectile dysfunction, lower levels of pleasure, and difficulty reaching climax.
Quitting the drugs can restore sexual health, but not always back to its previous level. Up to 25 percent of long-term users may suffer sexual side effects even after a year on the wagon.53
Some drugs you have to take. But medications that may help you live may also make you die in bed. Up to 25 percent of drugs don’t get along with your penis. The most common culprits are blood pressure medications. Since they lower the pressure, less blood is getting pumped to those faraway places like your penis. Some of these medications also interfere with the brain centers and nerves that switch on bloodflow to your penis. Others interfere with testosterone production. Antidepressants can make you happy but leave Mr. Happy sad. Propecia keeps your hair full, but it may thin out your penis. Meds for serious illnesses, including HIV and hepatitis, lower testosterone—but, of course, the trade-off is necessary.
The best way to avoid the sexual side effects of prescription drugs is to avoid getting sick enough to need them with good diet and lifestyle choices. But sometimes you can’t avoid taking meds, and fortunately, in most cases, there is a workaround with medications like Viagra and with testosterone replacement if needed.54
This step is so easy you can do it in your sleep—because it is sleep. Sleep causes your testosterone to surge, and it promotes healthy nerves and circulation to your penis. Lack of sleep leads to problems with sex drive, erections, and even orgasm.
And sex isn’t the only thing that suffers. Sleep is critical for your health in many ways we are only beginning to understand.
But getting a good night’s sleep may not be so easy after all. We live in a 24-hour society. From headlines to deadlines to 24/7 stores, the constant demands for your attention, your productivity, and your money squeeze more and more hours out of you each day and each night. You may think of sleep as a luxury, but it’s really a necessity, especially for maximum penis health. While you sleep, your body surges with testosterone, the male master hormone that stimulates your brain to want sex and ensures your penis is ready for it. As you begin to dream, the brain sends a signal to your testicles to ramp up the testosterone production. If you don’t get enough sleep, you may not make enough testosterone.
| AGE | HOURS NEEDED | MAY BE APPROPRIATE |
| Newborn to 3 months old | 14–17 hrs | 11–19 hrs |
| 4 to 11 months old | 12–15 hrs | 10–18 hrs |
| 1 to 2 years old | 11–14 hrs | 9–16 hrs |
| 3 to 5 years old | 10–13 hrs | 8–14 hrs |
| 6 to 13 years old | 9–11 hrs | 7–12 hrs |
| 14 to 17 years old | 8–10 hrs | 7–11 hrs |
| Young adults (18 to 25 years old) | 7–9 hrs | 6–11 hrs |
| Adults (26 to 64 years old) | 7–9 hrs | 6–10 hrs |
| Older adults (65+) | 7–8 hrs | 5–9 hrs |
After even just a few nights of sleeping 5 hours or less, testosterone can drop significantly. The impact on T is equivalent to aging about 10 or 15 years.55 At least 15 percent of the American workforce gets under 5 hours of sleep a night. Up to a third of night shift workers just can’t get to sleep properly, and a significant percentage of them may lie awake while Mr. Happy refuses to get up.56
Lack of sleep can also lead to depression, which kills your libido and your erections—as can the medications required to treat depression. It’s a vicious circle.
Sleep isn’t just important for Mr. Happy, though. It’s important for Mrs. Happy too. Better sleep improves sexual interest, arousal, and lubrication in women.57
The crazy and potentially dangerous thing is that if a guy is sleep deprived for just one night, he may incorrectly perceive a woman to have more sexual interest and willingness to have sex than she actually has. The lack of sleep fogs his judgment the same way alcohol does.58 Think sleep goggles.
Millions of men have sleep apnea, a condition of snoring that is so severe, it actually chokes off their oxygen several times a night, interrupting their sleep. Having sleep apnea is like getting strangled in your sleep several times a night, every night, but not knowing it. Sleep apnea can ruin your sex life.59 Not only does the sleep interruption lower your testosterone, but the lack of oxygen shuts down NO and can damage your blood vessels and nerves, hurting the penis itself.60, 61 Even though you sleep through it, your body is under extreme stress, releasing adrenaline, which is the very signal that shuts down erections when you’re awake and anxious.
Sleep apnea can also increase your risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.62 If you snore a lot—and especially if you feel tired during the day—consider getting evaluated by a sleep specialist who can test you for sleep apnea. If you have it, you can be treated successfully, often with a device called a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine with a mask you wear when sleeping to increase the flow of air into your lungs. Or sometimes weight loss alone can do the trick. One thing’s for sure, though: Guys with ED who treat their sleep apnea definitely have more fun in bed when they aren’t sleeping.63
Maximum penis health requires a minimum of 7 to 9 hours of sleep for most guys, even more if you are a teenager. You can’t make it up on the weekends, either; your body doesn’t work that way. Power naps are great the day after a long night, but they don’t allow the same production of testosterone your penis relies on. If you’re not getting the Zs you should, try the following tips from sleep.org.
•Avoid bright lights and screens beginning about an hour before bed.
•Keep your bedroom as dark as possible.
•Get back on schedule by going to sleep a few minutes earlier every night until you’re back to your regular bedtime.
•Try taking melatonin, which can also help you doze off at the right time.
•Avoid eating, drinking, and exercising right before you hit the hay.64
So now that you have the long and the short of it, what are you waiting for? Get your penis on this plan to get it pumped up in no time. And remember, you don’t have to hit all five steps at once. If the thought of all that work is making your willy wither, try implementing one step per week or even one step per month.
| Step 1 | Go fork yourself. | Eat foods rich in nitric oxide, aka produce. |
| Step 2 | Sexercise. | Do some vigorous exercise two or three times per week, plus Kegel exercises three to five times per day. |
| Step 3 | Go offline. | Turn down your exposure to porn—go cold turkey if you can. |
| Step 4 | Detox. | Cut back on addictive substances such as cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. |
| Step 5 | Snooze or lose. | Improve the quality and length of your sleep, aiming for 7 to 9 hours per night. |