Couples sleep better if they have sex first — but going solo doesn’t have the same benefits
COUPLES sleep better if they have sex first, a study found — but climaxing alone did not have the same benefits.
Researchers found people nod off faster and got more quality kip if they orgasm with a partner.
Getting tired out by the exertion and a huge surge in sleep-promoting hormones all play a part.
But solo acts and sex without orgasm did not have the same benefits.
Study author Carlotta Oesterling had 159 people fill out questionnaires and two-week diaries about their love lives and sleep habits.
The results showed that if they made love first, the average time taken to drop off fell from 21 minutes to 16 minutes.
Sex also saw a rise of about 50 per cent in how people rated that sleep’s quality.
PhD student Ms Oesterling, of the University of Groningen, Netherlands, said: “Orgasm is established to release oxytocin and prolactin — hormones that both influence sleep.”
She added, in the Journal of Sleep Research: “The psychological effects of relationship satisfaction, loving and feeling loved, as well as having a sense of security, have also been shown to impact sleep.”
But the researchers found that women climaxed less often — leading to the “widely held notion that men fall asleep faster”.