Finding the perfect recipe for a good night’s sleep can feel pretty complicated. Experts have recommended everything from keeping your bedroom cool at night, to sticking with consistent sleep and wake times, to avoiding screens for hours before bed. But you can now add a much simpler sleep-enhancing hack to the list: Have sex.
That’s the major takeaway from a new study published in the journal . This is a pilot study, so the findings are preliminary, but they raise a lot of questions about how sexual activity may help us sleep better and whether you should consider this move for yourself. Here’s what the study found, plus what doctors want you to keep in mind.
Meet the experts: W. Christopher Winter, MD, a neurologist and sleep medicine physician with Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and host of the podcast; Jessica O’Reilly, PhD, relationship expert and Astroglide’s sexologist; Jennifer Wider, MD.
What Did The Pilot Study Find?
For the study, researchers recruited seven heterosexual couples who were healthy, sexually active and living together in Australia. The participants, who were in their mid-20s, all reported that they had sex at least twice a week.
The researchers monitored the participants over 11 nights, and asked them to do three different things: Have no sexual activity, engage in solo sex that ended in an orgasm, and have partnered sex that ended in an orgasm. To measure their sleep, the participants wore a wireless headband to track their brain activity, movement and breathing overnight. They also filled out diaries every morning to track their sexual activity, sleep quality, mood and feelings of readiness for the day ahead.
The researchers discovered all kinds of interesting things. On nights when the participants had sex, they went to bed later than on nights with no sex. But they also spent about seven minutes less being awake during the night after they conked out, and spent a larger amount of their time in bed actually sleeping (basically, they had good sleep efficiency). In general, sleep efficiency was 93.2 percent after masturbation and 93.4 percent after partnered sex, while it was 91.5 percent on nights when people didn’t have sex.
Worth noting: The participants didn’t notice any big differences in how well they thought they slept – this is just what the sleep tracking data found. That said, the participants reported feeling more motivated and ready for their day the morning after having partnered sex than when they abstained.
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Why Might Sexual Activity Help Us Sleep Better?
It’s important to point out that this isn’t the first study to link sex before bed to better sleep. A study published in the had people keep a diary for 14 days and found that those who had partnered sex that ended in orgasm fell asleep faster and reported having better sleep quality than those who didn’t have sex before bed. But the latest study actually showed that there were improvements in sleep quality.
There are probably a few things going on to result in this positive sleep effect, according to W. Christopher Winter. “The first is probably related to the chemical changes brought about by orgasm,” he says. “The hormone oxytocin – which is released after you have an orgasm – acts as a natural sedative,” he says.
In addition to oxytocin, the hormone prolactin is released after orgasm, leading to a relaxed feeling, says women’s health expert Jennifer Wider, MD. All of those factors combined “can definitely enhance sleepiness,” she says.
From a more holistic view, sex is usually a stress-relieving activity, so it may be that people felt more ready to fall asleep afterwards, Dr. Winter says. And it may also just quiet down your mind, says Jessica O’Reilly. “Post-orgasm, decreased activity in brain regions like the amygdala and cingulate cortex reduces arousal and emotional stimulation,” she says. That can also make it easier to fall asleep, she points out.
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What Else Can Sex Do For Our Brains?
A lot, actually. “During arousal and orgasm, you may experience elevated levels of dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins, which can elevate mood, reduce stress and assuage anxiety,” O’Reilly says. “Natural opioids released during sex can also make you more resilient to pain, like headaches and cramps.”
Ultimately, if you have the option to have sex or not and you want to ensure you’ll get a good night’s sleep, it may be best to get down with a partner before bed.
“Sex in general contributes to positive emotional feelings and contentment, which is where you want to be in the moment before sleep,” Dr. Winter says. “Feeling that sense of being connected is a great way to head to sleep.”
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