Think of your circulatory system like the plumbing in your house. When it was first installed, water ran freely through clean, flexible pipes. Over time minerals collect, the pipes stiffen, and the flow is never quite what it was.
Your blood vessels age much the same way. From your forties onward the elasticity of the arteries progressively decreases, and the endothelial lining produces less nitric oxide than it once did. Nitric oxide is what relaxes and opens your blood vessels, so as it falls away, blood flow falls with it.
Circulation is a whole-body system, so changes tend to show up in how you feel across the day rather than in any one place.
The major thing that separates the men who act from the men who don't, is that circulation seldom announces itself. It is rarely a single moment. Instead, the change shows up in stages:
- Things take longer to respond than they used to
- Physical readiness becomes less predictable
- Recovery between activities stretches out
- Energy that fades earlier and earlier in the day
"Circulation change is usually the very first thing a man notices, and the last thing he talks about."
Vascular change takes place across the entire lifespan of every man; it is not an isolated event tied to your particular age, and it is not a verdict on you. The first part of taking steps to support your circulation is simply to name and describe what is happening inside your body. Circulation is one strand of a larger picture, and it runs alongside testosterone support and stress support.